February 3, 2013
Sammy showed up right on time. By the time we got all settled and got bait and stuff on board, we were pulling out just after 9 a.m. Headed on south toward Cat Cay. Gonna try for some Wahoo, Mahi-Mahi, and Yellow Tail. Sammy's gonna show us all the "right stuff" to do to catch us some good fishies! Got on out there, and got some lines in the water, trolling at about 9 knots. And sure enough - we got a fish on the line!!! Sammy and Daniel fighting the fish - seems like a pretty good size one coming in! Got it to the boat and lowered the sea deck to make it easier to land it - and it was a good thing we did that! Danny gaffed and hauled aboard a 50 pound Wahoo! Biggest fish that this boat's ever had on board!!
Sammy had to cut the fish in half in order to fit it into the cooler! Continued on, proceeded to catch a Bonita (tuna), then a couple of Yellow Tails.
Caught a Black Triggerfish, too, but threw him back. We had dropped anchor for a while while fishing, decided to bring it up about noon to start trolling back northward. Uh-oh! Anchor isn't cooperating! Double Uh-oh! Windlass isn't cooperating either! Major "oh shit!" now. . . . Fought the sucker for at least half an hour - seas getting worse all the time (of course). Started the day between 2 and 3 feet, now it's up to 4 to 5 feet. Not good. The anchor chain is slamming the bow pulpit with every bad wave - eventually breaks off the roller at the front. Situation is deteriorating quickly - Matt and I finally make the hard and nasty decision. . . . I cut the anchor line. We mark the coordinates of our location in case by some miracle we can hire a diver to go find it and recover it for us. Definitely a bummer. Start heading back towards Bimini, trolling along the way. Hit one more time - another Wahoo brought on board! This guy was a bit smaller than the 50 pounder, but had a lot more fight in him! After hauling in those 2 big fish, Danny decided he'd had enough fishing - exercised some muscles that weren't quite used to it!! So back to the docks we went. Got in, grabbed some pictures on the dock. Packed it all up, and brought it over to Sammy's fish cleaning station, where he cleaned it all, portioned it out and bagged it all. We took all we wanted (couldn't fit it all in the freezers, or we would have taken it all!!!). Sammy got some, and we brought some wahoo down to Star. We're looking forward to some very tasty fish dinners coming up!!! After the cleaning of the fish came the feeding of the sharks - Sammy feeds the local bull sharks just about every afternoon.
Tonight, we shared a big plate of Bonita Sashimi before heading up to the marina's bar. Oh my - it was DELICIOUS!!!!! OK - on up to the Bar for Super Bowl! And what a great game it was!!! Can't believe the Ravens actually did it - HOORAY!!!
February 4, 2013
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAUREEN!!!!! Internet here has had it's ups and downs - but I'm trying to keep up as best I can. Today was a down day. So glad I scheduled your eBirthday Card ahead of schedule!!
Got in touch with Eslie and Krista Brown of Bimini Hidden Treasures, per Sammy's recommendation, regarding the recovery of our anchor. Gave them some gas money and the GPS coordinates of our anchorage, and they said they'd go diving out there tomorrow. Time to keep some fingers crossed!!
Spent the day walking the beach, swimming in the ocean, lounging at the pool, playing a poolside game of bean bag toss. Another rough day in Paradise . . . . . So upset that we're stuck here another day. (Not!!!)
Well, we have some Wahoo in the fridge - guess we'd better cook it up for dinner! OMG! How wonderful can ya get????? Well, it could have been a little better if the dang propane tank hadn't decided to empty itself halfway thru cooking dinner! Checked it in Miami before we left - had plenty of pressure. Not sure what happened there. . . . Finished up dinner on the grill, so no problem tonight. Hopefully will find a place to refill the gas tomorrow. But the fish was fabulous, so life is still good!!!
February 5, 2013
OK - waking up once more in Bimini, it's gotta be a good day!!! Sammy once more saved our day and brought our propane tank out to be filled. Gotta love that guy!!! And oh, bummer - another day walking the glorious beach and lounging at the pool. A person could get used to this place. Everyone around here is soooo nice - and so polite! Everywhere you go, you always get a smiling "hello" from everyone - and all genuine, Bahamians are a wonderful people! Their children are adorable and so respectful - we see them every morning as they are walking to school. They shyly say "good morning", and some of them come over to say hi to Sailor. The kids walking in what we would think of as "gangs" in other areas, come by you and say "hey, mon! how are you today?". Can't be a more wonderful place to hang out a while!
Late afternoon, the boat that went looking for our anchor showed up - with, guess what? OUR ANCHOR!!! A little worse for where, hopefully we can get it a little un-bent somewhere. . . . Oh well - they found it! Paid them their "finders fee" and gave them a couple of beers. They gave us 3 lobsters and our anchor and chain. Good exchange, I think!!! Cooked up the lobsters for dinner and had ourselves another feast. All in all, another successful day!!!
February 6, 2013
Got up this morning, bent anchor and brocken windlass on our minds. The dock hand came by and mentioned a local maintenance guy that might be able to help us out a bit. Said he'd send him by. Vince showed up and surveyed the problem. Matt and Daniel took apart the windlass and found bent/worn drive pins inside. Took the part over to Vince's shop, and he straightened things out. Matt and Daniel brought the part back, reinstalled it, and got the windlass back to working condition (yeah!!! otherwise, we'd be heading back to Miami for repairs!!). Next the anchor. Danny took the anchor off the boat, and he and Matt dragged it over to the workshop. Threw it on the work bench and took a vice and lead pipe to it - straightened it out as best they could. At least it's usable again, even if there's a little bend left to it. . . .
I'm gonna finish up my log now - it's about 3:30 this afternoon. We're gonna be pulling out in the morning, heading for Berry Islands. Long day planned, about 80 miles or so. Tonight's dinner is gonna be some sauteed conch - a boat came by the other night and we couldn't resist buying some! Still suffering with bad food! Finishing up here to get this published, because I don't know what my internet status will be tomorrow (and it's actually cooperating right now!!). I'll catch back up here as soon as possible!!!!!
February 7, 2013
Left Bimini bright and early today, expecting a long day - 0700 and we're off! Thankfully, the seas were not too unkind, and we made the 91 mile trip to Chub Cay in 10 hours. Bulled up to try to find a mooring ball at Berry Island Club - our guide book said they've got more than 20 of them. And there's a restaurant and bar there. Sounds great! Well, don't believe everything that you read! There were only about a half dozen or so mooring balls, and they were all taken. The couple of free ones had no lines on them. Dam! Screwed! There was thankfully a guy at the "Club" who saw us checking out the mooring balls and he called us on the radio - told us to come on into the dock. Turns out they've removed most of the moorings due to old failing equipment. Our stay at the dock would only be $30 because of that. Plugged into electric, and he said he could only run the electric 'till about 9 p.m., 'cause he didn't have enough fuel to run the generator to do so except sporadically for short periods of time. He won't get fuel delivered for at least a couple of days. And we couldn't get the 50 amp service to work, so we tried for 2 30 amp hookups, of which we got just one to work. Oh - and the restaurant? Closed. Don't know since when. The bar? Stocked, but not open. But they had PLENTY of ice - $8 a bag! Anything in walking distance? 5 miles one way to the local dump, the other way had a bunch of deserted and boarded up private homes, and some bushes. And the docks were covered in bird shit. Wow! Fun place!!! We'll be heading out tomorrow no matter what!!! Made the best of it - had dinner on board, some ham steaks with pineapple, sweet potatoes and green beans. Watched a couple of movies - even though we had to start up our generator just before 9 when the shore power got turned off. Whew! Tomorrow's another day. . . .
February 8, 2013
Walked the dog in the morning and noticed the doors to the "Club" were wide open. Got back to the boat to grab my wallet so I could go and settle up our bill before we pull out. By the time I got back up to the building, the doors were now not only closed, but locked up tight! Sheesh! Went back to the boat, got an envelope and stuffed $40 in it, wrote a note that we had to leave and this should cover our dockage and ice, and went back up and shoved it under the door. So much for that wonderful club!!! Off we go at 8:30 a.m. Quite bumpy on the water today, though it was expected. But putting up with seas of 2 to 4 feet all day seemed better than being stuck another day at Chub Cay! Plus, there's another weather front coming thru - there's no way we wanted to be stuck there for several days!!! Pulled into Nassau Harbor in the early afternoon, docking at the Nassau Harbor Club Marina by 1:15. Oh boy - another one where you shouldn't believe everything in print! The restaurant and bar has apparently been closed for "years" for renovations. The laundry is $3 to wash and $3 to dry (thanks, but I'll do a load in my portable washer/dryer!). They do have a pool however, and as we'll probably be here a few days to wait out the weather front, we'll probably take advantage of that. And there is a new small shopping plaza directly across the street with a decent supermarket, and a bunch of other smaller stores. Not 5 star, but certainly a huge step up from the Berry Island Club!!! Walked up the street to the "Poop Deck" for a late lunch/early dinner, then spent a little money in a couple of marine stores on the way back to the boat. Got some laundry taken care of, and watched a couple of movies (at least we have "real" power here!) before bed.
February 9, 2013
Got up and had some breakfast, walked the dog. Daniel and I are gonna catch a cab and go over to Paradise Island today to go to Atlantis and visit the Aquarium there. What a spectacular place it is! Spent a good couple of hours there, then had lunch and walked thru the little touristy shops nearby. Bought a couple of trinkets there. Grabbed a cab to get back, and discovered that the bilge pump was continuing to cycle on and off (this started yesterday. . . .). Not know what was up, Matt and Daniel opened the floor to look in the engine room (did this yesterday, and there was some water down there, but not a big deal). Crap! Water was over the floorboards down there! This is NOT a good thing! Checked the forward bilge area and found water there too! What the heck is going on? Took a LONG time to get it all pumped out, but they did it - using both the bilge pumps and a manual pump. Then started trouble shooting to figure out what was up - what a pain in the behind!!! I left them for a while during all of this to go over to the supermarket to grab a few things. Came back, and they eventually figured out the water had something to do with us having to switch our holding tank and heads to "overboard" (pump out stations are very rare over here) - it seems that saltwater is somehow coming in thru those fittings and overfilling the holding tank, which then seems to have popped a seal, and all the salt water is overflowing into the bilges. Yuck - gonna have to keep a close eye on that over the next couple of days while we're here.
Well, I have internet here, had to pay $10 for 24 hours of access. At least it seems to be high enough quality so that I can update my log!!! Don't know if I'll be able to get my videos loaded or not, but I'll try. If not here, I'll be able to sooner or later! But I'm gonna get as much posted as I can so I don't fall too far behind. . .
Not sure what's for dinner tonight - someone recommended to find "Fish Fry", so I'll try to google it real quick and see if it's close enough to be able to get to for us. Gonna do that - then maybe see if I can upload some videos later. Gotta go for now though - Sailor's looking for a walk before dark!
