We have shamelessly ignored our blog….. To catch up on our travels, lets start with some logistics in reverse chronology and go from there. SYL is sitting calmly on Rum Cay this morning. We exited Crooked islands for the second time yesterday and made a decent 60 mile crossing. The unsettled weather of late has made departure from the Crookeds quite a challenge.
Yesterday there were no squalls so the trip was doable. It is fortunate that winds and waves were on our starboard rear quater because the open ocean swell ran 5 to 8 feet all day. Winds were 15 and as I said dry with out the thunderstorms we have been having most every day. The trip was not a postcard 10%er but overall not too bad. About two hours before we left a couple british gents on a Prout 37 Snowgoose named “Snowball” left the anchorage. Once we picked up our heading it was evident they were also heading to Rum, so that added to the enjoyment of the trip.
We passed Snowball just before the halfway mark to Rum. Winds were almost too directly behind us…. the trick of the day was keeping the jib full, not letting the main steal all it’s air. After passing our boat buddy I headed up as high as I could to keep the jib puling in case the wind changed. It turned out to be a good move. Winds went a little South of SE and I was able to come up enough to fill the jib. Naturally before the shift there was a settling… winds dropped to under 10 knots. That gave the advantage to Snowball because of his large genoa. I was no longer gaining ground in the “undeclared” but always present race when two boats have the same destination.
Winds did go more south and picked back up to a useable 13 knots so I headed up to use that slack I put “in the bank” earlier in order to use all my cloth (keep the front sail full).
After a bit I looked back at Snowball and he had taken down his big genoa and hoisted a parasail!!!!!! This thing goes dead down wind like a runaway train. It was beautiful to watch as they got closer and closer to me…. lol. Luckily winds stayed high enough for my boat and I made landfall first. Had winds gone light he would have made ground quickly on SYL having only a jib and main.
Rum Cay is plesant so far. We slept well without a swell, having anchored as deep in Nelson Bay as we could. Snowball continued into the old harbor (it’s closed without services but still has the docks) so I’m sure they rested well in the calm water as well. I took the dinghy in yesterday to check out the harbor and help our new buddy tie up. I think we will move into the marina this morning as well. Normally a harbor gets hot without a good breeze. We will see during the day today…. if there is no breeze we’ll come back on anchor.
We did move into Sumner Point Marina, and docked alongside with Paul and Tony, our new friends. They were out most of the day with “Big E”… the local color commentator/snorkel guide/fishing expert and overall loud goodfella here on Rum Cay. I understand he did the grandtour with his guests….. allowing them the opportunity to spend money with everyone on the island.
This afternoon I got some time with the guys after Big E left. The advised me not to enlist his services unless I wanted to spend the whole day with the loud somewhat overbearing guide. After a quick tour of SYL, Paul talked about sailing in Greece. He showed us the prime areas and was very helpful having spent several years in the Med. We have often thought of flying over and chartering a boat to sail Greece….. interesting.. but not in the cards right now.
Sunday:
Snowball left this morning before we got out of bed, they are heading to Cat Island, and the USA. Thier intent is to leave the boat in North Carolina, buy a couple motorcycles and ride across America. I wish them well.
Yesterday we rented a golf cart from Josie around noon and I returned it today. The golf cart trip made our Rum Cay experience doubly memorable. Yesterday we skirted the beach road so that it was easy to stop and discover many remote beaches along the way. We picked up some nice driftwood and some new (old) colored rope to hang on the front of our dinghy. Another spot we visited was absolutely magical… they call it North Beach. Its remote and very picturesque.
Last night the wind was dead and it had been raining so the boat was damp. When the wind drops out the bugs come out…. so we closed up and turned on the AC for the night. Unfortunately, I set the Honda out on the dock for the night… about 2AM the bottom fell out and it rained for quite sometime. At 2:30 the generator got too wet and quit.. so I got up in the rain to try and restart it without success. I went back to bed around 3AM and didn’t work on the Honda until noon. I cleaned the carb, but I knew that wasn’t the issue… I just did that waiting for the generator to dry out so it would fire again.. the spark plug wouldn’t spark. I kept checking fire, to see if it was thru complaining yet but alas… it was not. After the carb refresh I started unplugging wires looking for moisture. I had opened 4 connections and found them dry as a bone so I almost skipped that one on the bottom that’s so hard to get to. Good thing I didn’t skip it….. there was water inside the connector. After flushing the connection with carb cleaner to get rid of the water I dabbed it out with paper towel and a tooth pick. I couldn’t wait to check fire after I got it back together! It fired nicely so I knew it would run. With a fresh plug and clean carb it fired up on the first pull.
Adding AC power to our boat is pretty important. When the sun is out we can make water on the solar panels… but no 110 volt power means no oven and no way to recharge the batteries unless we are in a marina. Our plans are to not see an active marina for weeks. Sumner Point where we are now is closed… you can tie up but there are no services. The mail boat came in yesterday so I was told gas is available again. Josie told me he couldn’t rent me his cart because he didn’t have gas…. I told him I had a little so he rented to me at a discount, my maintanks are almost full and I have two 5 gallon cans full, but as I said we expect to be remote for a while so having an extra 10 gallons for the generator might allow more nights of air conditioning than we otherwise might choose. We don’t run it much… but after a soaking rain it’s nice to dry SYL out.
RUM CAY: We like the little island. Linda found out there are 35 local inhabitants and they are noted to be most friendly. The remoteness is the attraction, not many folks hanging out here….. The waters aren’t particulary clear…. but hey we have been on Crooked Island for 3 weeks and there are no cleaner waters anywhere I know of so that may be an unfair comparison.
Many sport fishermen use the closed harbor to come in and clean fish… that means there are plenty sharks swimming in and out looking for a cheap meal… this must be the McDonalds of the Bahamas. I have seen as many as 6 under the boat at one time. They are primarily nurse sharks… but there are also Bull sharks and several other species so swimming in the harbor is not an option. Thats unfortunate too because there is a nice little beach right in the harbor.
The harbor is a nice option primarily because it’s free and protected from waves at almost every direction. Having done the golf car tour and seen much of the island we will leave for Conception Island tomorrow weather permitting.