Before another trip back to LA for Christmas and New Years, we returned to the boat in Florida to finish all the final jobs. John’s folks joined us for a two week shakedown cruise on the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway). Phew, finally ready, here we go! Out through two bridges to a nice anchorage in Lake Boca Raton, drop the anchor and… Ok, let’s try that again. Dragging, dragging… Mind you, we just bought this new 85# M2 Mantus anchor and we have very high expectations but it just won’t bite! #$%@#$% So, straight back through the two bridges to the dock to figure it out. Hauled it up on shore and realized that we had assembled it incorrectly. Now seriously, there’s only two pieces and one bolt. But the angle of the shank was off by around 15 degrees. So, reassembled and now works like a champ.
Mom and Dad joined us for a few great meals out, John’s birthday – for which Tess baked a cake onboard, the largest Christmas boat parade in the US, and a bunch of different anchorages. We didn’t get any good pictures of the parade as it was dark, moving and freezing cold. But you can imagine a hundred big boats all decorated and cruising by with music blaring… Of course, there was also an unexpected major repair stop. The inverter died suddenly and Laurent at Just Catamarans in Fort Lauderdale once again came to the rescue. Seems it was a known warranty problem but as of this writing, it is still not fixed. So we bought a new one and will eventually get the repaired one for a backup.
After the holidays, our daughter Sarah joined us for a week on the boat and we all drove up to Orlando to see our son James, who had flown in from Germany to run the Dopey Challenge: four straight days of a 5k run, 10k run, half marathon and full marathon, all through the Disney parks. 48.6 miles in four days and he flew all day the day before the first run. But I didn’t raise a quitter! James joined us immediately after the half marathon (post shower) for a full day at the Disney Animal Kingdom. We then got up at oh dark thirty to be there for the end of the marathon, which was very fun to watch. They definitely do it right. James flew back to Germany the day after the marathon. That’s my boy!
A few days after Sarah left, we finally cut the cord and set off for the Bahamas. Our first passage ever on a catamaran. As the wind was a steady 10kts over the forecast, we had a rather rough intro to cat life. “They” say the motion is totally different and “they” are right. But she goes much faster than the old FKL. Conditions didn’t allow us to go directly to the Abacos so we diverted to the town of Spanish Wells at the top of Eleuthera. We rode our bikes all over, checking out the obligatory beach bars and marveling at the damage left from Hurricane Dorian, five years prior. It had parked over the central Abaco islands as a category 5 storm for 30 hours. And we were roughly 50 miles south of that.
Editor’s note: The Bahamas are actually several separate clusters of islands, each on its own bank (vast shallow area) with deep ocean in between them. The Abacos are to the north, Eleuthera to the east and the Exumas stretching 130 miles down the middle.
A few days later we crossed up to the Abacos and were joined by an old cruising friend from the Sea of Cortez. Patti stayed with us for 10 days of island hopping through much of the Abacos and then the crossing back to Eleuthera where she few home. In between we explored Marsh Harbor and Hope Town, Little Harbour and a dozen fancy Bahamian bars and restaurants. Theresa even managed to get bitten by a beach pig within seconds of going ashore on No Name Cay.
The lighthouse in Hope Town is quite famous as the world’s last kerosene burning beacon. Its wick burns one gallon per night. It also has full-time keepers who have to climb the 101 steps every two hours at night to hand crank the turning mechanism 427 times!
Back in Eleuthera, we anchored by the Glass Window, a point where this very long island narrows to a single lane bridge and the ocean crashes through underneath. Walking it you can see how the water must blast through in really big storms. Nearby are the Queen’s Baths, natural pools that are popular when the weather is calm. Quite treacherous to access but we made it in and out and John did get in one.
We bid adieu to Patti here and she left us with this great departing shot.
