Just a small post to let you know we have arrived in Provdenciales “Provo” in the Turks and Caicos. We have had boat problems, weather problems and time problems, but we have overcome each challenge and are here. Expect more blog entries even in the past as we have has many adventures so far, and they need to be documented, but it has been a tough time to get here.
We are here though.
We stayed a new marina this time call Blue Water. It was a nice marina with docks in good condition. The had pretty good Wifi access as well, although I had to sweet talk the lady in the office for the code, as she usually keys it into the individual laptops herself as an added measure of security. I told her that my boat has a fixed system and with a tilt to her head she nodded and wrote it down for me. It was much better than the highjack signal from the next marina over.
It was sad to learn that Sara’s End of the World Bar was closed for good. There was speculation that the rent was high which is funny as it is also known as the Sand Bar since the floor is literally sand. There were many businesses closed down since the last time we were there as the tourist dollar has been quite elusive for the last couple of years.
I spent the entire weekend trying to figure our my dinghy problems. I had this motor serviced early last year and only put on about 2 hours of operation since then so I was really bummed when it did not start. I pulled the cord so many times, that I wore through my skin on two fingers of my right hand and one finger of my left. I cleaned the carburetor about 6 times, dumped my fuel and refilled the gas tank, changed out the spark plugs and finally got it to start and idle. I took it on a test drive and by the time I came back it would not idle and eventually it would not start. So I loaded back onto the swim platform and decided to deal with it in Nassau where there is a Yamaha dealer.
We finally got over to Sandra’s place to visit her as well as our friend Nikia. 
Nikia has been a little busy as she now has a new daughter and a new husband. We met him the last time we were in Bimini and he seemed very nice. Once we drank every beer Sandra had in the restaurant, including the extras that were brought in for us, we decided to kidnap (willingly of coarse) Nikia as we promised our friends from “The Office” we would go to their boat for cocktails and food at 5:00PM. It was after 6:00PM when we left, but there was a huge downpour as well as a small plane crash on our end of the island. I heard the plane in the clouds just before we heard about the crash. Unfortunately there were some casualties in the crash, but we don’t have many details on it. 
As we were preparing to leave the marina we got a knock on our boat with our slip neighbor informing us that the power pedestal we were plugged into was on fire. Our plug was burning as well. We extinguished the fire (right after I put some clothes on) and I decided to reel the cord in and deal with it in Nassau. I knew I had spare plugs on board, so we just ran the generator for now.
So that was our send off so we left Bimini with less things working that when we arrived.
Today was not so great. I started out by sleeping in until 9:00AM. It was great. BJ burnt me ….ahemm made be breakfast to start the day. The plan was to cleand the dinghy (dink) make sure it runs, and change the chock placement on the swim platform. We almost lost it coming across.
So let’s see how did this day go…I cleaned the dink. It looks really good now. I was excited and ready to go. I took the engine into Yamaha last winter, so it should be good to go. I went to offload it from the swim platform, and guess what? It goes up, but not down. After some troubleshooting, I found a broken wire for the down button. I fixed it, and wa la it worked. So I lowered the dink into the drink and tried to start it.
It started eventually and I thought I was home free. Then it died. I tried and tried but could not get it started. It had been a while since I ran it, so I removed the carburetor and gave it a good wash. The tubes for the accelerator pump were clogged and there was a fair amount of debris in the bowl. For once I had the right tools for the job (experience from the last cruise where the damn thing did not run). I have had it.
I found water in my gas tank so I replaced the gas with the good Bimini gas. It must be good since it was $4.75/gal. Still no start. so I decided that it must be water in the system and I would just have to flush it out. I wore through my skin on 3 different fingers on every hand and it is still not 
flushed out, so I thought I will replace the spark plugs as the last owner left them for me. They were the wrong kind – one digit off on the part number. Our slip neighbor Hank suggested I go to the general store which is about the size of our master stateroom (BJ’s comparison but not far off). Ella actually not only had the spark plug in question, but seemed quite knowledgeable about the use of them. II bought four and changed out the two in the dink. Still no luck, so there was nothing to do but give up for the night.
I figured a good boat cooked meal would change my attitude, however, when I broke out the new grill that I just bought, the adapter for the propane was not included. Their advertisement, was no assembly required so I did not think to rummage through the trash to find this piece. I ended up cooking our steaks in a pan, and created a potatoes au gratin lobster Oscar sauce with fresh local lobster. Everything was done on the boat and I really need the grill to work for the rest of the trip.
Preparation
We spent the entire day finishing our provisioning for the trip. The boat is about an inch below the waterline when the fuel is topped off. Thursday looks good as the seas are supposed to be 2-3 ft. We went to West Marine (twice), Boat Owner's Warehouse (BOW), Super Target and the liquor store. Then one last stop at Whole foods for an opportunity to throw down stupid money for average steaks, which were the last food item we needed. After all of that I treated BJ to a great Cuban/Spanish restaurant we found a few years ago named Catalina. The owner and the rest of the staff are over-the-top gay, but the food is excellent. We had Mario (the owner) cook for us so he chose the entire meal with only one request of no chicken from me. We had an awesome array of Cuban food including beef empanadas, ham croquettas and some sort of roasted meat with a tamale mixture. It was great. We then had a skirt steak and a grouper with the most succulent shrimp on top of each. I MADE BJ try the tres leches (Three Milks) dessert because it is a Spanish tradition. She loved it, but there was so much food at dinner she could only entertain about 3 bites.
Crossing
OK, after some last minute shopping and a horrible experience at Gold Coast auto rentals we were ready to go. It was about 1:00PM but hey, it was supposed to be great seas with 2-3's. I saw those 2-3's right before the 3-5's and the waves were stacked up. It beat the hell out of me and the boat. I have got to take it easier on the ol' ESWEET! After 3 hours of an extremely rough ride, we showed up here in Bimini. We got checked into customs, paid our fees and halleluiah we were in the Bahamas with 30 days to go to the wedding. So far so good. This crossing was the worst weather we had so far on this trip, and was probably one of the worst crossings to date. I wanted to turn southeast to try to ride the tiny troughs, but the CG was conducting a live fire exercise and we had to stay at least five miles away. We were only about 7 miles away at the time.
First Night
We usually stay at Big Game, however due to some financial problems they are closed down. We had a choice to be up at Bimini Bay, but it is too snooty and we like the locals here very much, so we stayed here in the south of North Bimini. We are walking distance to most of the bars and stores, however BJ wanted to see our old friends Sandra and Nikia, so we hitched a ride with a guy who turned out to be Nikia's nephew. They are all so related here, I don't know how they date. We had a great but brief reunion with both of them and we headed back to Alicetown for the rest of the night, and the nightlife as well. We retired fairly early as we were both worn out from the previous few days and the crossing.
First Day
We spent the day organizing and cleaning. I actually got up to the top of the boat and cleaned and waxed it. I am not a great fan of heights especially since the Bahamians never heard of a "No Wake" so there were huge wakes rolling in while I was up there. BJ cleaned the cockpit and the dog as well as a bund of stuff in the cabin. The most important part of the day, was that we got a little sun burnt since we were both in swim suits in the great weather. Still not hot yet, but upper 70's and mostly sunny. We should be heading out on Monday as a small front is upposed move through this weekend. I have a couple of more chores to do before we leave, and we are going to "Hi Star" tonight for a special guest singer from Nassau. It looks to be promising……..
More to come with pictures, hopefully tomorrow.
We holed up in Ft. Pierce last night and revisited a great little Tiki Bar at the marina. That was the first attempt of crossing 3 years ago when we were in Sweet Caroline. We ultimately turned around when we were about half way through the cut because the waves were so big. BJ's eyes were huge by my recollection and since she had never been on a trip like this I chose to move further south and wait for a better window. The Staff at the City Marina is by far the best. We had to pull into a typical tropical slip where there is no floating dock and you have to lasso the front pilings and use 6 lines to secure the boat properly. BJ was loud and obvious when she stated it had been a while since she had to do this type of slip so the dock hand volunteered to jump on board and give us a hand. It was kind of humorous because I took my time and eased into the slip, extremely cautious as not to put any more dings in the boat than I just had repaired. Once I landed and we secured the boat, I saw a sport fisher come in at about 10 knots in reverse and turned 90 degrees into his slip without any room to miss. It made me realize that it has been a while since I maneuvered in tight marinas as well.
We have been having a few boat problems in the last couple of days. When we left Port Canaveral, I could not get my genny started, and my port motor would not start as well. I finally got my port motor started and just left without the genny. It is a good thing I installed an inverter before we left, so as long as we do not need HVAC, we are fine. When we got to Ft. Pierce, we fueled up. Afterwards, my STBD motor would not start. When I got into the slip, I tried to start everything and it all worked great. The plan was, if everything started this morning we would go, if not we would stay and I would tend to all the motor problems. Well, everything started just fine this morning, so away we went.
Since the water was still rough outside, we again continued down the ditch, only now it is almost all populated so we came mostly at 7 knots. It is amazing that the manatees seam to really congregate around the most expensive homes, or at least that is where most of the no wake zones are. We hit West Palm Beach around 1:30PM so we decided to keep going. We then passed Delray Beach where we saw John Massey cruising around in his whaler while we were waiting for a bridge opening. We kept heading down to Ft. Lauderdale even though it was getting dark.
We finally got to our dark marina without any signs or markings on the docks except from the shore side, when I went to turn on the bow thruster and amazingly enough; it did not work! Luckily I was just getting prepared in case I needed it so I backed into our slip without incident (or bow thruster). We got a helping hand from our slip neighbor, Dave who owns Living Large, a nice 45' Carver that we met 2 years ago in Highborne Cay, Bahamas. He had (and still has) the best kept boat in the world. I have often thought that if I could get Executive Sweet that nice, it would be a lot of hard work.
So here we are in Ft Lauderdale with one day to finalize our provisions before we cross the pond to the Bahamas. I am sorry the eloquent descriptions and sarcastic whip are missing from the post, but I am tired and just wanted to get everyone up to date.
OK, after such a hectic ending to a slow start yesterday; we had a pretty good day. By pretty good, it meant that we got about 2 hours of sleep total from all the commercial traffic going by us at the dock and I meant that it took an hour to get from the Hyatt in Savannah to Thunderbolt Marina so we could fuel up. The good news is: I was going to just leave this morning without checking out and have Karen phone in my credit card number, but someone came and said I needed to register with the front desk, so I got caught. I went to the elevator to the lobby and saw a flyer to reconnect with your significant other for this Valentine's Day, February 13th, 2010. I got to the front desk and said I wanted to check in and check out at the same time. She was obviously not happy with the fact there was no one there to greet us so she let us slide with no payment necessary. Good thing since their 50 amp circuit breaker kept popping and I could not properly heat the Executive Sweet. So as a token back, I mentioned that Valentine's Day was on February 14th every year and that they may need to change their signage. She was grateful, and I was out of there.
We did not get out to the ocean until around 1130 in the morning, so I set my sights for St. Augustine, FL instead of Cape Canaveral which is where we need to be by tomorrow. The water was very smooth and almost lake-like until the last hour where it actually rose to 1-2's with some moderate chop. I was so happy to see that my chart plotter is off by one hour so instead of coming in at 1730, we got in at 1630. That offered the opportunity to give the boat a quick wash down (no soap), get fueled up for tomorrow and take care of the other duties of the captain and the first mate.
After a great shower by each of us, we walked the frigid walk through the beautiful downtown area of St. Aug. We had a great meal at a wonderful Spanish restaurant called Columbia Restaurant with great food. This has been a great place to eat every time we get down here. So now I am ready to get some great sleep and get on down to Cape Canaveral tomorrow.
We finally left the dock. We were cruising out of the Charleston Harbor around 3:30PM when I says, "it looks pretty smooth here in the harbor, let's run outside to Hilton Head." For those of you with weak stomachs please know that we are safe and tied up at the dock here at the Hyatt in Savannah, GA. Just look at the map on the right, and stop reading. Just tune in again tomorrow.
For those brave souls that have a need for more, continue on reading.
It was such a great plan. Leave, go outside, be at the fuel dock in Hilton Head right around 6:30PM. They are closed, but I called ahead and made arrangements so they would be there at 7:30AM tomorrow morning. Great plan. The seas were around 1-2 with a light chop. They started to get to 2-3's and finally they leveled off at 2-4's. With that in mind, I decided to aim for a point closer to shore so we could get into smoother water and maybe kick it up a notch to try to beat the darkness. It worked. I kicked it up to over 27 knots and we were flying. The next thing I noticed was a bank of really skinny (shallow) water. Then it happened, twice, my depth sounder quit sounding or listening or something because one minute we were in 500+ feet of water (or so it said) then nothing. I saw the bank getting shallower so I started to go out to get more water underneath us. I finally found a path through the bank to the channel so I took it. Meanwhile the sun went behind the horizon and it got really dark. We were heading into the channel when I saw a large blob on the radar (not in the right place because it is not calibrated) and thought it was a freighter in front of me. I should have thought "what is a freighter doing going into Hilton Head" but I didn't so keep reading.
On the VHF radio I heard "Trawler entering the Savannah River by markers 14 and 15, please answer of channel 16." I did not answer because A.) I did not know what the marker numbers were since it was dark; and B.) I was not going into the Savannah River. Then there was a light shining on me. So I noticed the freighter was outgoing and not coming in. I started to move to the extreme right of the channel, still confused about the lights on his ship, and the next thing I knew there were 5 prolonged blasts (which is DANGER in boaters speak). I then looked again and noticed the freighter was on the extreme left (my right) of the channel on a direct collision path with the ol' Executive Sweet. I made a quick turn to port and went to the extreme left of the channel out of his way. After an on-air ass chewing from the captain of the freighter, I thanked him for looking out for us and made an astounding epiphany: There is freighter traffic. I am not going into Hilton Head! I AM going into the Savannah River!
So, here we are at the entrance to the Savanna River. There is not a marina for at least 10 miles. It is pitch black, and freezing. I was not sure what to do as I was trying to find a marina on the electronic charts of the Furuno, which responds incredibly slow since the firmware upgrade that went pretty smooth this morning. I looked back and saw another freighter was coming in behind us. So what to do? I could go back out the channel, hit the open ocean at night and circle south around the island to Tybee Island, however, I have never been to any of those marinas after I return from the open ocean and go up a creek which I did not know if it was marked very well at night. Or, try to anchor in the dark near a shipping channel. Or turn around and follow the inbound freighter up the river and go to Savannah which is at least 10 miles out of our way. The latter won out over all other. We followed the freighter and found our way to the dock here at the Hyatt.
After getting help from some fellow boaters on the dock, we were talking (in the freezing cold) when the woman, Carol said, "I know that name Executive Sweet." I said that we were in the Bahamas a couple of years ago, when the revelation came out that we were about 2 boats away at the Exuma Docks Marina in Georgetown, Bahamas. She said "You're bald!", so I took off my beanie to show it to her. She remembered us by my baldness and BJ's bikinis. They are heading back so we will probably run into them again.
Bj just finished cooking my clam chowder, we are settling in for the night, but I thought the first day should be commemorated with our fist blog entry of the trip.
