MV Big Smile

Watching the weather forecast helped make our departure decision easy. The best crossing day was Monday which meant we needed to be at Great Sale Cay by late Sunday afternoon.

We had left Marsh Harbor in brisk winds out of the northeast. We had not heard a “Whale” report but knew it would be tough. Since we were towing our dinghy we stopped at Bakers Bay just prior to entering the Atlantic to hoist the dink to the flybridge. No easy task in the now 20 knot + winds. Approaching the Whale we got a call on 16 from a sailboat a few miles behind us. They wanted to know what we saw ahead. We were too far off to offer any immediate advice.

The cut or “Whale Cay passage” has experienced more boating deaths and accidents than all other Bahamas locations combined. It is not to be underestimated. As we made the turn to port from the Atlantic to approach the center of the cut we could see short, steep seas but they were not breaking. An outgoing tide with an hour left to slack did not help. We surfed through the cut safely but it was rough. We radioed back our experience to the sailboat behind. Once through, sea conditions improved and we made Green Turtle by mid afternoon.

Great Sale Cay is a popular jumping off spot for the states. It is a 60 mile trip to Great Sale from where we were anchored at Green Turtle Cay. The ride was spectacular with bright blue skies and perfect northeast winds. We passed two trawlers heading east and then a Gozzard sloop passed all of us.

We were treated to a family of dolphins swimming in harmony alongside our boat. We counted five in all. They stayed with us for about ten minutes and then were suddenly gone. We never saw them again.

Of course we tried our hand at fishing and had great success. Our first catch was easily bested by our largest catch of the trip. We took turns reeling it in and was just in the process of bring it on board when the leader snapped. You can see below the size of the Mackerel we “had” on the line.

We left from Great Sale Cay at midnight on Sunday. The weather forecast was perfect, and spot on, and we crossed the Little Bahama Bank in the inky blackness. Our radar tracked two other boats all night long nine miles off our position and going in the same direction. We did not catch a glimpse of them till well after daybreak.

We made the edge of the bank around dawn. The ride had been incredibly smooth throughout the night and only got a little bouncy when we entered the gulf stream. Winds from the east kept the seas flat.

Along the way we decided to try our hand at fishing one last time before our late afternoon approach to Fort Pierce. And we got a great strike.

We entered the Fort Pierce inlet at 5PM and anchored for the night just south of Harbor Isle. At 8AM we pulled into the lift slip at Cracker Boys Marina and their new 75 ton remote travel lift easily plucked us from the water. We expect to be one week on the hard getting the bottom painted, fluids changed and other minor work before we splash and head to St Simons GA for a six week layover at Morningstar Marina.

Over the last two days we covered approximately 120 miles from West End Grand Bahama to where we are currently anchored at Green Turtle. On the way we tried our hand at fishing. We are complete beginners and are winging it as we go. Prior to leaving the states we bought a great book ” Sport Fish of Florida”. It has 250 pages with beautiful illustrations and descriptions of all the fish we might encounter in our travels. Well it proved its worth in the first two days as we successfully caught, identified, and released three different species shown in the photos below. We are experimenting with different lures and purchased various frozen bait back in Stuart to try out in the next couple of weeks. Next up? Learning how to clean them.

 

 

 

My last day of work was December 21. I had been planning for this day for two years and its arrival seemed anti-climatic. Nonetheless I cherished the moment and looked forward to many good days ahead.

Christmas was around the corner and we hosted the annual Christmas Eve dinner. Twenty Two of us celebrated and all had a good time.

The new year, as planned, was rung in with the usual amount of cheer and “Linie Aquavit” at the Landgrove Inn in Vermont. Linie Aquavit is a Norwegian liquor aged per Norwegian law in oak. Linie sends their Aquavit off on a 19 week voyage in the holds of ships that crosses the equator twice. The spirit sloshes around with the movement of the waves, and the barrels—formerly used to store sherry—swell and contract in extremes of heat and humidity, imparting the character of the wood and polishing the flavor, so we are told. Suffice to say it is strong and delicious.

My two best friends from grade school arrived, one with family and one sans family. I had some volunteer mountain guide commitments at Stratton Mountain during the stretch but everything fell into place and the snow cooperated. We received nearly two feet between Christmas and New Years making for great skiing.

On the 7th Cath and I hopped in the car for a quick trip to NJ to pick up warm weather items. We quickly continued on to Ft Pierce FL where Big Smile had spent the last nine months. Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart FL had reservations for Big Smile from January 12 thru March 12. We had motored down in August to check out the marina and liked what we saw. The plan was to spend January in Stuart and February back in Vermont. I needed to fulfill my volunteer duties at Stratton and Cath needed to finalize the details for our NJ house sale which was to be listed in early March.

Unfortunately a sad turn of events occurred as my brother in law passed away unexpectedly in mid January. He was 57, one year older than us. We flew home to NJ for the funeral and Cath decided to stay to help her brothers wife. I flew back and while it was not the January I expected I enjoyed the marina and the city of Stuart. I had many boat items to attend to as our plans have us leaving for the Bahamas in mid March. In my brief stay at Sunset Bay I met many wonderful boaters all with different tales and agendas. Sunset Bay is a five minute walk to the historic downtown of Stuart. We had planned to see “Gaelic Storm” at the historic Lyric Theater. I went alone and enjoyed their mix of Irish folk and rock music. We will need to return another year to enjoy the marina and city together.

We did have time to do some exploring by dinghy and followed the St Lucie canal up to the first lock. From there the canal takes you to Lake Okeechobee. Crossing the lake brings you to the Caloosahatchee Canal for the trip to the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s now February 9, one day after the “historic” nor’easter. Well in VT it was anything but historic. I was hoping for feet of snow and woke up to 8 additional inches on the lawn. Barely a snowstorm.

Tomorrow I start my month of mountain guide duty and then back to Big Smile.

While not a boat related post we did just spend eight great days on or near the water in Oregon and Washington. Reason for the trip was to attend a wedding in Gearhart, Oregon. Where is Gearhart? That’s what we asked ourselves when we received the invitation from Peter and Shannon. Peter is the son of our Lake George neighbor and friends Bob and Tibby Christenberry. The decision was easy. Sure we will go.

Gearhart it turns out is on the coast approximately 1.5 hours from Portland, Oregon. We flew in on a Friday and stayed at a great B&B in Seaside three miles to the south. The wedding was Saturday at the “Lodge at Little Beach”. While the wind was up and a chill was in the air the setting and event could not have been better. The funky band played for hours under the tent and Cath and I had a blast. Thank you Peter and Shannon. Hope your trip was fun.

The Oregon coast is wet and wild. Just to the south of Seaside was Cannon Beach and Ecola State Park. Cannon Beach had the gray clapboard homes that reminded us of Rhode Island. A long day trip after the wedding took us to Fort Stevens State Park at the very northern tip of Oregon. Standing on the shore one can view the often deadly entrance to the Columbia River. Known as the graveyard of the Pacific the waters around the Columbia River mouth have claimed nearly 2000 wrecks and over 700 lives. On the shore at Fort Stevens sits the remains of the Peter Iredale. Wrecked in 1906 only the skeleton of the bow is still visible. Several miles up river lies the historic town of Astoria. Known originally for its canneries and logging Astoria now hosts visitors for dining and its museum. The Columbia River Maritime Museum is well worth the visit. A small movie theater runs a 10 minute show describing the power and might of the Columbia River and its glorious past.

We spent the next day driving up the Columbia River gorge stopping at every waterfall along the way. As scenic as I had read we were however surprised at the lack of boat traffic. There were some wind surfers and the occasional commercial boats but nothing else. The river actually seemed quite serene compared to the depiction in the movie.

 

 

We spent two nights in Yakima WA. A decent venue for visiting Washington wine country. We were disappointed in the wines of this region as they tend to be Reislings, Syrahs and Cabernets but not much in the way of Chardonnays. Our second day trip from Yakima found us at Mt Rainier. What a spectacular National Park. Rising to 14,410 feet Mt Rainier is the most glaciated peak in the contiguous US. There are several visitor areas and we chose Sunrise, the highest elevation available by car. A long hike provided awesome scenery and the siting of a bear. A couple from Idaho said it was a grizzly but we learned later that grizzlys don’t inhabit this part of the US so it had to be a brown “black bear”.

From Yakima it was on to the Olympic Peninsula for a three day stay at the George Washington Inn. The inn, a replica of George Washington’s Mount Vernon sits on a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The host and owner Janet was wonderful and provided breakfast each morning on a glass enclosed porch with view of Vancouver BC.

 

Olympic National Park rivals Mt Rainier park for its beauty. Over the course of two long days we traveled to the Hoh Rain Forest, took a guided walking tour to learn about Marmots, (groundhogs in NJ) and hiked to Third Beach on the Pacific. Janet had recommended the historic (circa 1916) Lake Crescent Lodge for dinner. We were able to eat on the porch and watch a beautiful sunset. Lake Crescent reminded us of our own Lake George.

 

While it is unclear whether we will ever cross the Columbia River bar on “Big Smile” we did promise ourselves a return visit someday.

For the first time in my career I took three consecutive weeks off. We knew we needed and wanted to take a shake down cruise and decided that early June would work. So we packed up our newly purchased kayaks into our pickup truck and once again drove to Ft Pierce FL. It is a relatively easy drive except for the Washington/Virginia corridor. I think every shovel ready highway project is taking place within 50 miles of the Capitol. We arrived on Sunday June 3 and spent Monday provisioning and getting the boat ready for a quick departure.

Our destination was the Abacos. We had not been there since 1985 when we chartered out of Hope Town. Our goal was to make it to Hope Town before time forced us to turn around.

We decided to run outside down to Lake Worth and cross over from there to West End, Grand Bahama. The 50 mile trip down to Lake Worth was uneventful however we awoke Wednesday morning to a ferocious hail storm. 1/4 inch hail pelted the boat so we waited an hour for a break. The weather was not perfect and Miami radar showed severe thunderstorms looming. I made the decision to go calculating we would be ahead of the next round of storms. Turned out to be correct and we pulled into Old Bahama Bay Marina around 3PM. Storms passed behind us all day but nothing touched us.

Old Bahama Bay Marina is an interesting story. Originally Jack Tar Marina it was renovated and the name changed about 2001. A developer by the name of Bobby Ginn envisioned a $4.9 billion master plan including 1400 single home sites, 4000 condos, two golf courses, and airport and many more amenities. Some  220 lots were sold between 2006-2008 when the bottom fell out of the world economy. Ginn sur Mer as it was called defaulted on a $675 million loan and the resulting fall out has kept an army of lawyers busy. Much can be read online.

Our plan was to spend Wednesday and Thursday night at the marina and take off Friday. Unfortunately a cold front dropped down forcing us and others to sit tight at the marina and watch fierce thunderstorms and cloud to ground lightning pass West to East several miles north of the marina all day Friday. It was a spectacular show.

The extra day did provide us some time to explore and we borrowed two bicycles from the marina and rode for what seemed like miles through the defunct development. Maybe a dozen homes were built but the infrastructure is in place providing a strange riding experience through empty neighborhoods.

 

We finally got underway early Saturday morning. Our first stop was Great Sale Cay. While it is possible to cut off a few miles  by taking Indian Cay Channel our 5’9″ draft and low tide forced us north to Memory Rock before we could turn east to Great Sale. We had a perfect run under beautiful blue skies and reached Great Sale mid afternoon. A phenomenon that occurs in the Bahamas quite frequently is what’s called “Fish Muds”.  Our guide book says that a school of fish will gather, and while spawning, fan their tails near the bottom. This causes great clouds of sand and mud to become waterborne. This creates a false impression of a sandbar or shallow area in the water. On our approach to Great Sale we encountered our first fish mud. We motored around it even though the chart indicated plenty of water. The fish muds can be a mile wide so it took some time to get comfortable driving through them.

 

From Great Sale Cay we motored to Powell Cay arriving mid afternoon. We anchored on the southwest side off a spectacular beach. We were the only boat and we immediately launched our new kayaks. I did not take any photos as I decided to use this kayak excursion to try out the GoPro video camera we had purchased on our way down to the survey last March. It is a superb little device and we had used it during our sea trial. I wish I could upload a video of the bluff we hiked at Powell Cay. Unfortunately when we landed on the beach to snorkel I forgot to put the waterproof back on the housing and immediately fried the camera and SD card. An expensive, stupid mistake. I will replace it though.

However the snorkeling was good and Cath ran into a reef shark prompting her to run from the water. I did not see it but saw others during our trip as they are ubiquitous in the Bahamas. Below is a photo I pulled from the web. They can look scary up close under water.

 

From Powell Cay we continued on to Green Turtle Cay a short 2.5 hour motor east. Green Turtle is home to the Green Turtle Club and Resort and also has a small town called New Plymouth. New Plymouth as two small groceries, a hardware store and importantly a large garbage bin at the public landing dock. We opted to have lunch at the Green Turtle Club and launched the dinghy for the short ride from the anchorage to White Sound Harbor. After lunch we explored Black Sound Harbor and Settlement Harbor eventually landing the dinghy at the town dock. Cath was desperate for an internet connection and we found one at the tiny public library. $2 for 10 minutes. Expensive I thought but it worked.

 

From Green Turtle our next destination was to be Great Guana Cay. Although a short trip our route would take us through Whale Cay Channel out into the Atlantic and back into the Sea of Abaco through Loggerhead Channel.  Whale Cay Channel or “The Whale” as it is called can turn quite nasty and it is important to watch and listen to the weather. Seas were calm for this first adventure through “The Whale” and we pulled into Fishers Bay less than three hours after departing Green Turtle. Fishers is a protected bay just west of Settlement Harbour. There is a pretty beach establishment “Grabbers Bar & Grill” but we had our minds set on Nippers Beach Bar & Grill. To get there required launching the dinghy and motoring around the point to the town dock in Settlement Harbour. Nippers is worth the effort if you have to swim to the town dock. Nippers opened in 1996 and sits above one of the most beautiful beaches in the Bahamas. It is a short walk from the town dock and a very popular destination. We were told by several people that the Sunday pig roast can be a wild time. Nippers also makes a mean frozen concoction worth trying.

 

 

We enjoyed the beach so the first day we decided to stay one more. Two days or 85 degrees and brilliant sun along with miles of beautiful beach is hard to leave.

 

 

We needed some provisions so from Great Guana we motored to Marsh Harbor. I called ahead on the vhf to see if Marsh Harbor Marina could take us for a night and they said no problem. Since we had plenty of time to get there we dropped our speed to 4 knots and trolled with our newly purchased boat pole. We are not fisherman. We had tried several times at 8 knots but no luck. We got one although I have no idea what it is.

 

The owner of Marsh Harbor Marina guided us in and helped us tie off. Marsh Harbor is the third largest town in the Bahamas behind only Nassau and Freeport. It has everything for the boater including, I was told, the largest grocery store in the Bahamas. Maxwells was located on the other side of the harbor so late in the afternoon we decided to walk around the harbor to find it. Big mistake. 95 degrees, high humidity and no breeze made the 1.5 mile walk unbearable. We found another smaller grocery and grabbed a cab back. The next morning I borrowed a bike from the marina and did find Maxwells. It is huge and well stocked so we managed to get everything we needed.

We met a very nice couple from FL who tie up their trawler at the marina for a month. Convenient we guess but no way we could stay more than a few days at a clip when there is some much more of the bahamas to see.

We left the marina at 1PM and were anchored outside of Hope Town, Elbow Cay behind Parrot Cays by 3PM. Hope Town is one of the most picturesque settlements in the Bahamas. Its candy-striped lighthouse was built by the British Imperial Lighthouse Service in 1863. It still uses a kerosene fueled mantle and rotating glass fresnel lens that beams a light visible for up to 20 miles. The town was founded by loyalists in 1785. Hope Town provides two town docks to tie up and we took a long walk through town. The Hope Town Harbor Lodge is a beautiful, small, beach side resort that would fit the bill for any wedding. A wedding happened to be going on that night so all the golf carts were rented and we were not able to see as much of the island as we had hoped. Reason to return.

 

 

It was time to start heading back so from Elbow Cay we returned to Great Guana Cay. I had been monitoring the weather for a few days and knew that the wind had kicked to the northeast. This meant a potentially rough passage through “The Whale”. We were able to pick up the weather report from the Green Turtle Club and a boat had mentioned that the passage was rough. We left Great Guana at 10AM and hit the whale and hour later. It was rough but “Big Smile” handled it well and we dropped the hook at Manjack Cay just after noon. Manjack is a small Cay with several homes. The chart showed a mangrove creek near the anchorage. We launched the kayaks and spent two hours kayaking the shallows and found a small beach on the Atlantic side with good snorkeling.

 

We now had a major decision to make. The weather for the next several days was not looking good. A tropical storm was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico and the winds had shifted to the north creating potentially hazardous gulf stream crossing conditions. Weather models and the forecasts I was receiving from my weather forecaster Chris Parker showed a potential crossing for Tuesday with deteriorating conditions beyond. We elected to make a 70 plus mile run to Mangrove Cay on Monday leaving us a 95 mile run from Mangrove to Ft Pierce over the White Sand Ridge of Little Bahama Bank. The run to Mangrove Cay was beautiful with a following sea. Mangrove provides little wind protection but it does eliminate the fetch of an east wind.

 

We weighed anchor at 6:30 AM. Crossing the Little Bahama bank was uneventful and we saw only two boats in the first six hours. The last weather report we had heard called for ENE winds 15+ with seas 4-6 feet up to 8′. We left the Bank and its 20 feet of water and entered the Atlantic. Seas immediately built to the forecasted 6′. Our course to Ft Pierce had the seas too much on the beam so we altered 10 degrees to the south. I figured that would be a better ride through the gulf stream and once through we could start to head north. It worked and we had only one large wave push us more than I liked. The stabilizers performed flawlessly and the autopilot held course for the 12 hour 15 minute crossing. My last concern approaching FT Pierce was the entrance itself. The wind had been blowing strong from the ENE all day. Fortunately the tide was coming in and we raced though the channel at over 12 knots. By 7PM we were comfortably in our slip at Harbour Isle Marina.

It was a successful shakedown cruise but of course way too short. We spent two days cleaning the boat and packed the truck for the return to “ugh” New Jersey.