George Town Arrival

Yesterday afternoon we arrived in George Town, Exuma Islands, after a seven hour passage from Black Point Harbour.  Atlantic ocean storms to the north of us, while delivering snow and heavy weather in the UK and USA, are sending large long period swells down to this part of the world.  Moving on or off the shallow Bahamas banks requires a little care and planning, selecting a reef pass that is preferably wide and deep. The Admiral snapped this swell as we moved through the Conch Cay Cut into Exuma Harbour yesterday.

Beautiful Bahamas Cruising

The locals call these Nurse Sharks, but to us they look a little like the Australian Wobbegongs, or maybe Lemon Sharks.... either way, they are an unusual welcoming committee. Coming ashore in the Exumas Islands these guys are a common sight, along with giant rays, turtles and numerous reef fishes. The further south we travel, the more interesting this area becomes...

Warderick Wells Mooring Field

Of course it's also beautiful, when the weather is cooperating. We're still working with weather systems that are occasionally dominated by the lows and cold fronts that come down off the US east coast, but at least the average temperatures are now above 25degC. in the daytime. Warderick Wells, inside the Exumas Land & Sea Park, is a popular cruising hangout, and the walks ashore reveal a distinct (if limited) range of wildlife. Lizards and birds dominate, though if you stay on the beach after dark you'll be sure to see the native rodent, the Bahamian Hutia, once considered extinct but now resurgent in the park.This is the first place we've been where native palms dominate - sure enough, we found the park service had worked very hard to eliminate the invasive Australian Casuarina, or the She Oak as we call it back home in Australia. The locals here really don't like these Aussie invaders.

VonYachtSki Moored At Warderick Wells

Our friends Harry & Liz aboard the Canadian yacht VonYachtSki enjoyed the park with us, and we eventually sailed further south to Staniel Cay in company. Next we're heading for the big smoke - Georgetown on Great Exuma Island. We should be there before the end of the week. For our favourite images of Warderick Wells and the Bahamian wildlife click the link below.

 

It's Florida, It Must Be Warm ....

The Intra-Coastal Waterway At Titusville

Bascule Bridges Open At Port Canaveral

Chasing the sun, chasing the sun, still chasing the sun...

Rather than face the shallow depths and low bridges of the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW), we went to sea again at St. Augustine and struck south for Port Canaveral, seeking warmer weather again. This time we succeeded.

 After an easy overnight passage we entered though an opening (bascule) bridge and the Port Canaveral Lock, to find ourselves back on the ICW. Great, now we have never more than 1.5 meters under the keel, usually less than 1 meter, for hours on end. We eased through the Canaveral Barge Canal heading due west, with a 1/2 meter under us crossing the Banana River, then turned north on the true ICW.  We waited at the NASA causeway bridge for over an hour to respect the peak hour traffic and then moved the final 5 nautical miles north to Titusville, home to various odd sun worshipers, retirees, cruising sailors and astronauts.

Admiral Ley Enjoyed The Birdlife In The Waterways

Just off Titusville we anchored with half a meter under the keel, just off the ICW channel. Really not a lot of water to play with here, for a boat with a 2.1 meter draft, though the tidal rise and fall is only 10cm on each cycle. Finally it was warmer - we no longer needed four layers of clothing, just two would suffice.  We enjoyed breakfast in the cockpit, for the first time in months.  The birdlife was fantastic. Life was returning to normal.

This afternoon, just two nights later, we came out to sea again by the same route, and we're headed further south for West Palm Beach (Lake Worth Inlet), about 100 nautical miles south.

Beautiful Weather, Beautiful Birds

Land Cruising, Chevrolet Truck Style

For us Aussies, cruising in the USA is all about the timing - timing to avoid tropical storms and timing to work within the limited 6 month visa that most of us have.  In our case, our visa "window" started when we arrived in Puerto Rico back in May, so we have to leave the country before November. The result is that Crystal Blues is resting securely on her own in Reedville, Virginia, while we have headed off on a cross country land cruise with a flight back to Australia thrown in for good measure - there is no rest for the wicked. We'll be camping in the back of the truck for the next 10 days, have tent, air mattress, camp stove and pepper spray for the bears. What could possibly go wrong!

We drove out of the northern neck of Virginia just three weeks ago, heading west into the Blue Ridge Mountains. By nightfall that first day we had gained a lot of altitude and adopted a new weather paradigm - fog, cold and torrential rain. We woke next morning to a flooded tent, with our air bed almost floating inside the tent. Ok, so we were still learning how to setup the camping rig.

After drying out (we found a coin laundry at the next town) we traveled about 450 miles southward on the Blue Ridge Parkway over 5 days, reaching the Smokey Mountains, camping each night in Park Service camp sites, mesmerised by the staggering colors of fall in this part of the world. Then, crossing into the Carolinas, we climbed and climbed to the highest point in the eastern USA, before entering western Georgia as we continued south through spectacular country.

Heat, Biting Flies, No Wind ..... We're Lovin' It!

The Admiral Escaping The Flies & Heat

Welcome to Chesapeake Bay in the summer time. Heat, biting flies, no wind. But there are no lobster traps and very few rocky reefs, much to our delight. We had traveled overnight from New York down the coast, then up the Delaware River and through the C&D Canal, to enter the Chesapeake and pause for two nights in Annapolis..

Go Aussie !

A local told me that there are at least two rocks in Chesapeake Bay, but everyone has forgotten just exactly where they are. The bay is over 150 nautical miles long from north to south, and little more than 20nm at it's widest. A haven for yachting and boating in general, it is typically quite shallow with a deep water channel running up the middle of the estuary.

The world 505 sailing championships are running here at the moment. This morning, before we departed Annapolis, we had breakfast in the cockpit watching all 90 of these compact but high performance racing yachts breeze past us. The crews were from the USA, Canada, France, Great Britain, Poland and Australia, among many other nations.

Day Tripper Eats Insects, Then Departs.

As the Aussie boats sailed past we gave them a big welcome cheer, waving our large jar of Vegemite. What would the neighbours think?

After breakfast we headed south, working our way through the racing fleet and then motoring all day - no wind, but plenty of biting flies to kill. The deck is patched red with blood splotches. Just days back, cruising from Greenport to Port Jefferson, we had a beautiful Golden Finch on board. It stayed with us all day, ranging around the boat and carefully devouring every single insect on the boat. We really needed that bird with us today...

As I write we're approaching the mouth of the Patuxent River, where we'll spend the night anchored in Solomons harbor, just across the river from the Naval Air Station (remember Tom Cruise in Top Gun ? That's the place). The naval aviators aren't flying today, no super loud noises as we approach, so we'll look for them in the local bar when we arrive.

505 Sailboats Ready To Race In Annapolis

Dodging Hurricane Jose, Ducking Under Bridges

At The NYAC Yacht Club - What Hurricane ? Who Is This Jose ?

Hurricane Jose wimped out on Long Island Sound, very fortunately for us. Planning for the worst, we headed for Pelham in New York. With the help of OCC Port Officer Thomas Delaney, we arranged a berth on the pontoons in the pond at the New York Athletic Club Yacht Club. There, in the best hurricane hole north of New York City, we rode out the barely 15 knot winds that Jose finally rent down upon us. It was a fortunate anti-climax.

Determined to head south quickly, chasing warmth and sunshine, we planned a passage off-shore from New York to the Delaware River, just as soon as Hurricane Jose had passed by. To access the ocean we needed to travel down the East River of Manhattan, only then we discovered it was closed for security reasons during the United Nations General Assembly session last week. What next ?

Crystal Blues USA Land Cruise - Where Should We Go ?

Sitting in the unusually chilly waters of New England, we've started to dream about another type of voyage. This time, we plan an anti-clockwise circuit around the central USA, by car, taking in the north, the midwest and the south - the American heartlands.

So now it's your turn, please - tell us your favourite places to visit in the US, your favourite restaurants, bars and music clubs. Plus the cities and national parks that you love.

We're building a custom Google map to guide us on our travels, and we'll add selected locations to build a route for our land cruise. Note - we'll be starting and ending the cruise in Virginia, not far from Washington DC. Our timeline will start in early September and run through until early November.

Please comment below or email us with your ideas!

Fishy Business Again

On April 15th we departed Martinique, turning north again to cover more miles in our quest. We aimed for St. Martin, a smallish island with a large pond in the middle, all bisected by an international border - it's half French and half Dutch. The passage took us two days and 20 hours, covering around 280 nautical miles, a sedate pace that included typically uncomfortable sections, specially in the passes between the islands where the currents run strong.

However in one of those island passes Ley hooked another big Mahi Mahi, a fish that managed to slow the boat down from our 6 to 7 knot classic fishing speed. Kind of daunting really .... it went slanting off sideways on the line, tacking against the movement of the boat and then tacking back across the stern. I woke Ley as I retrieved our second unladen line, clearing the way for this big one to be retrieved.

It took another 10 minutes before we had it at the stern, and then another 5 minutes to get it on deck, at which time we shared some of our best white rum with the fish, but got no thanks, just a lot of angst.

So more rum, several times over, eventually did the trick and the magnificent fish did its magical (and somehow sad) color change, as the life force departed.

We cut two huge fillets off the fish and blessed the sea with the rest, chilling the fillets down before skinning them, so that no scaling was required. The admiral tells me we'll get 10 meals off the catch, that is great fishing.

Next morning we approached the coast of St. Martin, the western French side, in kind of sloppy conditions with a big east north east breeze blowing. We anchored off shore in calm conditions, but within 24 hours there were ocean swells running through the anchorage, heaving Crystal Blues sideways 5 meters at a time, and truly straining our friendship with St. Martin.  We could of course have moved into the lagoon, through a drawbridge that opened three times a day, and had uncertain water depths  ... instead we moved north, further into the lee of a natural point of land. There we enjoyed calm conditions and used our dinghy to explore into the lagoon - much better to run the surf into the lagoon in a small boat!

Once inside we found, on the French side, a cruisers paradise - flat water, relaxed officialdom and all the creature comforts of France, delivered in a laid back Rasta kinda way.  Cross the lagoon to Holland and things became decidedly more precise and up-market, driven by the amazing number of super yachts that were berthed there. On the down side, most of them were power boats, however it was a splendid sight. St Martin seemed like a great place to do boat work, and have a damn good time despite that. We provisioned quickly, on the Dutch side, and prepared for our next passage, just eighty nautical miles to the British Virgin Islands.

Escaping The Crowds In Martinique

Two days after our arrival the small town feel of Fort De France was completely over taken by the arrival of the cruise ship Disney Magic. She berthed with her stern no more than 200 meters from our anchor position, so we were able to watch the inevitable invasion of very white skinned tourists as they marched down the dock in their thousands, each group following a host carrying a large placard above their head, off into the wilds of French Martinique. There goes the neighbourhood ...

The Porcelain Rose

With the old town now humming to the cries of children heading for McDonalds and the buzz of electric powered chairs carrying (surprisingly young looking) tourists around the streets, we rented a car and headed for the hills.

In the mountains just north of the city we visited Jardin de Belata, a private botanical garden with exotic plants from around the world, a treetop walkway & mountain views. The Porcelain Rose Etlingera Elatior was everywhere, along with fields of cactus, massive palm groves, Japanese gardens and even a Bamboo garden. We finished our tour with a very nice luncheon at the adjacent restaurant La Luciole, a perfectly French establishment, relaxed and confident, with a small but beautiful menu. Oh joy, again.

Next day we toured north along the coast, heading for one of our essential volcano visits - the Admiral does love her volcano's - stopping along the way to drink coffee and watch fisherman work their catch in peaceful cooperation with the local pelicans.

We were also able to visit some original "Creole Era" ruins and plantation village , with truly stunning homes, as we climbed away from the coast towards the volcano.

As it happened the volcano caldera on Mount Pelee was accessible only if we were prepared for a four hour mountain hike, and that looked more like a scramble when viewed from the base of the trail.

So no, let's have lunch, this is France, there has to be a decent restaurant around here somewhere ..... but alas it was not to be, for the admiral had packed food, and we headed back to the coast to share lunch with friends Phil and Linda aboard SV Windora in the anchorage at Saint Pierre.

Chilling Out In Carriacou

We feel like we earned this place - after sweating it out in Trinidad for several months, Carriacou is a delightful backwater in the Caribbean, peaceful and relatively undeveloped, with beautiful beaches.

Moored Off Paradise Beach

The local population is only 8,000 folks, a mix of African, East Indian and European decent. Its a simple place, where people greet you on the bus and welcome you to their island.

As it happens, the most significant home on the island is owned by sailing friends we met in Trinidad - that's it in the image at left, with Crystal Blues moored up in front.

Tyrrel Bay in the south west of the island is the most sheltered anchorage, with a gently shelving sandy bottom that has space for sixty to a hundred boats, all in water between 3.0 and 5.0 meters deep.  Development is coming here, as everywhere, with a major new marina under construction, including hard stand and 100 tonne(!) travel lift. Customs and Immigration clearance procedures are simple, and there are no harbour fees or other charges for visiting yachts.

Tyrrel Bay

So we hung out with friends for a week or so, swimming, relaxing and (of course) still working on boat jobs - mainly dealing with work that was done badly by contractors in Trinidad - but thats another story...

Fresh produce was easy to come by - our fruit and vegetables were sold by the grower from his roadside stall over looking the beach, complete with hammock bed for when the cash register goes quiet.

This was the first island where we started to encounter charter yachts, invariably populated by excited white-skinned Europeans or Americans. It was also the first place where quality French cheese, wine and breads were plentiful and reasonably priced. Oh joy.

Compared to Trinidad, and even Grenada, the community here is much more relaxed, respectful and seemingly contented - in fact it reminded us of our time in Charlotteville, Tobago (read about that very special place here and here).

As we move north we are constantly coming across species that are new to us southerners - even the common seagulls here are new and different to us.

The weather is also becoming distinctly cooler - lower humidity is already making us more in the day, and even distinctly cool at night.

We're headed for the USA, where there was snow on the ground in Boston just a week or so back - roll on summer, please.  We plan to move north to Martinique, St. Martin and the BVI's before veering north west towards the US coast.

From Trinidad north the islands are all delightfully close to each other - it was 80 miles to Grenada and then only 40 miles to Carriacou. The entire passage north can be done in "day hops"if you have the time, however we'll be making some bigger jumps to see us on the US coast in time for summer, and far enough north to minimise risks of the associated hurricane season.

Hillsborough, Main Town In Carriacou

A Month With The Iguanas

It has been a busy month here at the Power Boats yard in Trinidad. This is prime cruising season, so the boat yard has rapidly emptied. There are a few of us are still working away on boat jobs and it's lucky that we have both friends and the resident Iguanas keep us company.

Phil Welding On The Bow

We had two unexpected setbacks this month.   Firstly our welder Ian, from Chaguarmas Metals, was hurt in a car crash, then his boss also had a car accident, so our welding and stainless projects came to a stand still.

To our rescue came Phil Christieson, from the New Zealand yacht Windora. He offered to complete the welding on the new stainless steel bow roller extension - it took two long sessions, standing on high planks in the blazing Trinidad sun, before the new part was finally and beautifully welded in to place.

Secondly, our local painter Rawle spent 6 days in hospital and was diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer. We kept busy whilst Rawle was recovering as we had a lot of refinishing to do, including hatches on deck and an area of hull surface inside, around the refrigerator.

Rawle returned to work last week and followed his doctors orders, taking his meds, cut down his working hours and is now eating lunch every day.  With Neil assisting, the blue boot stripe has been sprayed and the waterline marked. Visual progress at last.

Here is our month summarized in images :

Spraying Epoxy Primer, Almost Ready For Top Coat

Spraying Primer At The Bow, Where We Removed The Stainless Steel Striker Plate

Rawle Spraying Awlgrip Top Coat

Neil & Rawle Measuring And Taping The Boot Stripe Lines

Rawle Spraying The Blue Boot Stripe

Shiny Topside, With Window Surrounds Being Refurbished

This one is my favourite image. Rawle has been helping Neil with his spray painting technique - best of all, we have found that we can use our PowerDive hooka as the compressed air source for our small spray gun.

Today we started building the paint layers on our wonderful Gori propeller. It is my favourite image because this means that we will be applying anti-fouling and launching in the next few weeks - there is water at the end of the tunnel.

Eastern Australian Travels

Big Country, Big Sky - Lake Omeo In North East Victoria

Back home in Australia, we've been celebrating with family and catching up with friends, whilst also trying to see some of our home state. Of course we're also dealing with a range of boat issues, buying equipment and parts to carry back to Crystal Blues in Trinidad.

This week we caught up with Mike and Sue Powell on SV Yarrandoo, as they waited in Twofold Bay (Eden) for a weather window to head south to Tasmania. The trip south is an annual pilgrimage for many sailors during the Australian summer, with many heading for southern Tasmania.

Stepping aboard a familiar vessel with old friends was a real warm and fuzzy experience - the comfortable harbor reminding us that Twofold Bay is a great cruising destination.

We then traveled north to my favorite small town of Omeo, driving up through the foot-hills of the Australian Alps. At this point I should say that my mother's family came from the Omeo area, and that Ley and I spent quite a lot of time up in the region before our sailing life began.

Drinking From My Favourite Creek At Staleyville

So we visited our favorite bush campsites and drove the familiar mountain roads with a joyful hearts, gifted with beautiful weather. The impact of recent forest fires was evident everywhere, including through our camp site, where the blackened trees reminded us of the fragile nature of our world.

Wildlife At Chagauramas, Trinidad

While the water at the docks in Chagauramas can be very polluted, we can still see turtles swimming in the lagoon just a few hundred meters away.

Better still, the local pelicans are very friendly and Ley was able to track and photograph this Iguana right next to the local lunch spot - the Roti Hut.

The birdlife is also prolific in this part of the world, and we'll have to work hard to stop them nesting in our boom and under our sun covers whilst we are hauled out of the water.

Mosquito Bites

At the micro end of the scale, mosquito's are evident though not really bad here.  The dreaded Zika virus is here of course and Ley was unlucky enough to catch it. However it is not as common as in nearby Grenada, where it seems that every second cruising sailor has had it. Ley is fully recovered now, after a week of discomfort, tiredness and high temperatures.

A Record Flying Fish Haul

Carnage On Deck

Our night passage from Tobago to Grenada was memorable for setting a new record - that is, a record number of Flying Fish on deck in one evening. Ley counted 34 of the little devils initially, then we continued to find more over the next few days, secreted under lines, behind cleats and hidden by turning blocks.  What a mess they made.

To add insult to injury, one flew right into the cockpit and hit Ley on the back - lucky fish, she threw it overboard right away for another chance at life. 

As dawn broke our viewing of the beautiful Grenada coastline was interrupted by the discovery of slimy carcasses all around the boat - and in these numbers they quickly became very smelly in the sun.

Remora Attack - More Information ...

My experience being hassled by 12 desperate Remora fish in the ocean off the coast of Suriname is apparently not so rare . Our friends on the catamaran Ceilydh came up with some research that shows it is common when a large shark kill has happened in the area - basically the lack of shark hosts means the Remora fish outnumber the hosts, and the results are not pretty.

The BIG One- Fast & Hungry

We commented on the problem after I was hassled between Suriname and Tobago - then our friends on Ceilydh were prevented from swimming off their boat in Tobago - one even bit Evan on the toe.  By this stage we were both still "hosting" just a few Remora. Just google "remora attack" to learn more about this.

Unfortunately for us we still had with us the BIG One, lurking under the boat and definitely not afraid of us. I did think about starving the critters out (surely they'd leave?) but the thought of not pumping the heads for a few days was not a good one (yes, they eat everything that comes out of the host).

Fortunately, by the time we had sailed from Tobago to Grenada we had lost the aggressive creatures and were left with just one smaller, shy creature that disappeared whenever we swam off the boat.  About time - at last we could swim and enjoy the water.

A Course For The Caribbean

Ley In The Galley As We Beat To The North West At Sunset

After three weeks in Suriname we set sail again for our first Caribbean landfall - Tobago.  It was a 500 nautical mile north westerly voyage that started with very nice light northerly winds - we had flat seas, a favourable current and seven knots of boat speed.

That all changed in the middle of the first night watch, when we snagged an illegal fish net about 30nm offshore. We were motoring at the time, the wind having died out completely, and the net brought us to a standstill while also stalling our Cummins diesel.

With lights on deck we could see the net trailing aft, now twisted into a thick rope by the rotation of our propeller. Using the boat-hook we snagged the net and pulled it to the surface, then cut it free with a serrated blade knife. The top rope of the net was at least 14mm diameter, with floats directly attached, so there was no way we could ever pass over it.

Net With Top Floats

Now drifting free, we unfurled the genoa and slowly pulled away into the night, sailing on a very slight breeze at around 3.0 knots. Six hours later I came on watch again after sunrise and prepared to dive under the boat to clear the propeller and running gear and check for damage.

Preparing to enter the water I was startled by a large fish that appeared from under the boat - a Remora of course, only this one was much bigger than I had seen before.  Once under water I found myself out-numbered by eight large Remora, with another four visible hanging on the keel, plus a larger dark colored creature that I wasn't quite sure of, circling out beyond them. OK, I've chased remora around the boat before, but these guys were bigger and had a different attitude - they wanted to chase me...

As soon as I was underwater they were at me, and by the time I got to the propeller and net I was fending them off with a knife! After cutting away some of the net the fish did get the better of me and I came back to the stern - but then realised we were badly handicapped without an engine, and went back again to finish the job.  It wasn't fun ... for every few links of net that were cut I was fending off the damn fish again.  That larger dark one kept circling and coming in behind me, with just enough aggression to keep me distracted and dodging behind the rudder and skeg. I now believe it was a small Ocean White Tip shark, the rounded fin tips and white mottling being quite obvious. A rare creature, who fortunately backed off when I directly challenged it.

Eventually the remaining net was cut free from the propeller, and floated free off the stern where the image above was taken.  I then quickly checked the propeller blades and rudder and levitated out of the water pretty fast. This sort of behavior from Remora is unusual I think, though earlier this evening another Remora chased our friend Diane, of the yacht Ceilydh, as she was swimming off the boat here in Tobago. Her husband Evan was bitten by one just a week or so back. A Caribbean hazard perhaps?

The other notable feature of this passage was the large amount of Saragosso weed that was drifting on the ocean surface - we'd never experienced this before.  Sometimes very large rafts of weed were spotted, and it was constant enough that Ley wasn't able to troll a lure behind the boat without fouling the hooks with weed.

Saragosso Weed

The remainder of our voyage to Tobago was more relaxed, though we did manage to lose an impeller on the Cummins and had to change out the sea water pump the day before we arrived. Good winds and awkward arrival timing found us off the Tobago coast fully 16 hours before we could approach the land - Tobago Customs being fussy about arrival and reporting times, so we spent the final evening lazing around offshore in almost a flat calm.  Next morning we motored in and were welcomed into Tobago by a very friendly customs and immigration team in Charlotteville.

Tobago Appears At Sunset