sittononthebeach.com

Our last post was our last vacation trip on SYL in 2019. We left Madisonville, La where we had been living in Covington, La since 2015. We had our house on the market and left for our beloved Exumas. Our plan was to travel on SYL and our RV for the next few years and then to buy a house near family in Texas.

The Exumas trip was the beginning of that adventure. We came back to Florida in June, put SYL on the hard in Fort Pierce, flew back to Texas, got in the RV and came back to Florida. We visited friends in Florida then made our way to the Rocky Mountains in North Carolina to visit friends who have a cabin there (had a electrical fire under my seat in the RV- could have been bad but Rusty knew what to do so it was scary but not too bad). We headed back home via Kansas to see Rusty’s brother and was home for the holidays.

On February 1, 2020 we flew to La and boarded a Princess Cruise ship for a month long cruise to the South Pacific….more on that later—suffice it to say I love long cruises. However, when we disembarked on February 28th, 2020 the world had gone CRAZY! We chose not to fly back but drove back to Houston non stop.

That was the beginning of my self quarantine. I have many of the risk factors for Covid so I felt I had no choice but to isolate. We initially stayed on our RV in Buna, Rusty’s families land but soon saw that our plans to travel were out of the question so we started looking for a house.

One year ago we bought a house in Kingwood, Texas near all our young grandchildren. That is another story…..

Having been isolated for 15 months, lost a dear friend and a brother-in-law to Covid, we decided to take the vaccine and we are traveling again. Rusty builds boat that his son, Russ, drives for the NBRA race circuit and we are traveling for those races. Rusty also started a YouTube channel called “Redneck Boat Guy”, so he has been very busy.

It feels good to be OUT. After racing season which ends in September we will turn our attention to SYL. Rusty and his son Jonathon brought her from Fort Pierce to our old home in Kemah, Waterford Marina. Having been neglected for so long she needs a lot of work to bring her back to cruising status. Hopefully, we will be on her again before too long.

That is what we have been doing. My plan is to blog more and for now this is the format I will use. Will see if there is much interest here…..

Sea Yawl Later!!

Linda

Today we moved around from Blackpoint to “Castlebeach”. Our little group are the only ones here. It was my favorite beach until I discovered Shroud. SYL is easily beached so I am sure bobbing is in my future today. But first housekeeping. After a couple of days of being cooped up on the boat ( we did leave a couple of times to visit Lorraines) the boat needed cleaning. Rusty had to change out our water pump. He ended up relocating it to a better place on the boat. More accessible and less likely to corrode wires, which is what happened to the fairly new one. We discovered that during our 20 hours in a small craft warning weather when we crossed from Destin to Tarpon Springs, we had some windows crack which is now letting in water when it rains or we hose down the boat. Rusty taped what he could but we can’t fix that here…..Project when we return home. Good news is SYL is a very seaworthy vessel She took quite a beating during that storm.

I got water in the cabinets below the sink and stove. I had gotten water before and Rusty discovered it was our drinking water hose. I thought I had taken care of it but apparently not. Picky me will not drink water out of the holding tank….( they are 21 years old) so Rusty made a line that comes straight off the water maker and bypasses the tank. There is a value at the water maker that you turn to choose making drinking water or water to go into the tank. Apparently I am not being careful enough with the drinking water tube. I don’t want it in the sink…..I want it to stay pristine clean but hanging it on a door handle over the sink is not working either. I will find a solution. Probably just keep it in a small water bottle in the sink. Back pressure occurs and it drips without me knowing it. Well, I am going to publish this and go bobbing.

I hope everyone is having a blessed Easter. I am so grateful that I have a risen Lord!

Sea Yawl Later!!

Linda

Blackpoint has one of the best laundromats in the Central Exumas. We will often wait to do laundry until we get here. It is well run and…..it is right around the corner from Loraines which is without doubt my favorite place to eat in the Exumas. Her fish and conch are the BEST! We have been so blessed to have been with some of our favorite people……Ted and Mili from S/V Morning Glory ( Seawind 1000) and Mike and Laurie S/V Kalani ( Seawind 1160 Lite). We will be going our separate ways soon but they are forever friends and we will see each other again soon. We still have a few days of evening playing Mexican Train and Farkle and enjoying fun company.

The view from the Laundromat of SYL

We arrived in Nassau from Frazier Hog Cay. It was one of those 80% days. Rusty and I say sailing is a 10%/80%10% proposition. The top 10% is why we sail. The wind is right, the water and waves are right, motors are not required. For me it is the most awesome experience there is, right above (but barely) bobbing under a beached SYL. Now let me note that family and grandkids are another sphere of pleasure. 80% is what sailing is most of the time. Motors required, bumping along not really uncomfortable but not peaceful or quiet. Then there is the remaining 10%. Most of that 10% is extremely uncomfortable, being bounced around, beating into waves, bad weather, you get the picture but at the far end of the bad 10%, YOU THINK YOU ARE GOING TO DIE!

I have to say that Nassau is not one of my favorite stops. But if you need groceries or marine supplies it is where you go. We needed produce and a water pump so we stayed at Nassau Yacht Haven. We got our groceries and supplies, had dinner at the Poop Deck, spent the night and left early for Shroud Cay. We buddy boated with some friends from Texas who highly recommend Shroud Cay. We have been coming to the Exumas almost twenty years but always blew past Shroud on our way South. I must say that Shroud was beautiful, but that is another post.

Sea Yawl Later!!

Linda

The sail from Nassau to Shroud was an 80% day. We had to motor sail the entire way because the wind was on our nose. Shroud will always be on our list of must stops. It is sooooo beautiful. Shroud is in the Exuma Land and Sea Park. There is no fishing but there is mooring balls for those who want them and plenty of room to drop anchor, which is what we usually do. I prefer anchoring out. At Shroud I spent two days doing one of my very favorite things which is bobbing under the boat. Our buddy boat friends have been an absolute delight. I have really enjoyed their friendship. Sharing a meal and playing Mexican Train after playing in the water is so much fun. We did not have service and won’t have service as long as we are in the Park so this is being posted from Staniel Cay. Our Wifi works off of Batelco towers.

Sea Yawl Later!!

Linda

When you first arrive in the Bahamas it’s scary to actually see the bottom. Where I come from if you see the bottom that’s a bad thing. You just ran aground!
Here water color is a great way to gauge depth even at a distance. If it’s purple there is no bottom reflection at all, it’s super deep. Coming from Florida we passed areas that were almost 3,000 ft deep, the only light reflection in the water are refracted wave patterns from the surface. Light shimmers at geometric angles as you see deeper and deeper into the abyss.
The shallower it gets the lighter shade of turquoise it gets (over sand) until you start to see a sand color to it. I draw 3′ so even water showing some sandy color is just fine for SYL. If I see a sandy colored patch I check my depth gauge, and if there’s not much change of color from where I am to where I’m going I know the dept in front of me before I get there.
Dark green water means there’s grass on the bottom, the best way to tell how deep it is by sight is noticing how quickly objects on the bottom move. If they seem to waft by with some distortion to the bottom features it’s fine. If you see the grass clearly… moving by evenly. . It’s shallow.
The third color is brown… that’s a reef! If it’s brown, go around no matter how deep it is.
It’s raining today, we are lazying about tied to the dock this morning. It’s pizza night here in great harbor. I put my order in yesterday for a large meat lovers! It will be fun to sit and share with other cruisers at the pavillion.

Sea Yawl Later
Rusty

We made it back to White Cay this evening and Rusty immediately got in the water and continued to get Louisiana Bayou off of SYL. We will back off the beach and drop anchor behind one of the island until tomorrow. We will work our way to Nassau because our water pump on SYL that supplies the water to the kitchen and bathroom needs to be replaced. Rusty of course has it fixed temporarily but we will need to go to Nassau to get a new one.

Rusty thoughts:

We had a nice skip thru the skinny water today behind (on the west side of) the Berry Islands. There are miles and miles of sand flats measuring from 5 ft deep to zero (most places are less than 3 ft deep) the charts show a possible shallow draft route that we followed to the letter today. Even being exactly on the charted route, we still touched bottom twice. It was fun.
SYL’s keels are 3′ – 1″ below the surface of the water. Most sailboats are much deeper. It was fun today travelling where very few cruisers can even go.
We are anchored for the night in 9 ft of water, at the exit from the shallow passage in the central Berry Islands. Our plans are like the ocean waves… tomorrow well decide what we feel like doing.
I beached SYL this evening and cleaned much of the bottom. I still have 20 percent left to do, but I got a lot done in the chilly water. A clean hull makes for faster / more economical travel so it’s an important maintenance item. I suspect I gained an extra mile for every 8 travelled by removing the light marine growth from the bottom today.
There are lots of boats anchored here this evening. I can see 3 power boats and 4 other sailboats from where I sit. Sea Yawl Later…. out

The crossing took us about 12 hours to get to the Great Bahama Banks which is about 100 miles of relatively shallow water that is absolutely beautiful. It is the aqua color I first think of when I think of the Bahamas. We had left at about 4:30am but we were not particularly tired. We decided to just motor sail until we were tired then we would just drop anchor. It was so peaceful and uneventful I told Rusty to get some sleep and I would watch radar, etc and just go until we didn’t want to go any more. Next thing we know we are seeing the Berry Islands. White Cay is the island Rusty and I spent our Honeymoon on so it is special to us. We dropped anchor for the first time literally on the beach at White Cay. We both jumped in, well I didn’t exactly “jump” but I did get into the water. One of my major concerns was getting down the front ladder……no problem…..One hurdle overcome. The water was a little on the chilly side, BRRRRRR, and it was a little surge but we played around a little. Ultimately it was decided to find another less lively anchorage for the night. It was 36 hours from Florida to White Cay. As Rusty put on FB White Cay has suffered with age. The barrier island that blocked the deep Atlantic Ocean surge has eroded to the point she is not quite as cozy as she was 20 years ago. We have been back since, but hurricanes and time has taken their toll.

We spent the night at the next Cay over, Huffman. We knew a blow was coming so we decided to go to Great Harbour, get checked in and take a slip for the night. The night turned into 3 days. I got all our laundry caught up, had Pizza, visited with folks and headed back to White Cay today!

It’s time to leave the US…

The weather and the stars have aligned to create a nice 3 day window of useable winds in the right direction and intensity. The sweet combination should provide a fun comfortable passage.

Our first day (early in the morning) we and several other boats staged here in Angelfish Creek will strike out for the 50 mile transit to the first Bahama islands. For the next 80 miles we cross the great Bahama banks. The banks provide a beautiful 10 to 20 ft deep sandy bottom to watch. You can count the starfish as you skim over the baby blue water… tomorrow!

The length of the gulfstream and banks crossing together usually mean a long 24 hour nonstop run, but as calm as it will be tomorrow night we will probably anchor in the middle of nowhere and sleep after 14 to 16 hours. When we wake up we will finish the run to the Southern Berry Islands 45 miles from Nassau.

Our Sunday-Monday run will probably end at Chubb Cay because there is a weather system coming down Tuesday night. IF winds are very light Tuesday morning we might make for Nassau… but prolly not.

Two of our fellow Seawind owners are going to meet us after the crossing. “Morning Glory” based in Stuart Florida is piloted by a lovely couple Ted and Mili. We met them years ago. They have the exact same boat as us. We look forward to being in their presence. Such a sweet couple.

Sv “Kailani” will make the rendezvous as well. Mike and Laurie from Aransas Pass, Texas just took delivery of their brand new Seawind 1160 (a much bigger brother to our boat) in Miami. They will join us on Kailani’s maiden voyage! I can’t wait to drool over all that brand new fiberglass.

Linda and I are sharing a celebratory bottle of wine as the sun gets low here in the upper keys. Sea Yawl Later is in fine form. Fully sorted out and ready for the journey. Ted is bringing us some last minute items and parts we needed after the shakedown run to Florida. His boat will be full of my stuff and his… until he catches up with us.

We look forward to posting some great pictures in the next few months. Stand by!

SYL!!

After two days of travel on SYL Linda insisted on buying new engines. I was having carburetor issues on the port engine. It was stressful but I would have solved it without it becoming a wallet issue, but I didnt get that chance. I had to agree buying new before a big trip makes more sense than buying new after we are done to sell the boat.

As you know if you have been following, we just spent a large sum of money to renovate our house, it was beautiful and perfect — when we sold it. We never enjoyed the fruits of that labor and expense so I agreed with Linda to not do that on the boat. We will cruise for a large portion of the next 3 years on SYL so spendimg that money now to lower the stress level, especially related to propulsion was a no brainer.

We are currently docked next to Shaggys bar / restaurant Pass Christian Mississippi.