Beach, beach, beach!

Howdya like my Christmas present? At a Christmas eve gathering aboard a Warram Catamaran named Peace (hosted by Annie and Neville), I had chance to admire a conch shell that had its very tip sawn off to make a trumpet of it. I had heard some horns blowing at sunset around the anchorage and was wondering what it might be. Jim told me that the skipper of the boat he helped move from Cornwall to Cape Breton had a conch and blew it at sunset every darned night! Now I thought the owner of this particular conch was a wee bit sauced when he offered me one, and honestly didn't expect him to remember (sorry, Al!) but on Christmas morning, there he was pulling alongside Chelonidae with a red "Santa Sack" in hand. What a lovely gift! So I've been practicing wherever we are a creating a ruckus!
So here's something funny! For the first time ever, one of us forgot to bring the painter (the rope attached to the dingy) up after getting back onto the boat! Ha ha ha ! It started to float out on the tide pretty quickly, meanwhile superJim stripped to the skin (he's always looking for the chance!), dove in and retreived it. What fun!
Many of you had asked what our whole plan was for cruising...you know, when are we coming back? and all that. We're still considering the possibilites, but it looks like we'll be heading back north for the summer. We want to do more coastal-hopping than what we did on our trip down, so planning is underway. But you never know!

Merry Christmas to all!

Well! You can't even begin to guess what we've been up to! A whole lot o' nuthin'! Strolling, beach-bumming, coconut husking (that was actually the most work we've done in a few days!) and lazing about. I'm getting a tan for Christmas!
We're now anchored in White Sound, Green Turtle Cay. Chelonidae is lating for green turlte...cool, huh? We're finally seeing the real Abacos! The pictures of town here are all of New Plymouth, pretty wee thing. Yesterday we went to a service at theEpicsopal church. Nice people! The service seemed so familiar to me; the songs, topic of sermon, delivery of said sermon, the whole shebang...reminded me of my very early Christian days in Calgary. Then the reverend introduced himself as being from Medicine Hat, Alberta, the same part of town that bred all the preachers along the "Bible Belt" of Alberta. Ahah! It was a very pleasant experience.
The beach shown above is where we do our bumming, picnicking and annoyance of the home-owners who get to erect little beach shelters for private consumption. The beaches are all public below the high water line, but we like the idea of shade, so we tend to park in the private areas. The sand is of course beautiful and soft. The swimming is pretty exciting at ebb tide, but we're not dare-devils, so we paddle around at slack water. In the photo's background, you can see breaking water over some reefs. Reefs are only fun in perfectly calm water. James has bought some fishing gear, so I can't wait for him to go out to the reefs and catch me a fish. Yellow Tail Snapper, anyone?
Anyhow, we have all our Christamas trippings and trapping and up, saved some candy canes from last year (delightfully ...um...chewy. Yes, Chewy!) and bought some LED Christmas lights for added cheer-factor! The winter days here are really short, sunset at 5:30, so the more cheer the better! If there are no friends to keep us busy during the evenings, we tend to turn in really early. 8, 8:30! I'm embarrassed. But not tonight! A nice lady has invited the whole anchorage over to her place, a 46' Warram Catamaran, for Christmas eve cheer. Her name is Ann, a salty dog indeed! She single-handed at least two long distance passages, including the same route as we just did from Beaufort, and from Rhode Island to Ireland. And tomorrow, Christmas Day, there is a pot-luck for the whole community. Whee!
So wherever you are, we do hope you have a Merry Christmas! Enjoy yourself, your loved ones (for us it will be love from afar...we miss eveyone!) and Christ our Lord.

The Big Hop

So! The Big Blue Wet Thing. This is mostly what we saw. Sometimes it was dark. Sometimes it was more windy. Sometimes there was a nauseating current. But above all, it was life- changing. We both learned what we are made of, and that we both feel strong and brave. We took eight days to get to Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco Island, Bahamas. We stood watches, lengthening and shorting as the need for the other to sleep became evident.
I have Jim's permission to tell you all that I was not the sea-sick one! As we were exiting the channel from Beaufort, Jim raised the sails. Just as I was noticing a pod of dolphins diving under our ship's sides, sending us off, Jim actually barfed right on them. A Hahahahah! (Yes, we can laugh about it now!)
His acute, and my not-so-dramatic seasickness lasted for about three days, then we got better. driving was good for relieving the bouncy-ness.
Then we were here!
We pulled in to a marina for the first time, just to get a rest and not have to concentrate on anchoring and all that jazz. It was 9am, so we fuelled and watered the boat, then organized some laundry, try to call home, but got all screwed up (due to sleep deprivation) and gave up when the phone line suddenly went dead. We actually arrived three days ago.
Then we went for our first walk in eight days, saw the beautiful palm trees, bougainvaillia, mangroves and different birdies. Marsh Harbour is not exactly a tourist-town, so the town is not "beautiful", although it is a great place to end an ocean passage. Re-provisioning and repairs are easy, and there are lots of other sailors to glean information from on cruising the Abacos.
The Goombay music is lively, rum is cheap and there are pretty girls everywhere. But being shy of all these things, we haven't found out for ourselves yet, just hear the racket across the marina. Thank god we got off that dock, although it was nice having the facilities, and went to anchor in the harbour basin.
Next post, hopefully I'll have some shots of the beautiful beaches and such.
By the way, wirless is indeed hard to come by, especially for free, so there will be prolonged silences from me. Please feel free to hit the "comment" button at the end of each post and drop us a line. All can read the comments and you can comment on someone elses comment...what fun!
The Bahama Mama, signing out.

Bahamas!!!!!

Tah Dah! We made it!
We set out from Beaufort, NC to Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco Island. As my dad put it, we were barfing one day and sun-tanning the next! But after eight days, it was "LAND HO!" and we entered turqouise waters and saw our first palm trees. It took a few days to find wireless that works, the power is frequently interrupted. So, I will be publishing much shorter posts to get as much out to you as possible before the power (and wireless) goes down. Look at the belies in the top picture! We both look pregnant! (although niether of us is...I've learned to verbalize these things)

Beaufort, NC

Just a quick note to say we made it. So we made it!
I think we're finally below the latitude at which there is little risk of frost, snow and chronic depression, so we could happily wait for our fair weather window to make the hop across the pond without freezing to death. We have run into our friends Caroline et Jocelyn, and have made a few more, so we're having a good time. More later when I get some pictures of the wild ponies that live on the island along our beam!

Hello from sunny, although a tad chilly, Ocracoke, North Carolina!
After leaving Annapolis, we sailed down the rest of the Chesapeake Bay. We enjoyed a few lovely, tiny anchorages, most of them tree-lined, some grassed, but all sorrounded by homes.
You could see that developers have made a killing on what used to be pristine fish and gaming land. Still beautiful, but a little crowded.
The first picture is of the Naval Dockyards in Norfolk, Va., an aircraft carrier. That morning saw us pass some remarkable naval sights: really huge ships, some old ones being restored, just mile after mile of industry and military. Next shot is taken after "being released" from a swing-bridge. We were first in line to wait an hour for the bridge to open, hence we lead the charge out. This is what we saw when we looked behind. It sure didn't take long for the power-boats to pass the sail boats! Next is all I could shoot of our 6-dophin-escort. Quite remarkable to have these 8 footers playing alongside the bow! They were breaching and playing, but our boat doesn't go fast enough to create the size of bow-wave these critters really like to "surf" in, so it didn't last very long. The last shot is of a pelican. I wish I could have photographed them in flight, for they are the funniest birds ever! Their huge bills make them look prehistoric and weighty.
As we press on to Beaufort, the weather seems to hold above freezing, I'm glad to have our duvet! We shared an American thanksgiving with some other cruisers, Sue & Corky aboard "Surprise". They were given two Brant geese off Hatteras, and invited us to join them. These are sea-geese, and you could taste the sea in their meat! Corky wrapped them in bacon and barbequed them to perfection, it was quite unusual, but delicious!
More when we reach Beaufort!

Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake has been a lovely experience. At this time of year, that is after the boater's summer season, the anchorages are mostly empty and there is plenty of room in the channels. We have been anchoring in some beautiful small creeks, surrounded by fall colours and seabirds. Getting off the boat for a stroll is difficult when we're nowhere near a dingy-dock, as most towns don't seem to provide them, but I'm pleased to say Annapolis has provided one dingy dock at the end of each street that ends at the water...way to go Annapolis! We actually got kicked off a public beach in another town off the Hudson River, apparently you're not allowed to "launch or debark" from a beach...fine! we said. We'll go. hmph.

The above photos are of Annapolis, the first is , of course, taken while we were leaving the town at sunrise. The autumn leaves were found at the park in behind our anchrage in a place called Spa Creek. Nice dingy dock at the park, too. The last is one funky, fiesty wee light house off the bay outside Annapolis.

We're presently anchored in a town called Hampton, Virginia. Nice spot, but then again, it is very late in the season and likely too busy to be believed in the on-season. So I won't have many pics to post yet, not until the sunrise hits everything just right.