Happy Birthday, Joe McGowan; We Moved to Protected Mooring

It's March 1st. Happy Birthday to our son, Joe! Love and miss you. Hope it's a great one! Here's three days of catching up on the blog:

Saturday, Feb. 27:

Today was a beautiful day in paradise. We left Jazzy on the boat and took the dinghy to one of the beaches by the mooring field, Beryl’s Beach. We went barefoot and took shoes and socks to hike the trails. We took the trail to the ocean side to see the beach. It is like another planet over there. The rock formations in the Bahamas are like nothing I’ve ever seen. We took a lot of photos and video and soaked in the scenery.

When we came back from our hike, the tide was so low that our dinghy was grounded. The water was about 25 feet away! So we pulled it off (cruising is not for sissies!) and went back to Sheet Music and got Jazzy. There is a huge sandbar in the center of the harbor where dogs are allowed to run loose and play. And she had cabin fever from being confined for five days.

She had a blast. She ran in the water and ran her face along the sandbar while running like she does when on grass. She was covered in beach sand, head to toe. We played with her for a while and took video and photos. We put her in deeper water to swim off the sand. The Bumms came over to us in their dinghy and Patti and I waited with the dogs and talked while the guys hiked another trail. I let Jazzy swim around to tire her out so we could leave her when we were going out in the evening.

We went back to the boats at 4 p.m. and buttoned down the hatches for the impending storm. Chuck put lines to hold down the solar panels and extra bungee cords on the bimini and dodger. That night, there was a social gathering on the beach for the cruisers. Everyone took snacks and their own drinks. We met a couple from Canada who are cruising on a Beneteau 381. We have seen so many Beneteaus on this trip, all different sizes!

After the social, we went back to the boat in three foot seas. It was really choppy and a challenge to get back on the boat! The boat was going up, while the dinghy was going down. There was about a 2+ foot difference, so as they were bobbing up and down, you had to time went to jump onto the boat!

We winched the motor off the dinghy. We were afraid that the winch would give way while we were trying to get the motor off with the rough seas. When we were done, we noticed that we lost our Igloo cooler off the back of the boat. The dinghy was pounding up and down so hard, it must have knocked it off, line and all. We weren’t even sure which way the current was going, so we’ll check for it in the morning. Guess it’s lost. I just hope that no one runs into it.

I took a Dramamine and readied below for the storm. Chuck slept in the cockpit with his harness on, strapped in. I slept in the salon. Needless to say, it was a rough night!

About 3 a.m. I heart glass clanging. It was the bottles of wine and rum on the shelf in the bathroom banging together. So I put towels between them. Also the cookware in the toaster/convection oven was clanging, so I took that out.

The temps here are in the mid to high 70s during the day.

Sunday, Feb. 28:
We were up early because of the rough seas. Winds were 18-23. We are wide open to the Gulf where we are on a mooring. If you look on a map or Google Earth (Maryann and Steve), you’ll see the mooring field at Emerald Rock that’s part of Exuma Land and Sea Park. We’re on E-21. Our name is on the list to move closer to park headquarters, where there’s more protection. But everyone there is staying put because of the weather. Tomorrow should be better, so we’re hopeful we’ll get to move in there before the high winds on Tuesday. We’re looking out at miles and miles of water, so it’s rough.

Around 11 a.m., it calmed down enough that I could make coffee on the stovetop percolator and I made pancakes. I put the clamps back on the stovetop to hold the pots and pans on and gimbaled the stove. We had canned red grapefruit with it for breakfast.

Chuck watched The Beaches with Leonardo DiCaprio on DVD that we rented for $2 in the park office.

We put the motor back on the dinghy and he went searching for our cooler. I thought it was gone for good. But he found it in a cave-like alcove on the bank about a half mile away! There was a little damage, but it is good enough for the rest of the trip!

He came back to pick up me and Jazzy and we went to Butterfly Beach. There was a trail there he wanted to take, and we let Jazzy run on the beach. She had a ball!

It was my turn to cook: pork loins, mashed potatoes, applesauce and peas. The rest of Wayne’s birthday cake out of the freezer was dessert.

There’s no trash disposal, no bathrooms, no laundry and no fresh water here. So we’re being frugal with our water. I’m using a spray bottle of rain water to wash and rinse dishes. The trash is piling up. Luckily, I bought Glad Forceflex trash bags, so I keep shoving the smaller bags into a big bag. We store it in the dinghy at night and in the cockpit in the daytime when we’re using the dinghy. The laundry is really building up too. Everything gets soaked and salty in the dinghy (we don’t always wear our rain gear) and sometimes we walk in the water. Pretty soon we’ll have to tie that outside too.


We’re down to about a quarter tank of water, about 10 gallons, in our tank. We have four 5-gallon jerry cans of water on the deck, which we’ll dump in the tank tomorrow when seas are calmer.
Monday, March 1 
Chuck dumped the jerry jugs of water into the tank, so we have about 3/4 of a tank. That's 30 gallons and it has to last us most, if not all, of the week. Looks like we'll be here for a while. We were listening to all the weather forecasts from different sources and hoping we would get the opportunity to move closer to headquarters for more protection.

We lucked out! At 9 a.m. every day they announce who on the list can move to the north anchorage, a loop by the park headquarters. Bum’s Rest and Sheet Music moved into the mooring field this afternoon. We are the last ball, right near the office and beach, #15. Bum's Rest is on #13. We were thrilled. If we were going to be stuck in the Emerald Rock mooring field, we were going to leave because it was really rough there the other night (too much exposure) and more storms are coming in the next few days. We’re totally safe in here, protected by some islands and a huge sandbar. We'll still have to deal with the winds, but not those rough seas.

It is a three- or four-minute dinghy ride from our previous mooring, but took us an hour to get here by sailboat because of a huge sandbar. We had to go out and around to get here.

It’s funny how deep the water is in a circle, with a huge sandbar in the center of all these sailboats! We take the dogs up on the sandbar at low tide to run freely and play. It’s the only place where they are allowed off a leash.

I wish the park’s Internet service would allow us to post photos. It is so very beautiful here.

After we got settled, we took Jazzy on the beach for a 15 minute walk, then we put her back on Sheet Music and hiked up to Boo Boo Hill. It’s a place where many boaters leave signs on driftwood with their boat name. Near there, we stood over blow holes and felt the air whoosh up as the waves crashed into the caves. (Maryann, it is warmer here. I've been wearing tank tops and shorts).

I’ve taken a ton of photos here, but have no idea when I’ll be able to post. As I said before, Internet is $10 a day and limited use. We purchased Internet for today so we could wish our son, Joe, a happy birthday!

Anyway, we are heading to Bum’s Rest for dinner in a few minutes.