Second verse - Same as the first...

Sea Glass tied up snugly at the

"Beautiful Marsh Harbour Marina

& Jib Room Restaurant"

So today was what you might call a "lay day". In other words, we didn't accomplish much. It was a bit overcast and we even had a little rain.  So, we went shopping for some additional provisions - wandered around Marsh Harbour - and scrubbed the dinghy.

But we actually accomplished quite a bit considering that we were kept awake until four in the morning by the idiots next to us on an old 60' Hatteras sportfish boat who just couldn't let the party end. One of the drunk chicks even managed to topple overboard and the rest of them thought that this was just the funniest thing that had ever happened in recorded history. I finally had to play the crotchety old neighbor and ask them to please SHUT UP! I used to be young once - and I am sure I was an idiot too - but I sure can't remember when that was...

So, Friday was kind of a bust. We had thoughts of taking the dinghy and going to Nipper's Beach Bar on Great Guana Cay, but the weather just didn't cooperate. Then, we have kind of been waiting for Travis (Great Harbour's I.T. guy - and Ken's son) to join us, but he decided it wasn't going to happen until later in the week. We did manage to have a great dinner at Wally's here in Marsh - then wandered over to Boat Harbour to see how the party was going at the annual Hatteras-Bertram Shootout fishing tournament (it was dead.) So we headed back to the boat to catch up on e-mail, phone calls and THE BLOG before we are incommunicado for a few days. Which means we are out of Marsh tomorrow and headed down to the south end of the Sea of Abaco to Little Harbour - home of Pete's Pub. Then, on Sunday, we will make the bash south to Eleuthera and hole up for a night or two in Hatchett Bay.

So, watch the SPOT website. We're on the move again.

Hangin' Out in Abaco

Fred taking a picture of me taking a
picture of him high over Hope Town

An Abaco Sailing Dinghy bobs gently in

Man 'O War Harbour

After several relentless travel days to finally make our way to the Bahamas and gorging ourselves on Jib Room ribs, we turned in early last night. Dawn came with light winds, some sun, and mild temperatures. So we threw some snorkel gear and our cameras into Sea Glass's dinghy and headed for Elbow Cay.

We were supposed to meet up with Spoonbill (our company Great Harbour N47 - and my usual ride in the Abacos) at Tahiti Beach. Captain Ken has a group of folks aboard for a training charter and they stayed on anchor last night at Tahiti Beach so that they could take advantage of the Full Moon Party over at Cracker P's.

I guess they must not have enjoyed the party too much, because by the time we arrived at Tahiti Beach at 10am, they were already long gone and on their way to Little Harbour - home of the famous Pete's Pub.

So, we turned around and headed in to White Sound to wander around at the Abaco Inn and check out their piece of the "space shuttle". It's a 6' chunk of aluminum honeycomb skin from some kind of rocket or missile that fell into the sea nearby at some time in the distant past. Of course, the real reason to go to the Abaco Inn (aside from their great parties) is to check out their beautiful stretch of beach.

From White Sound, the next stop was Hope Town and the candy-striped Elbow Cay Reef Lighthouse. This is one of the very few hand-cranked, kerosene-fired lighthouses left in the Western Hemisphere - I've climbed it 50 times and I never get tired of it. We all climbed the 101 steps to the lantern room where you can go out on the catwalk for a fantastic view of most of the central Abacos. As we left, we dropped a few bucks into the donation box for the lighthouse keepers where the sign says that all donations are "gladly excepted".

Well we had worked up a bit of a sweat going up and down those steps, so we dinghied back across the harbor and climbed a few more steps to reward ourselves with some ice-cold Kalik Lights at Gary's Reef Bar on the beach at Hope Town Harbour Lodge. Of course, Gary was his usual effervescent self, regaling us with stories about his local TV nature show, "Gary the Explorer", and about growing up in Spring City, just south of Marsh Harbour.

By now it was lunch time, so we bid goodbye to Gary and wandered back down towards the harbor looking forward to a great lunch at Harbour's Edge. Conch fingers, Chicken-in-da-Bag and Grilled Grouper were the order of the day.  All washed down, of course, with cold Kalik Light and Sands Light beers.

After lunch, we piled back into the dink and roared north from Hope Town up to Man O' War Cay to walk lunch off. I was on a mission to buy a sailcloth bag for my laptop to replace the very ragged backpack I've been toting it around in. I figured that Norman Albury's Sail Shop would have just what I was looking for. Michael found several bags that he couldn't live without and I found the perfect bag for my laptop. Now the Sail Shop on Man O' War is famous for making nearly indestructible bags out of canvas and sailcloth and stitched with nylon sail thread. These things are nice and rugged - if not the last word in haut couture.

Man O' War Cay is also the traditional hub of Abaco boat building. Although they haven't launched a big schooner since the 60's, they still build some gorgeous fiberglass center console Albury skiffs. There was a striking black-hulled 23-footer under construction in the boat shed and we watched some of the local men struggling to mount the big Yamaha outboard onto the black skiff for a few minutes.  Pretty much everyone on Man O' War is named Albury, but, like all Abaconians, they couldn't be nicer or more gracious.  Interestingly, Man O' War Cay is the only "dry" cay in the Abacos - you can't buy alcoholic beverages there.  However, local legend has it that more alcohol per capita is consumed there than most anywhere else in the islands!  Not sure if that's true - but it makes for a fun story.

Still one more stop on the "2010 Sea of Abaco Dinghy Tour" - Mermaid Reef right outside Marsh Harbour. We picked up a dinghy mooring and then finally cajoled poor Fred into slipping overboard into the cold (for the Bahamas) water. Alas, his mask kept filling with water and he decided to call it quits before he even snorkeled over the reef. Oh well, watching the big parrotfish under the boat was a relaxing way to spend ten or fifteen minutes while Fred dried off - and we headed off back to Sea Glass.

Hamburgers on the flybridge grill is a great way to finish up an excellent day. Tomorrow looks like another relaxing day to maybe reprovision a little bit, get some cash out of the ATM, and make preparations for the next leg of the voyage - to Hatchett Bay on the west coast of Eleuthera. Looks like our weather window for that trip opens up Sunday and Monday.

So, I'm going to close here, pay my bar bill and wander back to the boat for dinner. Goodnight!

Marsh Harbour

Dolphins play in Sea Glass's crystal-clear bow wake as we traverse the Sea of Abaco

After only a couple hours of sleep, we struggled up to the office at Spanish Cay to present ourselves and our papers to Bahamian Customs & Immigration. Although the usual friendly Customs gal, Euline, was on maternity leave, fill-in inspector Tyrell Miller was just as efficient and friendly in getting us "legal" for our stay in the beautiful Family Islands. He even took our breakfast order!

After a delicious and filling breakfast - complete with sweet Bahama bread toast - we cast off lines and pointed Sea Glass towards Marsh Harbour. The much-feared Whale Cay passage was relatively benign - although we did take a few big rollers broadside that threatened to re-open that refrigerator again!

We docked in our slip at the "Beautiful Marsh Harbour Marina and Jib Room Restaurant" about 2:30pm and set-to giving Sea Glass a much-needed scrub down. Of course, klutz that I am, I managed to slip on the soapy flybridge steps and come crashing down onto the deck. I was lucky though, sustaining no damage more serious than a few bruises, a scraped elbow, a sore tailbone and minor embarrassment.

Fred was really looking forward to those promised ribs at the weekly Jib Room Rib Night - and he wasn't disappointed. He and Michael agreed that the ribs were great - but neither would say whether or not they were better than those BVI ribs they had been bragging about. Oh well. To ME, they are the best. Ever.

We'll sleep in tomorrow and then maybe venture out with the dinghy to see what kind of trouble we can get into. We have a couple days to spend in the Abacos before moving on ever southward to Eleuthera and the Exumas. Stay tuned.

Across the Gulfstream

Fred, Relaxing Mid-Gulfstream

Wednesday morning dawned calm, sunny, and clear. Our weather router, Chris Parker, had recommended that we wait until Wednesday afternoon for the best possible conditions. But, never being one for listening to expert advice, I suggested to Michael that we leave immediately for the crossing. Hey, the weather was looking beautiful - and I'm an impatient kind of guy,.  So, at 9:30 in the morning, off we thundered out Lake Worth inlet. Next stop, Abaco.

The crossing went just fine with 2-4' seas on the stern and just a couple hours of 3-5' stuff to keep things interesting. We finally cruised onto the turquoise waters of the Little Bahama Bank at Indian Cay Light late in the afternoon.

For dinner, we had hot dogs and hamburgers, cooked on the flybridge grill, and watched the sun set slowly into the North Atlantic far behind us. Alas, there was no green flash. In its place there was an almost-full moon that illuminated everything on the bank. As we motored steadily towards our destination for the night, Spanish Cay, the wind and seas started to kick up. Well, we ended up taking a couple large waves broadside that finally caused our fully loaded refrigerator to break its keep strap loose and disgorge its contents all over the galley sole.

Can you imagine trying to clean up broken beer bottles, spilled tomato juice, and sundry other foods off a rolling deck in the middle of the night?  Well, it's not fun. At any rate, we finally cruised up to the dock in Spanish Cay at 3:30am, tied the lines, set some fenders, and crashed into bed for a couple hours sleep before checking in with Bahamian Customs in the morning.

It wasn't the best crossing or the worst crossing ever. But, after several false starts, we were finally in the Bahamas!

High winds, lightning & staging to cross

Captain Michael surveys his sturdy vessel from

the dock at Cannonsport Marina, Palm Beach

A huge thunderclap shook us all out of our bunks about 3am as the predicted cold front brought the brunt of a series of violent storms to central and south Florida last night. I have never seen so much lightning in the air, striking all around us with the howling winds threatening to yank us from our ties to the decrepit old wharf at Jones Fruit Dock.

I ran to the pilothouse and turned on the weather station to try to get an idea of the actual strength of the howling winds. Gusts of 30, then 40, then 50, then over 60 knots rocked us against the dock. The highest gust I saw was 66 knots - or about 76 mph! Hurricane strength. Fortunately, the lines held and the dock pilings survived the night's onslaught of stormy weather.

The storm finally subsided and the rest of the night consisted of more lightning and lots of rain. No sooner had we gone back to sleep it seemed than the alarm was going off for us to wake up and get a move on to the south. We finally untied in the rainy pre-dawn hours and set off for Palm Beach, where we planned to stage at one of the marinas near the Lake Worth inlet for a dash across (dash? at 7 knots?) the Gulf Stream to the Little Bahama Bank.

We ran south uneventfully in the rain until about 3pm when the weather suddenly cleared and the sun came out. By the time we tied up to the gas dock at Cannonsport Marina in Palm Beach, it was looking like a typical early spring South Florida afternoon with the clear, turquoise incoming tide and boats everywhere.

We topped up our diesel tanks, flushed out the water tanks, added a Corona (or two) to our personal "tanks" and walked the four blocks to Johnny Longboat's on the beach for a nice, casual dinner.

The winds are currently out of the SW at about 10-15 knots and the seas are forecast to lay down nicely tomorrow afternoon. So, it looks like all the planets are about lined up and we are ready to cross tomorrow starting early afternoon. If all goes as planned, we should cross onto the Little Bahama Bank just about dusk. Then, it's all night running across the Bank in the dark, arriving at Spanish Cay for customs check-in about 8am.

We'll hopefully scarf down some breakfast at Spanish and then move on the final few hours to Marsh Harbour, where we will tie up at "The Beautiful Marsh Harbour Marina and Jib Room Restaurant". Now Fred and Michael insist that the best ribs in all the islands are to be found at some joint in the BVI.  But I have a feeling they might change their minds after sampling some of Chef Marvin's finger-lickin' baby back ribs at the weekly Wednesday "Jib Room Rib Night". I'll report our findings...

110 miles on the ICW when we'd really rather be crossing to the Bahamas

Woke up this morning to overcast skies, strong winds - and the loudest damned Detroit Diesels on the planet. Seems the ancient converted pilot boat/trawler docked behind us was planning to leave before dawn. Or not. He "warmed up" those loud, smoky diesels for about an hour before leaving! Oh well, we needed to get moving anyway.

We did our engine checks, booted the computer, warmed the Yanmars, untied the dock lines and left the dock at 6:45am to cloudy skies and wind.  Sea Glass headed south on the ICW and we all settled in for a long day.

It turned out rather nice though as we relaxed, talked and plotted how we were going to turn this big sucker eastward as soon as the weather allowed.  We cruised uneventfully down the length of the Mosquito Lagoon, through the Haulover, and into the Indian River. I did experience a first for the ICW though, as a flock of eight bright pink Roseate Spoonbills paced us for about ten minutes. Of course Fred and I were so busy watching them through binoculars that I never thought to drag out my camera.

We did have one glitch though as I had built a very extensive route on the nav computer from Haulover Cut (north of NASA) all the way down the Indian River to Ft. Pierce. Now, if you have ever gone that route, you know that the navigable channel is very narrow and makes a lot of turns. So this route has something like 83 waypoints! Anyway, I set my predictor to show what I thought was Ft. Pierce's waypoint as our endpoint. And all day long I was telling the guys that the computer was predicting arrival at Ft. Pierce in time for dinner. The punch line is that I had mistakenly hit waypoint 53 instead of waypoint 83. So we didn't make Ft. Pierce as that would have taken until 10:30pm and we did not feel like running two and half hours in the Intracoastal at night.  It's too bad we didn't make it to Ft. Pierce though, as Wink and Wilma Thornton, aboard their GH47, "John Henry", were docked there. Would have been quite a party...

At any rate, after the Spoonbills flew away, I proceeded to tell the guys about the huge flocks of white pelicans that we would see as soon as we got through the Haulover and into the Indian River. Of course, no white pelicans were to be found. Michael and Fred spent the rest of the day wondering aloud about what I might have been smoking or drinking during the times I claim to have seen white pelicans.

So, rain squalls later in the afternoon led to a calm evening as we pulled up to the very funky "Jones' Fruit Dock" just north of Vero Beach - and about 21 miles short of Ft. Pierce.

Life is good. After a great chicken dinner cooked by Mr. Jackson - and washed down with an excellent Chardonnay - here I sit typing my Blog. The plan is to get up tomorrow, make the 2 1/2 hour run down to Ft. Pierce, head out the inlet and see whether we can make the crossing - or not. If so, next stop, Spanish Cay. If not, we'll continue to Palm Beach and wait another interminable day for our weather window to open back up.

Wish us luck.

Off with the Midnight Tide

Michael, Eric, and Fred ready to cast off from Green Cove

So, after several days of provisioning, last minute repairs, alterations, and upgrades to Sea Glass, we pulled away from the dock in Green Cove Springs at just before midnight, Friday night, April 23rd, 2010.

Sea Glass is a 2008 Great Harbour GH47 with twin Yanmar 75hp diesels. She is a spacious and seaworthy craft with plenty of room aboard for a larger crew than the three of us. She has a 13kw diesel generator, 3kw inverter, two large staterooms, and three more convertible queen berths in the dining area, saloon and pilothouse. She also has three heads. Her tender is a 13' Caribe RIB with 40hp Honda 4-stroke. Her electronics suite is the best available with full Glass Helm, AIS, radar, Single Sideband, KVH satellite, etc. She is equipped for a long voyage away from civilization with tons of spares and an outstanding inventory of safety gear.

Sea Glass's crew for this voyage consists of owner Michael Jackson, his buddy Fred Schmidt and me - the Sales Guy/Charter Captain for Great Harbour Trawlers - Eric Kraft.

Conditions on the 40-mile run down the St. Johns River towards the Atlantic can be best described as "dark". But with the excellent electronics and my knowledge of the many turns and bends of the river (I grew up boating on this river), we managed to miss being hit by any freighters or tugboats and punched out of the inlet into the North Atlantic about 6am.

Dawn came late on an overcast sky. However, the sea was still pretty benign with a light 10-knot breeze out of the southeast kicking up just little 2-footers on our port bow. After piloting Sea Glass all the way down the St. Johns, I gladly relinquished the helm to Fred and Michael so I could get a couple hours sleep in my comfortable watch cabin just aft of the pilothouse.

The afternoon passed slowly as wind and seas steadily began building. After managing to download all the latest weather information, it quickly became obvious that our nice weather window was in the process of slamming shut on us. There would be no Gulfstream crossing for several days.

At about 2 in the afternoon we made the decision to get out of the ocean at the next opportunity. Seas were up to about 3'-5' on the port bow and forecast to increase. NOAA's marine forecasts called for "dangerous sea conditions" that night. So, about 6:30pm we turned Sea Glass west into Ponce Inlet and docked at the Inlet Harbor Marina for some much-needed food and rest. We will start out tomorrow at dawn and work our way down the Intracoastal to Ft. Pierce to make our crossing decision there...