OUR NEW ADOPTED STATE: FLORIDA

BONUS PHOTO Ken as Mr. April for the next Swimsuit Edition



Haulover Canal Bridge in background with Ken at helm of RISING TIDE



Famous Travis Co. hardware store in Cocoa Village; trusty folding bike in foreground



Alligator swimming away from us in the Merritt Is. Haulover Canal


APRIL 19 - 26

Apr 19 Vero Beach in mid-coast Florida is a wonderful pit-stop. There are free buses to shopping, it’s a short bike ride to the beach and the boutiques there. The vegetation is lush. And the showers and laundry at the marina are well-maintained and numerous. The next time we’re there I’ll make sure we get to the city Art Museum. There is also a live theater and a huge park. These last 3 places are all within walking distance of the marina.

Apr 21 We got to see Jim (my brother) and Riko today, and catch up on news since we were in Cape Canaveral area last. We got some mail from home, the first since early January. Jim has always said he doesn’t know why everyone isn’t trying to move to Florida, and this visit is proving him right…….

It’s been 12 weeks (almost 3 months!) in Florida counting before and after the Bahamas. We are enjoying the delightful weather -- it’s been sunny, warm, and the winds are light and comfortable since we returned. There is a lot of wildlife near the anchorages and marinas we’ve been at. Ken spotted a few alligators, mostly one at a time, including one slowly and methodically swimming from dock to dock in Cape Canaveral (Merritt Island). Among the birds we’ve seen this time are pink flamingoes. We haven’t seen many insects (which is good). The water is dark and mysterious compared to the Bahamas, but it’s supporting lots of fish and wild “critters”. If it weren’t for the shoaling in parts of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), we’d be very happy! We have been stuck on the bottom several times since we returned two weeks ago.

Apr 26 Northern Florida along the ICW is dotted with small homes -- fishing camps -- and interesting larger homes. Many of them have docks. Looks like a great way of life! We are now at Amelia Island, the last real estate in Florida before we cross to Georgia. We’re back to motoring a lot since we’re in canals much of the time. We hope to get Ken a net and have him try casting it and getting some shrimp in some of the side creeks coming up.

APRIL 13 - APRIL 18 LOOKING BACK

Carol & Dave (SYRINGA)


Jack & Z (KITE)


Jack & Peggy (FREE SPIRIT)


Ken, Mary, and Neil in Treasure Cay

Tom & Susan (BRILLIANT)


Debi & Mike (LOS GATEOWS)


Apr. 13 We made our crossing successfully and spent two days and nights in Ft. Pierce, FL catching up on sleep and visiting Barry and Susan (SWAN) not far from there at Nettles Island.

Apr. 15 We’ve moved to Vero Beach, and maybe it’s seeing Barry and Susan prepare to change gears (Barry has health issues and so they will be putting their boat in a yard here instead of sailing it back to Massachusetts) but it makes me want to reflect on our trip and our preparation for it. Barry and Susan were mentors for us in January and February, answering a lot of our questions about sailing in another country.

Here’s some of what we learned and what we did that may or may not have been reported yet:

We both enjoy seeing all the various types of sail and power boats that spend the winter in the Bahamas. We have a list of 225 boats and owners that were recorded in George Town, Exumas, this winter. This doesn’t include all the other boats we saw in the other areas of the Bahamas. Ken will spend the rest of our trip quizzing me on each boat that we see on our way back that is familiar to him!

No, we didn’t get tired of wearing shorts or bathing suits and going barefoot everyday. I don’t think there was even one day when it rained for more than 15 minutes and this only happened once or twice. Sun and temperatures in the high 70s were a constant. Yes, we did have too much wind but the Bahamians assured us this was an unusual winter.

In most of the Bahamas they don’t have regular water. They have R/O water which is reverse osmosis fresh water created from salt water. It doesn’t taste very good.
The baked goods in the Bahamas are great: baked bread, coconut pastries, meat pastries. Buying bread, cookies or crackers from the U.S. are very expensive (as is almost everything imported from the U.S. so we stocked up before we came).

We can communicate with other boaters we know on VHF radio easily if they are within 10 miles or so. We can communicate with the boater community as a whole each morning on the Cruisers Net, also on VHF, and find out what’s going on for entertainment, what’s expected for weather, and who needs to share a taxi ride to the airport (etc.). It is not easy to call home. It takes coordination of finding a phone booth, getting a phone card from Batelco before the office closes at 5 pm, remembering to get the dinghy gassed up to make the trip to the other side of the large harbor where the phones are, a separate trip since people we are calling are not home before 5 pm.

Sometimes there are no phones, no banks, no supplies, no conch chowder that night even though it is on the menu. Sometimes there are banks but they only open one day a week. Sometimes you have to hitchhike to the auto parts store to see if they might have the part for your boat engine. But through all this Bahamians are super friendly, trying to make you feel at home, very polite and thoughtful when you need assistance.

We didn’t catch much fish to eat but we got offered just-cleaned mahi-mahi from the dock the first week in the Bahamas, ate some grouper speared by a fellow cruiser, ate whole fried grunt and snapper (skin and all) and wished we had more. We saw thousands of fish while snorkeling, and often were greeted by dolphins surfing our bow wave as we neared a harbor after a long sail offshore.

We have been very close up to sharks, at dinghy docks, near fish-cleaning stations, and snorkeling. We got a “lookie-bucket” and could take it out in the dinghy and see the bottom in any type of water, and also check our anchor with it. There were almost no sea birds around during our time in the Bahamas, but Ken fed the Bananaquit (tiny land birds) with sugar on his palm.

The rum in the Bahamas is good and can be mixed with many different fruit juices and mixers. Having two months to try and find our favorite combination was a daunting task, but one we were up to! We recommend finding a beach bar with “rake & scrape” (local) music playing and all the rum drinks will taste great.

It is a challenge to anchor every night in shallow water and get a good night’s sleep. We never did drag our anchor in the Bahamas but one time spent 2 hours “bumping” on the bottom while the tide was low and the waves choppy. We heard bad stories of boats sliding back into other boats and causing damage. The good news is that the bottom is almost always sand and the results of a boat dragging anchor is usually just moving to another sandy area before the anchor catches again.

The Bahamian experiences that we would definitely like to repeat:

--Junkanoo performance

--Snorkeling (we missed going to the “World’s 3rd longest reef”, in Andros, due to wind)

--Peace & Plenty Hotel or St.Francis Resort, both in George Town. Places to have a meal, access wifi, watch the ocean, and feel good peaceful vibes.

--Sailing from the deep (3000+ ft.) teal blue Bahamian waters to the 10-30 ft. crystal clear turquoise banks in a matter of minutes

BAHAMAS REPRISE

Don't tell our dermatologist about our tans!


View of RISING TIDE from the Canadian yacht FREE SPIRIT


"Waterfront Shack in Man 'O War Eastern Harbor, Abacos


This is being sent from Vero Beach FL -- we made it back on Monday 4/13/09.

MARCH 28 - APRIL 12

We are in our final days in the Bahamas. It seems fitting that we should get a chance to find, again, those experiences that we enjoyed the most while we have been here. So to wind up our trip we have been searching out more local bakeries with Bahamian bread, participating in Bahamian music/food/culture events, snorkeling “one last time“, and relocating some boats that we have seen or known while down here.

March 28 We bumped into people we met earlier in Warderick Wells, Peggy and Jack on FREE SPIRIT from Ontario, and our two boats left Nassau early this day bound for northern Eleuthera. We will only be in one spot in Eleuthera, Royal Island, but going there gives us a good jumping off spot for the Abacos, and we get to check off one more island chain that we have visited in the Bahamas. We had plenty of wind for our sail and wonderful weather. The next day was an early departure since we needed to cover 53 miles -- probably a 10-hr. sail -- and it was a wild weather day with high winds, large following seas added to by easterly rollers leftover from last week’s weather. At the end of the sail as we approached the Abacos, we were greeted by about a dozen dolphins, who stayed by our boat for about 3 miles, swimming up and back and riding the ocean swells and our boat’s bow waves!

March 30 We are spending several days in Marsh Harbor in the mid-Abacos as it is the largest town here and has a very protected harbor. We should see some other cruisers here that we know, and we still have FREE SPIRIT to play with and share stories with. We got back in contact with AQUILA, new friends that we shared Christmas Eve with in Florida and then got separated from when Barb got injured and laid-up a few days later.

April 2 We have planned a side-trip to Treasure Cay, not really a separate cay but on the same island that Marsh Harbor is on. Good friends Mary and Neil Rice have invited us to visit them at their second home there. After a 3-hour sail we found a marina, a well-protected small harbor, and a large number of homes and businesses at Treasure Cay. There is also a 3 ½ mile-long pristine beach and free internet in the harbor. What more could you ask for?

It’s so easy to meet people when you’re with vacationing people in the warm climates! Mary and Neil were already booked the first night we arrived so we took advantage of the Pizza Night at the outdoor bar, part of the marina. We became fast friends with a couple we shared a table with (it was crowded). They had just flown in from North Carolina for a long-weekend in their private plane. It’s the kind of place you can bump into people again, so in the semi-darkness the next night returning from dinner with Neil and Mary in their golf cart, we were hailed by our pizza friends, and saw them again in their boat in the harbor.

We were treated royally by the Rices and enjoyed cocktails on their balcony and a delicious dinner out. We got to discuss Marblehead news and people, and catch up on what children and grandchildren are doing.

Treasure Cay was a little more up-scale than what we have seen in other places in the Bahamas, but one morning we got to experience Bahamian small-town entertainment as the primary children from a local school were dressed in costumes from the Wizard of OZ and were parading through the small shopping area and singing songs from the show. There were about 25 students, and they stopped to act out some of the parts.

April 5 There is more strong wind predicted for the upcoming week so during the short lull we sailed to Man ’O War Cay where there is another very well protected harbor. Most of the cays surrounding the Sea of Abaco are short sails from each other and the Sea itself is fairly calm and shallow. Man ‘O War is known for boat-building and furniture-making. A few days later we sailed to Great Guana Cay. We did meet up with BRIAR PATCH and SERENADE, boats we have been looking for.

April 9 This was a perfect day and we headed north from Great Guana Cay, stopping in between cays to snorkel. It was calm, warm, and the reef we stopped at had tons of fish, fan coral, and other types of coral. I saw a shark, a turtle, and a ray as well as the small brightly colored reef fish. Our destination this day was Green Turtle Cay and the next day we enjoyed a Good Friday fried fish lunch there, put on by the youth group of one of the churches. The fish were fried whole and were served with small sweet banana pancakes. Bahamian gospel music was playing on loudspeakers.

April 11 We’re just about to cross back over the Gulf Stream to the Florida shores (this takes three days of sailing through uninhabited cays). We are hailed on the radio by the crew of LOS GATEOWS. By chance, they are sailing up the west side of the island that we are sailing up the east side of (they are just sending a random radio call)! So, one final meeting and rum drinks with “old” friends, Mike and Debbie and girls, at Great Sale Cay. As we compare notes from the past few weeks, we look forward to being back in the U.S………..