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Cruise Day 5, Thursday July 8th
We were up relatively early to start to pack up and get out in the
Atlantic for the big “cross over”. Salty just about “missed the
boat” literally! Barry had all the lines off and was ready to
get on the boat to move out of the slip when I noticed Salty was
still laying down on the dock – he had to jump on real quick
while Barry held on to the last stern line. Needless to say,
he’ll be going back to his “docking harness” no matter what from
now on. We were at the fuel dock but 8:00 am, Barry check us out
of the Marina and we were off in the channel to begin our cruise
across in what looked to be very calm water. As we were heading
out we managed to get behind a monster of a mountain freighter
being escorted out by the Marine Sheriff that slowed us down
more than we wanted. However, we were well underway by 8:30
am and we were indeed in water like glass. Not really
knowing this, I took a Bonine this time because the last time we
crossed over it got very rough half way to the Bahamas and I
didn’t want to fight with that nasty nausea feeling – proved to
be a big mistake as the water was awesome, only 6” – 1’ light
little waves so all I did was manage to put myself into a sleepy
stupor for the rest of the day and evening. Of course all the
time we were cruising I kept thinking “the water is great and
how did we manage to get perfect boating weather”, but of course
you can NEVER say that out load because as soon as you do,
something is going to go wrong. By 12:30 pm we were entering
the channel to Old Bahama Bay, West End on Grand Bahama
Island and in our slip by 1:00 pm. This not only was the perfect
cruise across the Gulf Stream and Bahama Banks, it was the
perfect docking as well. We got all hooked up and then began the
lengthy process of filling out the Customs and Immigration
forms, duplicating information from form to form, forking over
our $300.00 and then having to explain to the Immigration guy
why we didn’t have the Importation Permit for Salty. He was none
too impressed and even though I had proof that I had applied and
paid, he was not satisfied and felt we needed to contact the
office where the application had been sent and get a fax copy of
it. Barry said “yeah, yeah we’ll do that” (yeah right) and we
completed the clearing process. Funny you can have a whole
arsenal on board with no permit but you can’t have a dog. Duh.
We took Salty into do his thing, sat back, had a drink in hand
and were then able to say “we just experienced our first boating
day”! There are some huge boats in this marina – some with
actual “crews” on board but this year, we are playing with the
big boys too. One old couple were on a 56’ Sea Ray and as they
were pulling away from the dock, Barry noticed he still had one
stern line hooked on the dock! The guys on the dock started to
yell at him and thankfully his hearing wasn’t as bad as his
First-mate’s ability to take care of the lines - I thought “man,
is she ever in trouble” – better her than me! Barry made some
calls back to the office to check up on business and made a call
to Billie-Boy Chalmers who is anchored off close to Spanish Cay
where we will be joining them in a couple of days. After lazing
around and reading a bit (me trying to keep awake) we walked
over to the beach and Salty had a ball – as soon as he smells
that ocean, he charges right in to swim around, run up and down
the beach and hang out with us. I was glad to see that the
people on the beach were very friendly and didn’t mind Salty
being around, not that he’s a nuisance by any stretch of the
imagination. He’s gotten strange in his old age and doesn’t
really like strangers touching him – he’s snubbed more than one
friendly face in his time. Old Bahama Bay is a beautiful spot
with Villas, big disappearing edge pool (which was way too warm
to go in), walkways, beautiful landscaping, the smell of
Gardenias in the air and lots of grass for a Salty old dog to
run and play. Nobody seems to mind him being off leash here and
he’s a happy guy for that. The only bad thing is the bugs - “no
see-ums” and “horse flies”, nasty little and big critters. How
do I smack a horse fly off of Salty’s back without him thinking
I’m smacking him? I decided I’d try to drown them but the little
beggars just flew out of the water half the time. We went back
and hosed Salty down then went to the restaurant for an
absolutely wonderful dinner. The Bahamians sure do know how to
cook as we experienced last year and will no doubt have the same
fine culinary experiences this year. Unfortunately, we’ll be “on
hook” for a number of days and I’ll have to cook but, oh well,
can’t be spoiled all the time. Met a bunch of people on the dock
after dinner that were sitting out socializing and as all
boaters will do, invited us to join in on the fun. If we were
both not so tired, we would have as Salty was having fun
socializing “on his own terms” but alas alac, we declined and
said maybe tomorrow night.
Marina Day 6, Friday July 9th
Had a great sleep and it was nice to wake up to the calm aqua
waters of The Bahamas. I think Salty is already on Bahamian time
as he was a big sluggola on his walk in the morning. Barry
changed out the cable wiring as the cable reception wasn’t
working and after messing with a couple of different cables
found one that actually worked – can’t be without cable now can
we? Even though we have only turned the TV on once since
beginning this adventure, cable wouldn’t really be missed as our
good friends Pat and Jerry loaded us up with lots of videos,
including the whole Soprano series. I will spend most of my
mornings writing this epistle and downloading/resizing pictures
for the duration of the trip as I have learned through
experience that the old memory just isn’t what it used to be.
Salty and I went to the beach on and off during the day and
generally had a nice relaxing time, however, Barry was on the
satellite phone trying to get one of his client’s lender to do
his job in order to meet the closing date. He spoke to the
lender several times, his client several times, Title Companies
(our own and “theirs”) and our assistant Jeanne and at $1.09 a
minute, the lender had quite the nerve saying “well, I’m at
work, I’m not in the Bahamas”. Well, if he had been doing his
work, Barry wouldn’t be on the satellite phone all day trying to
fix what he messed up! At one point, I believe about the 6th or
7th time he spoke to him, George Pasture didn’t even know who he
was speaking to – hello! Barry will get it closed, even if he
has to lend his own personal funds to do it – we already had the
office here fax off a request ($5.00 a page) to transfer our
personal funds to M.T.C. Title Company to be used if need be (a
loan of course); now, that is going the extra nautical mile.
Whatever you do, don’t ever use Breeze Mortgage; our good friend
Janie Wilder at Florida Sunshine Mortgage would have had this
thing under wraps a couple of weeks ago. So, after all that
commotion, we will be ready to settle down to my last
“restaurant” dinner in the next 4-5 days when we head out
tomorrow to “hook up” with the Chalmers outside of Spanish Cay,
close to Cooperstown. As we sat and discussed how long it would
take us to get to Spanish Cay and “fuel”, we couldn’t really
remember how long it took us the last time (remember the memory
thing?) and I said, “well it’s on the computer” to which he said
(surprise) “go and check it out’ – me and my big mouth. Ok, so I
go and check last year’s story and lo and behold, it will take
about 5 hours on this boat – wish us luck. The guys docked next
to us arrived with their “catch” and I couldn’t believe they got
so many BIG fish in such a short period of time – fishermen,
indeed! We went to the restaurant again and had a horrible
“Manhattan”, so bad we couldn’t even drink it (now that’s bad)
but the dinner was every bit as good as the night before and
every bit as expensive.
Cruise Day 7, Saturday July 10th
We were up relatively early and cleaned up after a night of heavy
rainfall – the first rain since we left, packed up and were out
of Old Bahama Bay by 8:45 am. It is VERY shallow for the first
half hour at least and when you start to read 4’, 3.5’, 2.9’ on
the depth sounder, you start to get VERY nervous. However, we do
know that there is another foot under that 2.9’ so all is not
lost (yet). We discovered that the Navigation doesn’t work that
well when we are going slow and so Barry had to steer us out of
there manually then put the boat up on plane and finally get us
on our way. Again, the water is like glass and it was a great
run to Spanish Cay where we went in to fuel up before heading
off to our anchorage where Bill, Jackie and their friends Bill
and Donna anxiously await our arrival (ha!). We passed the
famous “Center of the World rock” on our way to Spanish – don’t
know why it’s called that as it is just a goofy little rock
sticking up in the middle of no-where just waiting to crack some
unsuspecting boater’s hull. We arrived at Spanish Cay at 2:00 pm
for fuel and are we ready for the first “Bahamian” fuel bill?
NOT! We fueled up 312.7 gallons for the paltry sum of $960.70! A
monster generator is great and so is air conditioning but as you
see, there’s a price to be paid for luxury. We called Billie-Boy
on the radio “Salty Old Dog to Kairos”, get ready, we’re on our
way. It took just about 10 minutes to get to the anchorage and
Bill came right over in the dingy to supervise the anchoring –
not that he had to, I just think he was excited to see us! We
were anchored at 3:30 pm and as the guys sat drinking a beer and
yakking about boat stuff, Jackie was none too impressed that the
visiting had begun without her. “Kairos to Salty Old Dog” what
do you think you’re doing visiting without me – of course to
that Bill said he was helping Barry with a steering problem –
yeah right, get the hell over here and get me! When they came
back over, Bill brought his diving gear to check out the anchor
(gotta love those sailors) and as he is doing his good deed for
the day, Barry somehow let his dingy go and there it is floating
away into the sunset. Good thing Bill had his fins on cuz Barry
wasn’t about to jump in and go after it. What I can’t figure out
is why Barry wasn’t in big time crap for doing that – if it had
been Jackie or I who let the dingy go, we’d still be hearing
about it! Jackie brought over three beautiful shells they had
found on the beach the other day – all cleaned off and bleached
– what a wonderful present. Bill and Barry took Salty over to
the little island – lots of sandy beach for him to run on – he’s
going to love it over there! I made a nice little roast for
dinner and then Jackie and Bill, Donna and Bill (the Mathison’s)
but we call them “The Walkers” because their boat’s name is
Windwalker, came over for cocktails around 7:30. We sat around
and told stories – well, actually they told stories as the four
of them went sailing seven years ago together (for three years!)
and believe me, they have lots of stories to tell.
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