The wind picked up to a solid 20 knots as we left the Allen’s Cay anchorage in the late afternoon and headed farther south to Norman’s Cay following our friends aboard SV Rasmus. Rasmus sailed east out into the Sound in search of Mahi Mahi (which they hooked!), whereas Illusion along with SV Panacea decided to sail west onto the Banks.
We raced Panacea with the wind behind us, fighting hard against the building waves and subsequent weather helm. In such conditions, I usually vote to reduce the sails, because I’ve learned that Illusion does not like to sail downwind. In any sort of seas, it is difficult to maintain a straight course, and with less mainsail up, she is easier to manage. But being late in the day and with Panacea racing off to our port side, we didn’t even pause, and I quickly handed the wheel to Brian.
The waves crashed over the beam, soaking us with salty spray, as Illusion flew over the water, surfing to speeds of 8 knots. Brian had been at the wheel for all of ten minutes when, all of a sudden, we heard a distinct snap. Instantly, Illusion spun 180 degrees back around and into the wind. As Brian turned the wheel with no response, it became immediately obvious that our steering had given out.
Illusion did the best thing she could do given the situation, she hove-to (meaning the head sail blew across the bow, filling backwards with wind and counter-acting the forward wind action of the mainsail – holding us in one place). Meanwhile, Brian tore through our cockpit lockers in search of the emergency tiller. Orange life jackets, bags of extra lines, and boxes of tools, epoxy, and oil piled into the cockpit. Finally, Brian extracted a heavy-duty, L-shaped, stainless steel pole from the depths. Unscrewing a small metal circle in the cockpit floor, he tried to attach the piece to the now-exposed rudder post.
We were shocked to realize that our emergency tiller did not fit. The square end of the tiller was ever-so-slightly too small to fit snugly as it should. Like using a screwdriver on a stripped screw head, it barely gripped the post. With full sails and 20+ knots of wind Illusion would be too much for the tiller (in its present state) to handle. Because we knew we would be dodging a few coral heads on our approach to the anchorage, we fired up the engine, furled the head sail, and dropped the main. Panacea, who was in radio contact with us at the time, slowed down to assist us in the event that we had any additional issues. We motored to Norman’s Cay at a delicate 4 knots and managed to safely drop anchor just after the sun set.
The next day, Brian pulled out the steering chain and discovered a broken link. After radioing the nearest marina, and researching via the phone, we came to the conclusion that, due to our remote location, we would be unable to locate a replacement. So with much patience and determination, we set to filing down the inner edges of the emergency tiller until it finally fit over the rudder post. As our friends snorkeled a wrecked sea plane, the crew of Illusion worked on boat projects. At least at the end of the day, there was a nice big fillet of Mahi to eat in the company of good friends!
As an Aquarius living in the Northern Hemisphere, my birthday has always fallen right smack in the dead of winter. When the cold winds blow and car windshields are frosted, after the hustle and excitement of the winter holidays, and the red-and-pink Valentines have all been exchanged, I am adding a new year to my twenty-some years of existence.
Just days before my birthday we were holed up behind Rose Island, to the east of Nassau, waiting out another cold front, but when the north winds ceased their blowing, we set Illusion’s sails on course for Allen’s Cay in the northern Exumas. Soon we found ourselves weaving across the banks as we dodged the prolific black circles of coral heads. The sun allowed us to pick our way through the turquoise waters with ease.
Allen’s Cay made for a few sleepless nights in a small, crowded anchorage, but it also made a beautiful background for my twenty-seventh birthday. Allen’s Cay is small island amongst a cluster of other small islands, and due to its size, the anchorage in the middle is small, protected from the wind, but not the strong currents that swirl in between the islands creating a whirlpool effect. Brittany and Scott made me two (not one but two!) apple cakes, one consumed at breakfast and the other after a small birthday gathering later that night. Later, I spent the day wandering around the island with Brittany, my camera, and an impressive number of large iguanas, while Brian and Scott worked on our jammed genoa furler (birthday priveledges made me exempt from boat work, cooking, and cleaning!) And, as if a beautiful Caribbean island wasn’t enough, to complete the celebration, our friends aboard SV Panacea and SV Pirat sailed into the anchorage that afternoon, so we all gathered aboard SV Rasmus for Brian’s made-from-scratch pizza and sangria.
What a beautiful day!  (lots of smiles from this girl)
*And yes, I know that I am almost exactly a month behind on my posts. I’m blaming it on the internet, which is totally unreliable in these parts (the islands), and the fact that I am working on some new art projects – exciting! Bear with me, and we will relive all the exciting adventures in slow motion together via my slow internet connection.  I have some spectacular photographs in store for you!
It is a running joke aboard our boat to pronounce our boat’s name, Illusion, as Illooooosion and to occasionally sing Gob’s magician song (from the old TV show Arrested Development) as we approach our boat in the dingy. So you can only imagine our excitement upon finding this little gem just down the street from the dingy dock in Nassau. Although we did not pop into the actual establishment (we were not sure that it was still in operation), we did pass this sign on multiple occasions, pausing once to snap a photo.
We wandered along the waterfront streets, passing conch vendors and liquor stores, all the way down to the cruise ship terminal, where we visited the Straw Market. Mainly targeted at the hordes of cruise ship passengers passing through the area, it seemed a bit more staged than I remembered it as a fifteen-year-old visiting with my parents, but Brian and I did buy a sweet pair of hand-carved wooden Bahamas mugs (made in the Philippines – of course). At the Green Parrot, we sipped on ice-cold Kaliks as we typed out emails (and a blog post) and stared out into the harbour.
We spent most of our time provisioning for the Exumas, but one night, along with SV Rasmus, we joined up with another boat of young cruisers aboard SV Panacea and headed over to the casino Atlantis. Due to our tight budget (aka non-existent extraneous funds), Brian and I wandered around the labyrinthine aquarium downstairs while our friends played the nickle slots upstairs. We meandered through the maze of glass tanks that towered above our heads and dispersed blue reflections of light around our feet. The dark shapes of rays, sharks, tuna, and jacks slid silently by. It was late and the staff began turning off the lights of the exhibit. Jellyfish glowed neon white and blue in their dark tanks, and a man with a flashlight spotlighted a tiny seahorse exhibit for us to see.
It was quite a juxtaposition: the serene aquarium winding through man-made caves below a music-pumping dance bar and cathedral-like space filled with slot machines, gambling tables, and smartly dressed, intoxicated men and women. The Bahamians are not allowed to gamble at Atlantis. I find it interesting that the most extravagant architectural structure in the Bahamas is a casino that the locals cannot enjoy. Not that the small brightly painted, cinder-block houses and wooden cabins are any less appealing to my visual perception and taste. But it seems to me an accurate metaphor for the whole Bahamas: the big hotels come to the islands to build extravagant, all-inclusive resorts that pamper and impress visitors, while many of the islands’ local populations persist by humble means. The guests of the big resorts ooh and aww over the views and complain about the room service, while the tiny local communities subsist on brackish water and generators. Greeting everyone with a bright smile and a big hello, they welcome us all to their home and country.
And having arrived on a boat, I know that there is a whole underwater world of fish and plant life swimming below my feet even at this very moment. Expansive and silent, it operates on its’ own imperatives, while we humans talk politics and sip rum on the sandy shores.
Scott dove into the water and swam over to Illusion sometime around mid-morning. We had just seen him pull up a huge orange starfish from underneath his sailboat, Rasmus, to show Brittnay. The wind generator was cranking out power to the tune of about 15 knots of wind, and Illusion was bouncing about the small choppy waves. Brian and I debated whether to put the dingy, which we had stowed on deck, into the water or blow up the kayak and paddle to shore. Convenience told us to take the dingy despite the added difficulty of performing said task in windy conditions – call it a mini-adventure if you will.
We picked up our friends on Rasmus before heading into the little cove beach that was our nearest shore. With four people aboard, it was a wet ride, but we were prepared in our bikinis and swim trunks. Masks, snorkels, and blue flippers lay scattered about our feet in total disarray. When the water became clear and sandy, we stopped the motor, pulling it all the way out of the water before proceeding with the paddle. It was only a short time before the bottom was sliding through sand, and we all jumped out into ankle-deep water. To our dismay the beach was littered with trash. Brian and I wandered a short distance, crossing behind the beach to a salt pond fringed with mangroves and white birds. Mangroves also marked the far end of the cove, spewing their tanic acid into crystal water like brown dye. We wandered back up the beach where Brittnay and Scott were already paddling out.
I pulled on my mask and snorkel for the first time of the trip and yanked on my flippers. Brian splashed into the water with his yellow Hawaiian sling to join Scott on a lobster-hunting expedition. I waded out until the water splashed against my stomach before gliding all the way in. Underwater the ground appeared porous, sand dotted with small rock holes and some sea grass. The visibility was low due to our proximity to the beach where the waves churned up the sand. At first I didn’t see any fish, but then out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a pair of jacks darting behind me. Slowly I began to pick up on the small snappers that hid in the holes along the floor. It was only a matter of time before Brian had speared one. Brittnay found a spotted lobster in a hole and Scott speared it. With a couple of snapper and the lobster, we quickly realized that we were looking at dinner. We have much to learn about fishing, but we know not to take more than we can eat. In this beautiful environment, it is hard to waste anything.
Illusion and Rasmus sailed out of Bimini and rounded the North Rock onto the Bahama Banks, where the water remained a cool turquoise color (indicating a uniform depth between 14 and 25 feet) for a day and a half. We enjoyed a brisk, wet sail the first day and weighed anchor behind the Mackie Shoal at sunset, more-or-less in the middle of nowhere and totally surrounded by water. We were secluded, so far from civilization, yet anchored in the middle of a large shallow shelf of water in the Atlantic Ocean – a water wilderness. The silence was total, save the splashing of waves against our hull, and the sun set with a magnificent fiery glow. Above our heads, stars began to populate the black night, and the Milky Way Galaxy appeared in a sky bereft of light pollution. We crawled straight to bed feeling salty and tired.
The next day we planned to cross into the Tongue of the Ocean through a narrow channel located between Andros and the Berry Islands. Knowing that the best place to catch fish would be where we crossed from shallow water to deep, Brian put out two fishing lines. About halfway through the channel, Brian put a stinky piece of bonito on one of the lines. It had been given to him by a man in Bimini. In no time at all the lines were whizzing, and the fish were biting – and by fish I mean barracudas. Brian caught two in a row….oops! The first, smallish in size, freed easily, but the second barracuda was much bigger, and he was feisty! Brian hauled him up alongside Illusion and pulled him up with the gaff. His teeth looked like big canines, and he ferociously bit Brian’s pliers as he tried to rescue the the hook. When the pliers didn’t do the trick, Brian ran down below and pulled out his longest screwdriver. Using it as a lever against the top jaw, he finally managed to pop out the hook. We did not keep the barracudas, but we did keep the two jacks and a mackerel that Brian caught during our approach to the Berries. And they were delicious!
Back at Coconut Grove, another cruiser advised us not to skip Bimini (we were considering traveling straight across to Nassau at the time). Don’t miss Bimini, she said, the vibe is quite different from the rest of the Bahamas. It’s true. Alice Town feels like a border town, but the people are friendly and Charlie’s coconut bread is amazing.
We walked the two blocks to the western side of north Bimini in search of Charlie’s house. Along the way we asked several people for directions; everyone answered us with a smile. After weaving past strings of drying laundry, past a beautiful white-washed church with a sign that read: The best vitamin for a Christian is B1, and accepting a tiny straw gift from a sweet little seven-year-old Bimini kid, we finally found Charlie’s house, identified as such by a hand-painted sign in pink lettering on the side. Brian pushed open the door and walked into the living room of a modest family home. A woman on a telephone waved us to the back kitchen, where wafts of sweet coconut bread met us and a man with a big smile pulled loaves of bread out of a small domestic-size oven.
Charlie! Brian said. We hear your bread is the best in town! With a shy smile, Charlie laughed and said, oh yeah, I’ve heard some people say that, too. Ten beautiful golden loaves covered his kitchen table, cooling in the open air, as he pulled five more out of the oven. Sometimes, he told us, he woke up at 4 am to begin his baking for the day. We bought two loaves (one for us and one for our friends Brittnay and Scott on SV Rasmus), and took a different route back to the boat. Along the way, we decided to stop in at the Dolphin House.
The Dolphin House is a beautiful stone house, built from the ground up according to the artistic vision of Mr. Ashley Saunders, a local artist and the town historian. He shook our hands and showed us into his shop. Amidst the beautiful conch shell and dolphin mosaics, we found ourselves staring at relics and trinkets of by-gone days. The man himself had authored several histories of the island and impressed us with his knowledge of the island and each new relic that we looked at. If we had a few extra days to spend, we probably would have paid the $2 fee to check out the rest of his house and the art gallery that resides upstairs.
We stepped back out into the bright sunlight and carried on back to the dock. After lunch and an afternoon of relaxation (sampling a six-pack of the Bahamas beer, Kalik, aboard SV Rasmus), we ventured out again in search of a cheap bite to eat. We walked several miles of dirt roads, talking and inspecting the hand-written menus posted outside of a few little shacks. I wanted to try some conch fritters, so after a while we finally decided to test out one of the small restaurants. The woman behind the counter informed us that she was out of conch fritters and fish fillets. Hmm. Well, we would just have to carry on then. Before we left, she told us to keep walking for “a block” – meaning another mile or two – at which point we would find a woman cooking conch fritters. Dogs roamed the streets and golf carts whizzed past us on the way to the town baseball field, the happening place on a Friday night. Just as we were tiring, a man pulled over in his golf cart and offered us a ride.
In minutes, we found ourselves standing around an open fire, ordering $3 conch fritters, lobster, and a fish fillet. There was nowhere to sit, but we loaded our paper plates with condiments laid out on a plastic table, while we chatted with the woman behind the grill. Cars pulled up and golf carts stopped by to place orders on their way to the baseball field. Another woman lounged on the bumper of her car, keeping the cook company during her nightly cooking forays. They were the best conch fritters I have ever had, full of greasy goodness and topped with a secret sauce. De-licious!
We left for Bimini from an anchorage just outside of No Name Harbour on Key Biscayne at 4 am last Thursday. SV Rasmus (our buddy boat for the Gulf Stream crossing) has a good post up about finding the right weather window for the crossing. Basically, we had to wait for light winds without any northerly components, because north winds can kick up nasty choppy swell as they fight against the strong currents of the Gulf Stream that run north up the eastern coast of the US. Lucky for us, we had an easy crossing and just motored the whole 45 miles to Bimini.
As we sighted Bimini from the ocean, Brian’s fishing reel began zipping out behind us. We had been trolling across the Gulf Stream all morning, even passing through a school of feeding skipjacks at one point, with a few bites, but little in the way of luck. Then, suddenly, Brian had something on the line. Brian reeled it in as I slowed Illusion down to a crawl. When he finally gaffed the fish and pulled him on deck, we stared down at a beautiful neon-blue stripped skipjack tuna. Well, it wasn’t a Mahi, but he was a fat little fellow!
A few miles later and we had caught up to Brittnay and Scott on SV Rasmus, and the water quickly changed from a dark indigo blue to turquoise, which indicated that we were in shallow water. Although the channel was clearly marked, we could see that there was a sandbar off our port bow, which extended a short way into the channel. When SV Rasmus radioed back to say that they were in 5 feet of water, I scrambled up the ratlines to get a better view. Thanks to our new rat lines we found safe passage to the right. Our depth sounder hit 7 feet as we hugged the beach and followed Rasmus into Bimini Harbour.
Brian and Scott checked us in with customs, and we quickly set to grilling up some fish tacos and enjoying the view of the clear water beneath our keel.
Our mooring outside of the Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove placed us a short distance from a few small barrier islands called the Picnic islands – aptly named due to a number of well-maintained picnic tables found in various locations throughout the small islands. One beautiful sunny day, as Brian and I prepared for our Gulf Stream crossing, I pumped up our inflatable kayak and paddled over to the closest island to varnish the steps for our rat lines (better than getting varnish all over the deck!). Between applications of varnish, I took a leisurely stroll along the sandy pathways, where I found coconut-lined paths leading to rocky beaches and an awesome stone-lined fire pit. It was beautiful and practically our backyard!
Although rat lines seemed a bit like a non-priority amongst our other important preparations (provisioning and mounting our solar panels), they have already proven their worth. As we felt our way into the Bimini channel last Thursday, Brian manned the wheel, and I climbed up the rat lines to sight the shallow waters. Because the water is so clear in the Bahamas, you can literally see the sandbars and reefs. The rat lines gave me a nice little aerial perspective – the lay of the waters – around Illusion and allowed us to avoid some pretty shallow shoaling at the entrance. Additionally, our bathroom-garden project has provided us with many tasty and fresh herbs. It sure beats buying them at the cost of a pretty penny!
When Brian and I finally made it down to Biscayne Bay and discovered that we finally reached the good weather, we decided to stay put for a few weeks. Neither of us had ever been to Miami, and Brian needed put in a few weeks of work from the boat before we cross to the Bahamas.
We probably wouldn’t have stayed so long, if we hadn’t liked it, but we were immediately enchanted by Coconut Grove, a neighborhood of Miami. Since we knew we would be staying in the area for a few weeks, we decided to pick up one of the 225 mooring balls available through the Dinner Key Marina (owned by the City of Miami). This way, when a nor’easter blows through (about once a week) with 25-30 knot winds, we don’t have to worry about our anchor. Not only are the mooring balls offered at a decent price ($20/night), but they have a reasonable monthly rate, a shuttle service for the mooring field (oh yeah!), and are conveniently located in lovely Coconut Grove.
When I say that Coconut Grove is lovely, well that just doesn’t capture it. A small neighborhood south of Miami, it is lush, verdant, and vibrant; filled with sidewalk cafes; old walls; and streets lined with palm and banyan trees. The architecture features vibrant mosaic tile, organic shapes, and iron trellises supporting vines of blooming flowers, a la Gaudi style. Parks line the waterfront, one green way connecting to another, winding between yacht clubs, city hall, a Fresh Market, and cool outdoor bar. Everyone seems to be out and about, jogging, biking, walking, and – you bet – lots of sailing. Coconut Grove reminds me of many places, to be more precise a mixture of Barcelona, Sorrento, St. Augustine, and Annapolis?
And it’s just so convenient here. The mooring field definitely sticks out into the bay, but while that can make for an extremely long dingy ride, it also makes for quiet nights. Even better is the proximity and view of the city at night. With it being so close, well, you can just pop into the city, and it is only a short drive from Coconut Grove to Miami Beach, where the night life is vibrant any day of the week. Or, of course, you can just hang out in mooring field and feel like you are in another world altogether. We are definitely enjoying the best of both worlds here!
The truth about cruising south down the eastern coast of the United States is that, unless you go offshore, there isn’t much room for sailing. Not that you need much room if the wind is blowing in the right direction, but traveling south along the serpentine ICW means motoring – alot. There are many cruisers who travel offshore to the islands from Norfolk, VA, and more who sail from Beaufort, NC, but you have to go way out to sea to avoid the capes and shoals of North Carolina, and Illusion wasn’t ready for that kind of trip. So you can imagine our excitement when we arrived in Biscayne Bay and realized that we can sail again, and just about anywhere we like. Why Key Largo isn’t even all that far; we could sail there in less than a day!
We took advantage of the sailing opportunities several times after our arrival to Biscayne Bay, and even spent a few hours testing out the windvane – since we haven’t quite figured out how to set it right (sometimes it works perfectly, but other times it won’t hold our course). Since our arrival, I’ve discovered that the USA sailing team trains in Biscayne Bay in the winter. While we were anchored off of Key Biscayne, Illusion found herself in the midst of one of the training courses. In pairs, small sailboats cruised towards us, darting past on either side of us, pivoting around their marker, and simultaneously hoisting their spinnakers. Brian was working from the boat that day, so I laid out in the cockpit, soaking up the rays with a book in hand, watching and snapping a few pictures – although perhaps I should have been taking notes?
|
In early 2009, I moved onto an old Chris Craft sailboat with my boyfriend, and I decided to become an artist. This blog chronicles the pursuit of my dreams, exploration, travel, and art.
Join me for the adventure!
|
