Critters: Flamed Box Crab

As mentioned previously, Lisa in an avid catcher of critters. One of her recent finds was an odd looking crab. It was shaped like a bun,  or dinner roll, more or less when it had it’s claws folded in.

This little guy looked like he’d been hit in the head and was barely alive. He was rolling around in the sane when we found him. He looked like a rolling rock — since rocks don’t roll, we had to check him out.

It took a bit of effort to identify the critter. I think it’s a flamed box crab. What do you think?

 

Hopetown Lighthouse, Abaco, Bahamas

The Lighthouse at Hopetown is one of the towns more noticeable features. It was built in 1862, has an elevation of 120 feet, and a 23 mile visibility. It’s one of three remaining manual lighthouses. Rather than being electric as most lighthouses are these days, it’s powered by kerosene. In other words, it’s a giant Coleman vapor lantern that needs to be pumped up, preheated, and ignited.

The light is driven by a winding mechanism, much like a grandfather clock. The mechanism needs to be wound every 2 hours — a fact that has to be really annoying for the lighthouse keepers. The turret that houses the mantle (the bit that generates light) and lenses is heavy — weighing several tons at least. Rather than using an oil-based lubricant or grease, the turret sits in a half donut-shaped mercury bath. Mercury seemed like an odd choice for a lubricant, but when you think about it a bit, mercury would work pretty well. Given that I had access to the turret,  tried to turn it — as expected. It required only a minimal effort to get it moving. Given the weight and how long the light has been in operation, that’s a pretty impressive feat of engineering.

Technically, it’s names the Elbow Cay lighthouse and keeps people off the Elbow Cay Reef. It also offers a great vantage point for surveying the entire area.

Pictures follow.

Looking to the North. Parrot Keys on the left and the top of Elbow Cay on the right.
Looking to the North. Parrot Keys on the left and the top of Elbow Cay on the right.

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Little Harbor to Hopetown, Abaco, Bahamas

Getting from Little Harbor to Hopetown makes one feel like one is in a children’s story.

The route from Little Harbor to Hopetown. Note that the lighter the color of the water the shallower (around 2 ft) it is.
The route from Little Harbor to Hopetown. Note that the lighter the color of the water the shallower (around 2 ft) it is.

First you leave the Bight of Old Robinson (or Spencer’s Bight, as the case may be). Skirt around the top of Sandy Key navigate the shifting sands at the south end of the Tilloo bank. From there, it’s due north through Buckaroon Bay, keeping west of the Tilloo Bank, towards Witch Point.

It’s important to stay close to Witch Point, but not too close as there are shoals off it. Then, keep heading north staying close the west side, to avoid Lubbers Bank. Turn  east around the north side of Lubbers Bank and head north, towards the Nothern most of the parrot keys.  From there you spot the entrance to Hopetown Harbor…. Eh?

The preceding sounds a lot like directions that Johnny Depp would get in “Pirates of the Caribbean.” We love it here.

Biscuits Anyone?

One of Ajit’s favorite places is to sit chest high in gin clear water on a beautiful balmy afternoon with water gently lapping over him.

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For me, my preference is to walk around exploring what the ocean will expose.  I love  to hear the ocean while enjoying the water gliding across my toes and the sand gently massaging the bottom of my feet. Who needs a pedicure when mother nature will gently smooth your feet while  walking on slightly pink sugary sand?

Many years ago, I discovered my first sea biscuit in the Bahamas. I had often found sand dollars in the Charleston area but the sea biscuits were a new find for me. They look like puffed up sand dollars.  I had only seen the beautiful shell remaining after a sea biscuit has passed on. Today, I walked over this brown blob in the waters edge. After looking closely, I realized this was a live sea biscuit.  It was covered in tiny little hair like spikes very much like a live sand dollar.

Much to my surprise two little ones were clinging to the shell. They are the two whitish blobs on top of the brown lump. Look closely and you will see them. I am not sure exactly how sea biscuits reproduce, but this would suggest that they carry their eggs which end up trapped in their furry covering and remain there after being fertilized until the babies are ready to fall off.   Something more to research.

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Curiously the sea biscuit propelled itself forward at a noticeable rate. While it’s obvious they would move, I didn’t expect it to move quite so fast — an inch a minute?

Below is a sea biscuit which is no longer alive.  Mother nature is truly amazing!

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Little Harbor, Abaco

Little Harbor is at the south end of the Sea of Abaco. It’s a cute area “anchored” by Pete’s Pub and the foundry of a famous local sculptor whose name escapes me. The area isn’t that large and is dotted by lots of keys and flats. It’s amazingly pretty. It’s challenging to get good pictures of the area as it’s the entire swathe of what you see that makes it special. We spent three nights around here. Two of which were due to weather.

Little HarborWhen we got in, we anchored off the north end of Bridges Cay in sand. The chart books show anchorages off Lynyard Cay, but since the wind was out of the west, we opted for the west side of the channel.

Looking around, the scenery was amazing: clear water and lots of sail boats! It also seemed like it was a lot more up market than any of the other places we’d been in the Bahamas so far. This felt more like Tiburon/Belvedere in the Bay Area or Santa Barbara than anything else. There were small islands with large well kept houses.  This was alsothe first time we’d been in the midst of this many sail boats that were actually under sail!

We spent most of our second day poking around trying to get internet connectivity, tidying Pearl, and generally get things settled. That afternoon we decided to move over to the south end of Lynyard Key so that we could take Harley out to swim and play on one of the small crescent moon shaped beaches there. For some reason, we couldn’t get the anchor to set well, and the weather was feeling unsettled so we decided to move north and west to Spencers Bight.

That was one of the best decisions we have ever made. Just about the time we dropped anchor in about ten feet of water, all hell broke loose. We got hit by a squall line. Lisa did the best job of setting the anchor yet and put out most of our one hundred and twenty five feet of chain. It was a good thing too, as we saw gusts hit sixty five knots.

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Check out the wind (bottom left) on the chart plotter. That was a wild evening at anchor.

We were fine hunkered down below until the really bad gusts hit us. Pearl bucked like a horse at a hitching rail trying to loose it’s headstall.  Lisa wasn’t so concerned about the pitching, it was the rolling that had her concerned. She’d made the mistake of looking through the port lights in Pearl’s hull and notice they were getting submarined. Seeing fish though the side of your boat is a bit unnerving.

Needless to say, we rode out the storm without a problem. When the weather broke, we decided to bug out to Hopetown and pick up a mooring in the relative security of the harbor. Another front was forecast a day later and we were running low on water and supplies.

Pictures follow.

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From Bimini to the Abacos — Part 4 Little Harbor

Getting from Sandy Point around the Hole in the Wall at the bottom of the Abacos and into the Sea of Abaco was the second longest ride we had made so far. It took us from Sandy Point down the Providence Channel and out into the Atlantic. This was another instance of make sure you have your weather right. Winds from the North and West could potentially set up sketchy conditions off Hole In The Wall where the North East Providence Channel, North West Providence Channel and the Atlantic all meet in areas with very steep drop offs.

The second day we were at Sandy Point, was a mess. We had stronger than forecast winds from the West. Pearl was exceedingly bouncy and uncomfortable at anchor. Conditions were so poor that I ended up in the water while trying to dock the dinghy back at Pearl. Lisa was not amused.

Fortunately for us, the winds dropped and backed to the South West. I figured this was good enough to get around Hole in the Wall. We couldn’t really spend any more time where we were at Sandy Point and there was a cold front predicted in a couple of days which would have made things even worse. Off we went.

The transit down the North West Providence Channel was the least comfortable to date. We had quartering winds and short following seas that had Pearl wallowing as we motor sailed down. We didn’t fish any, really. It was too uncomfortable for that.

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Obligatory Sunset Panorama looking East at Bridges Cay and Great Abaco

Getting around Hole in the Wall we stayed in deep water about 2 miles off the shore line. The seas were a bit confused as I think we were picking up reflections from the wind chop mixed in with the current. After we got around the corner, the seas settled and we had a nice ride up into Little Harbor.

Getting in through the Little Harbor Cut was no problem. We had good light and were able to easily slip into the Sea of Abaco. This was completely different to any place we’d been so far. There were sailboats, under sail even, all over the place. It had been a pretty long day for us. Since most of the preferred anchorages were occupied or unusable, we anchored in about ten feet of sand off Bridges Cay and took Harley into the shallows to do his daily doody and to play.

We were in the Sea of Abaco!

 

From Bimini to the Abacos — Part 3 Sandy Point

The trip from Bullocks Harbor was another crossing of sorts. We had to get across the Providence Channel. After the Straights of Florida and the gulf stream, this was another very deep body of water with very steep banks. It also had a current that could cause it to stand up and offer a rough ride. I wasn’t looking forward to a rough ride so we time our crossing for a time when the winds were out of the South East — i.e. with the current.

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Crossing from the Berry islands to the Abacos. Note the depths!

Once we got to the top of the Berrys, we broke out our sails and made use of the 20 kts of wind from the south east to push us on a close reach into Sandy Point. It was a fun ride.

Slipping around the top of the Berry Islands we saw a couple of large cruise ships anchored up at a couple of cays that the cruise lines have taken over to give their passengers an exclusive tropical island experience. We aslo got pretty close to a couple of freighters. One of them sort of snuck up on us an I was glad that the AIS and MARPA functions we have on our chart plotter worked as intended to warn us.

Ships passing in the day light. They are about a mile off and pretty large.
Ships passing in the day light. They are about a mile off and pretty large.

Entering Sandy Point there’s a sharp drop off from about five thousand feet in the channel to about ninety feet on the shelf — in a distance of about one hundred yards. Lisa and I figured there’d be good fishing along the ledge so we furled our sails and went fishing. About five minutes into trolling, we hooked about a 40 lb Mahi Mahi. Yummy!

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Lisa’s prize Mahi Mahi — about 40 lbs. This fish was almost as long as she is.

The anchorage at Sandy Point has good holding, but is completely open to anything by East winds. The first night we spent was no problem. The second day, however, was a nightmare. Fortunately, the winds subsided by evening and we actually managed to get to sleep.

Sandy Point, once again, is a small remote settlement. The water around it has to be experienced to be believed. It was nice to be back in crystal clear blue after the green of Bullocks Harbor. It seems that several of the people who live at Sandy Point work at an island a few miles to the North that Disney owns and showcases as the Castaway island.

Since we had a fairly full refrigerator, we took most of the fish that Lisa caught into the only restaurant and beach bar they had there. As a special bonus we were invited to make a Sri Lankan fish curry for the people at the bar. It made for a fun evening hanging out.

Pictures from Sandy Point follow.

From Bimini to the Abacos — Part 2 Bullocks Harbor

The trip from Mackey Shoals to Bullocks Harbor was pretty uneventful. We (read Lisa) caught a couple of decent sized barracuda as well as a small amberjack along the way. We also ran into a Bahamian fishing trawler trailing a line of smaller fishing boats. The fishing boats kept changing position. We weren’t sure whether they were fishing the by-catch that the trawler was tossing out or what they were doing.

The entry to Bullocks harbor was interesting. We arrived on a falling tide. The depths coming into the harbor were shallower than the charted depths. While we didn’t touch bottom, we came pretty darn close.

Bullocks harbor is a small settlement of a few hundred people at best. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot going on there that we could tell. They did,  however, a  have a nice marina at Great Harbour Cay that looked like a decent hurricane hole. We thought about taking Pearl in there bu decided against it. We did take the dinghy in. The harbor entrance is through a narrow cut that would be challenging with any kind of seas running.

Bullocks Harbor itself consists of a couple of roads. It’a basically a village in the middle of nowhere. We ended up spending two nights there. The should be good fishing on the flats to the east.

Pictures from Bullocks Harbor below.

From Bimini to the Abacos — Part 1 Mackey Shoals

Having parked in Bimini for a couple of days, we took the next weather window to head for the the north eastern Abacos. This area’s reputed to be a cruising heaven, so guess what, we had to check it out. The area has great services, it’s easy to get boat parts, and maintenance work done, so it seemed like a great venue to do a shakedown (read breakdown) cruise to figure out what would work.

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Our route from Bimini to the Abacos

There are a couple of ways of getting to the Abacos from Bimini. One involves going north from Bimini to Freeport and then around the top to West End. Otherwise, getting pretty much anywhere from Bimini involves spending a night out on the Bahama bank and heading through the Berry Islands. Since we hadn’t heard anything good about Freeport and in order to keep our travels to day light  hours,  we opted to spend a night out on the bank and go through Bullocks Harbor in the Berrys.

I was a bit paranoid about spending a night out on the banks. You’re anchoring tens of miles from the closest land in any direction. It isn’t that I have a problem with being out of sight of land, it’s a question of anchoring and encountering weather.

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Driving Pearl into a storm on the Bahama Bank. Sails furled, hatches battened.

We picked what I thought was a great weather window. The predicted winds and swells were negligible. About a third of our way to our stop for the night at Mackey Shoals, we ran into a storm cell. We figured it would blow over, but instead it stayed with us until we got to Mackey Shoals. It quit just before we anchored for the night and gave us a spectacular sunset.

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Sunset at Mackey Shoals after the storm.

The next day, we were off to Bullocks Harbor.

Impressions of Bimini

Bimini was nothing that I expected. When we arrived I was expecting to find Miami East, condos, mega yachts, cottages in tropical colors, clubs with steel bands, and thumping music.

North Bimini couldn’t have been further from that. It was a dusty little town with a one lane road running through it and not much going on. The hub of the action, as it were, was the Bimini Big Game club, a venue for sports fisherman who visit the island. While it was nice enough, it wasn’t the posh, concrete docked, mega yacht haven I was expecting.

Walking through Bimini was interesting. It was mostly local people going about their business. There kids wondering around after school. People playing cards under a tree. Fisherman cleaning conch. The people we spoke with were chatty and seemed glad that we were visiting.

I think the really magical parts of Bimini are the flats to the east. We barely touched them the day before we left. The shallow banks of the flats have creeks running through them and are teeming with life. Even though the main channel to the east of Bimini is a bit polluted, the flats immediately to the east  have crystal clear water and abound with reef fish, conch and other snails, rays, and starfish. There are lots of critters to watch in ankle depth water.  Exploring that ended up being a fun afternoon for Lisa, Harley, and myself.

The two days we spent here were nowhere near enough. Following are some pictures from Bimini.

 

Crossing to Bimini: We (finally) did it

There are is a bunch of lead-up to this post that I haven’t got out yet. The bottom line is that Lisa and I have broken out of Key West, and are now in Bimini.

We made our crossing on the 20th. The weather couldn’t have been better. We left our anchorage at Rodriguez Key off Key Largo at 7:00am and were in Bimini and cleared though customs and immigration by 6:15pm.

I’d done a bunch of reading, blah, blah, but when it came down to it, we took slightly higher predicted winds out of the SE and did well for it. I had completely psyched my self out for this crossing and was on edge. Lisa was totally excited that we were finally doing something we’d talked about for a long time. What was nice was once we got in the stream, it wasn’t a big deal — it added between two to three knots to our boat speed. The increase is more significant if you look at it as a percentage:  about 30% – 50%. I calmed down and had a nap while Lisa kept watch.

When we left Rodriguez key, we headed pretty much due south to the Molasses Reef Light. We kept it to the East of us to stay in clear water — per our friend Bill’s recommendation. About 0.5 mi out from the reef, we raised the sails in 13 – 16 kts of wind, set a heading of 80 magnetic (71 True) trimmed the sails for a close reach (60 deg. off the wind) and kicked back. We decided to motor sail as I wanted to get to Bimini as soon as possible. With the engines turning 1200 rpm and the sails up, we averaged 7.5 kts for the first quarter of the crossing. The wind picked up to 20-25 during the middle of the crossing and we averaged 9 kts. The wind stayed with us until we were about 15 mi off Bimini, when it dropped to 10 -12 kts. The swells we pretty consistantly out of the south at about 1 – 2 feet almost all the way acrossg. They got up to around 3 ft beginning 7 mi off Bimini.

The entrance to Bimini was a bit challenging for me. The entry is marked by a couple of sets of buoys. That’s it. There are several people who’d told me that once you made the turn into the harbor, we’d be running about 100 ft off the beach. I thought that was probably an exaggeration, but it wasn’t.  The channel is pretty narrow and very close to the beach. It’s also very shallow at the entrance. Pearl touched bottom once on the way in. We also ran aground en route to our slip at Bimini Blue Water but got off without a problem.

What we did well was cross the gulf stream comfortably and safely. When we do this again, i would, however, leave earlier — at about 4:00am rather than 7:00am. The reason we didn’t do this is because I wanted to see the stream in the light. Pulling off the crossing was a big deal for me. It validated that a lot of what I thought and had learned was correct — an exam, kind of. Behind our “pass,” however, there is a large group of people who have coached, cajoled, counseled, and conspired, with us to make the adventure we are on a reality. Most of them are breathing easier now that Lisa and I are no longer in Key West.

At present, Pearl is safely tied up to a dock at Bimini Blue Water. We had a great day touring Bimini. More on our impressions of Bimini soon.

The Patter of Little Feet

Hi Denise! Remember  the nightmare you had about getting up in the morning and finding an alligator in the cockpit? Well, Lisa almost had a similar experience on the bow. Say “Hello!” to our little friend.

A largish Chameleon

 

As you see, this critter is contemplating moving into the anchor locker. Fortunately we caught it before it went in as I am not sure it would have been able to get out.

While it would have been HILARIOUS to see Lisa’s response to finding this critter while trying to anchor. There is a fairly good chance that I would have found it.  You know how enthusiastic I am about wrangling squiggly things.

Fortunately, the patter of little feet we’d hear on deck periodically was not a giant rat (I refrained from investigating), but this guy or one of his cousins.

We hope you are being good, or least being good at it. With us, the adventure continues.