PH has left the vessel. Ahhhhh…..
After a great “final” week in the Exumas, exploring those unexplored parts of the Exuma Land & Sea Park we have bypassed on our various passes through over the past three and a half months, we headed to Nassau for re-provisioning and now are headed up through the Berrys toward Grand Bahama (Freeport and Lucaya). That destination provides our jumping off point for the States. Florida, Charleston, we’ll see how far we can make it in our initial passage.
Friday’s passage our predicted NE at 10 was W at 20 plus. A great sail, though beating most of the way. We reefed down at 24 knots and again at 29 knots, but were at anchor at Cabbage Cay - Little Harbour Cay ahead of any squalls. He says beating, I say, it was truthfully quite nice…it went into the edges of some squalls, the sky was a little gray, the sea a little rollier than usual here…it was just like sailing in Maine, and felt quite right all in all. Once we set the anchor, the wind abated, the sea calmed, the evening was lovely for a few hours of de-salting the cockpit and galley (oops, I meant to close that, honey)
Saturday we had a great sail up the Berry chain past Great Harbour and Great Stirrup and around the west side to Bullocks Harbour. Wind abeam almost all day. A great sailing day. And a great fishing day. Four Cero and three Bar Jacks. We ended up with about eight pounds of fillets. No more fishing for a while.
Okay, so I’ll do the shortened blow by blow straight from the log book:
9:20 anchor up;
9:51 Bar Jack beheaded in pail on board;
10:55 Bar Jack #2 in pail;
11:00 #3 Got Away;
12:22 Cero, 21”;
*ACM takes shower after beheading and bagging this one, scales all over his arms – showers on fly seat in aft of cockpit…refreshing!
12:53 Bar Jack #3
1:13 Cero, 18”;
1:27 Another damn fish, Cero 19”
2:06 “Oh shit, the biggest yet” Cero then, “I’m exhausted, I can’t fish any more today”
3:20 Anchor set; he starts cleaning fish. Fish cleaning ends at 5:30! (With another shower – neighbors hopefully averting eyes)
And we are in the calmest grassland bottoms imaginable. And what do we see? Manatees!! Poor Capt. Tuna had little time to raise his eyes with that infamously sharp knife in his hand and seagulls swarming and calling above, but I could linger all afternoon (and did) just lowering my blood pressure watching these two serene sea elephants come up for a bit of air with a mouthful of grass and weeds sticking out of their mouths, then slowly roll over themselves back down for another gulp. Once submerged, a 3 foot mushroom-cloud of sand bubbles toward the surface as evidence of another clump of dinner torn from the seabed. They stayed just off the port and aft side of the boat until sunset…quite a treasure for our memory books.
Finally dinner was made: Spanish rice and lightly battered and fried fish for the hungry workman today. How many recipes can we steal from Gordon’s Fishermen?!?
It was a beautiful evening sky; no brilliant green flash, but a gentle setting of the sun into 80 degree water, over a calm horizon with blues and pinks blending and bouncing off the water and back to the sky. What a split personality we have: oh to be home among those we love again; oh to be here in a safe secluded anchorage in Hollywood weather conditions…….Home and family still wins, but how lucky are we to have the luxury of that decision?
No comments:
Post a Comment