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Wow, St. Augustine seems like such a long time ago! We had fun in St. Aug., as always, but because of the unusually cold temps we stayed for only two days before continuing south.
I have to stop here for a minute and explain that due to complaints from people who's names I won't mention (Shelly P and Tim F!), about my long windedness and the lack of pictures, this log will be brief and the slideshow will have many more pictures. Our cameras were getting old so we both just bought the new Olympus Stylus Tough Cameras that can be dropped from 6' (we haven't tried THAT yet...) and submerged to 33' without damage (so far so good!). They take great pictures but, because they allow for more user input, there's a longer learning curve. So in this logs pictures there may be more than the normal amount of bad or blurry shots... sorry.
We left St. Aug via the
inlet and enjoyed a very fast trip down the coast to Ponce de Leon inlet
just south of Daytona. The wind was on the stern and we were
surfing down small 6 foot waves. I'm happy to say that this boat
LOVES surfing down waves. It tracks like a train and doesn't even
hint at wanting to broach. The autopilot steered great and
we hit a top speed of 12.8kts. Not bad for a boat whose normal
speed is about 7.5kts. Then on to our friends Karl and
Susan's place to install a new water pump that I had shipped there when
I found out that ours was leaking and the Volvo rebuild
kit was almost as expensive as the whole new pump. We stayed only two
short days there doing the install and because Karl was so nice
about loaning us a car to go shopping, we were also able to get all of
our last minute provisioning done. We were now ready to head for
the islands and the weather was looking good! We left Melbourne
and hustled down the ditch to Ft. Pierce where we fueled up and headed
out the inlet late afternoon. We had beautiful weather and by about 3:30 in
the morning we were only about 10 miles north of Ft. Lauderdale. The
forecast still looked good so we took a hard left turn and aimed for
Bimini.
We
cleared Bimini Customs early afternoon and headed up the hill to eat our
first cracked conch and conch salad at a small beachfront
restaurant. After walking through town, Deb decided that it would
be OK to leave the next morning ahead of a front as apposed
to staying in Bimini through the weekend. We took off the next
morning for a fine crossing of the banks and got to the Tongue Of The
Ocean right at dusk. Damn! Too dark to put out a line for
some big Tuna or Mahi. Just as well... the front caught up with us
30 miles short of Nassau. We ended up taking 8 hours of
pounding abuse before we were able to set our hook in Nassau harbor.
Ask Deb, it wasn't the most fun that we've ever had!
In Nassau, our very
favorite thing to do is go down to Potters Cay and have lunch at on of
the fish shacks with the locals.
This year we tried Pinders Place . Man... the best
Conch salad ever! It was so good that we came back the next day to
eat some more (yeah, we like to eat!). While in Nassau, Deb wanted
to check out Atlantis Resort and Casino because of their walk-through
fish tanks. OK if you're not a diver I guess... Our last day in
Nassau, a neighboring boat came in to the dock and hit the front of Fat
Chance. We were inside looking at charts when all of the sudden an
amplified crunching sound came from the front of the boat, accompanied
by a jolt. I was sure that the front of the boat was being ripped
off and ran up on deck cussing all the way. The neighbors boat is
hanging off our Rocna anchor and he's still trying to power it to his
slip! I had a few words with him and then Deb and I pushed him off
and stood by with fenders and boat hooks for a full half hour while he
tried to dock his boat. Upon close examination,
nothing on Fat Chance was stressed, bent or broken. Amazingly all
of the noise that we heard was the Rocna taking out his hardened side
window. 1 for the Rocna, 0 for the other boat!
We
left Nassau early the next afternoon for Ship Channel Cay at the top of
the Exuma chain of islands. This whole last week, since we got to
the Exumas, has been perfect. Warm weather, calm clear blue
waters, good diving, nice sunrises and sunsets, lobsters, tuna and now
Wifi! We're at Warderick Wells now, the home to the Exuma Land Sea
Park headquarters. We have no place that we have to be until our
first guest arrives in Staniel Cay a couple days before the 5F Festival
(First Friday in February at Farmers cay Festival). So we'll be
slowly meandering down island till then, enjoying all that these lovely
islands have to offer!
Enjoy!
All of the log pictures can be seen by clicking Slideshow