Home Is Where The Heart Is

 

It's Palm Sunday! We went to a lovely Mass this morning at the Basilica....the oldest Parish in America..

I miss the islands but it also feels good to be tucked in at Hidden Harbor Marina in St. Augustine, Fl.

Things seem so easy on the boat when there is unlimited water, electricity, internet..etc. Its hard to believe we left Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas 2 weeks ago. I'm still in awe of how fast time has gone by.

Before

We've been doing really fun stuff like cleaning out the anchor locker.

After

 

Oh yeah....and the good times just continue cleaning out the bilge....(the hull)

 

Neighbors!!

 

Oh...how I miss it....

 

God bless everyone this Holy Week. Love & miss you !!!!

Xxxxxoooo

 

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Bye Bye Bahamas......Hello U.S.A!!!

We spent our last day in the Bahamas on our own private island

Time goes by so fast. I can hardly believe we're back in the U.S. While we do feel a little sad about leaving the islands, we are VERY excited to see friends & family. It will still be awhile before we get to Phoenix but the long trek home is in full swing. We have been traveling for almost a week now. We left Green Turtle last Monday & did a short little 4 hour hop to an uninhabited island called Crab Cay. We just wanted one more day to hang on the beach with Jib.

We had the whole island to ourselves

 

Scott knocking coconuts out of the tree

 

One of them broke open when it fell....yum.

We left Crab Cay at first light headed for Florida.

28 hours later we arrived in Ft. Pierce. Ugh. We were pretty tired. We had a great crossing though. We weren't able to sail but the seas we're calm which is a bonus. We just chugged along hour by hour. Scott had all his fishing lines out (he has 4) but all we caught were 4 barracudas. Barracuda often carry ciguatera so we just tossed them back in. We've had enough of that this year!

When we got settled in Ft. Pierce we took Jib to a little island right across the anchorage. After 30+ hours stuck on the boat Jib was soooo happy to run.

While in Ft Pierce we got see some dear friends...Patrick & Marilyn drove up from Stuart, Fl. to see us. It was a lovely afternoon. It's always so awesome to see the crew from Jawbone. Love you guys so much! Then on Thursday, our buddy Andy, who we traveled with for several months our 1st year, also had the chance to see each other. It was fabulous. We hadn't seen each other in 2 years. We first met Andy in Connecticut way back when we first bought Malaika & our paths have kept crossing ever since. Andy let us use his car so we could go to customs & also the grocery store, which was awesome because we were out of everything.

We ended our evening reuniting with Dana & Matt from s/v Corsair who had just come from their crossing. As usual, good times! We'll miss you!

We plan on being at the dock in St Augustine at Hidden Harbor Marina by Monday afternoon. And then....the boat projects begin. Gotta' get ready for next season!!

Home.

So, stay tuned! The adventures will continue!!

Love & miss everybody!

Michelle, Scott & Jib

 

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Happy Saturday From Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas!

So...we're still in Green Turtle Cay, which is fine by me. We both love it here. The only thing is that the weather has been so crappy. No diving. :( Or swimming or snorkeling. Boo! The winds have been very heavy & made our favorite little place a little unlikable.

(Ok..unlikable is a little strong...we still love this place) Some rain but mostly heavy winds. Which sucks. At night we are so on edge because "what if" our anchor drags or some other boat drags onto us. 2 nights ago both of those things happened. A boat dragged down on us, then we started dragging across the anchorage...in the dark with 30-40mph winds. Scott did a great job of keeping cool & moving Malaika safely across the harbor & actually, (even Scott said so) I did pretty good too. It's extremely stressful when this anchor dragging thing happens. It's almost always in the dark, in crappy weather....honestly, until you've experienced it.... I'm not sure I can put into words how scarey it is. (Keep in mind...the anchorage is very full right now....hitting another boat is a BIG possibility) Maybe like driving the wrong way down the freeway. That's how it feels. (I've never driven the wrong way down a freeway but I think it would be equally scarey). So we reanchored & I stayed in the cockpit to keep watch so Scott could finally get a little sleep. He had been up watching all night long. It's now 6am. At least the sun will be up soon. So our anchor never really set & we ended up reanchoring 2 more times. In the middle of the 3rd anchor attempt our engine stopped pumping out water. If you don't know anything about engines, let me just tell you...that is BAD. Very bad. Grrrr!!!! Why now?!!! We managed to settle in, Scott put out our backup anchor as well. It's now 9am. Scott called our buddy Richard on s/v Kilissa requesting advice on the engine issue. Richard came over & they quickly figured out it was the impeller. I know this is a foreign language for most of you & it is for me to some extent too but.....yay for us....this is an easy fix. The impeller was DESTROYED!

This piece is supposed to have 7 wings/flanges..whatever ya want to call them...ours had 2

The guys put in a new impeller & PRESTO......the engine is all good. Whew. Never a dull moment on a boat.

 

Collecting fresh rain water....

Collecting fresh rain water....

So, due to weather we will be in Green Turtle until Tuesday at which time we will be leaving at first light headed for Ft. Pierce, Florida. We should get there sometime Wednesday. A LOT of boats are leaving Tuesday so we'll have lots of company. ;)

We broke down and bought more "internet time" to get us thru this last little stretch. The truth is....we NEED the internet to check weather. It's a must. Anyway.....maybe I'll have a chance to do one more blog before leaving our beloved Bahamas....seems like we just got here.

 

 

Love---Michelle, Scott & Jib

 

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Guana Cay...

We left Marsh Harbor today headed for Guana Cay. It was a fabulous day to be on the water...

I can't believe these are the last couple weeks before we go home. Time flies... We're trying to make the most of it & exploring as much as possible.

Tree of Life

I don't feel like writing so I'll just share some pics. ;)

 

Go Jibby!

 

 

Love--Michelle, Scott & Jib

 

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Happy St. Patrick's Day from Marsh Harbor

Happy St. Patrick's Day everybody! Even the Bahamas celebrates St Patty's Day....well, the cruisers do & just like at home the bars & restaurants are celebrating too....I'm not sure if the locals do. The big event today is the St. Patrick's Day Parade which goes down Main Street here...sorta. It's known as the shortest St Patrick's Day parade in the world. It's an exhausting 350 feet. It ends at one of the main bars in town. Anyone can enter. We've never been, sounds interesting. I'll post pics in the next blog.

Our pretty spot in Marsh Harbor

So, we've just been hanging out in Marsh Harbor since we got here on Wednesday. We've had some weather & expect some more tomorrow so we are just staying put for now. Marsh Harbor offers pretty good protection for most weather & is BY FAR the best place in the Bahamas to reprovision. It has the best grocery store in all of the Bahamas...

Maxwell's Grocery

Maxwell's Grocery

What a bargain!

Plus....propane, fuel, water, hardware stores, laundry, bank, etc. The down side of Marsh is that there aren't really any beaches, no diving, & lots of people.(when I say "lots" of people, I mean a couple thousand...) We have managed to find a pretty little spot just outside the harbor & that's where we take Jib. It's not a big beach but it's nice & we are always the only ones there.

Maxwell's Grocery

There is a little trail just off the beach that leads to the top of the hill where there is a nice "scenic view".

Best Friends

 

At the top of the hill is also the most elaborate pet grave I've ever seen. Meggie must have been one amazing dog...hmmm

Next stop is Guana Cay. We'll be heading there on Wednesday or Thursday for the annual Barefoot Man concert which is on Friday. Always a big event here in Abaco & lots of fun so we're looking forward to that.

Hope y'all have a fun St. Patrick's Day! We're off to the parade & then to the big party that is sponsored by Guinness. They announced on the radio today they will be giving away lots of freebies so we'll be first in line! ;)

May the luck of the Irish be with you! Xxxooo

Michelle, Scott & Jib

P.S. The blog has a mind of it's own today. I'm not sure why "Maxwell's Grocery" just appeared randomly in a couple spots. I tried to erase it but no luck. Oh well.

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Return to Abaco

Goodbye Exumas

So we finally left Georgetown, Exumas. The time has come for us to make the slow trek home. We said our goodbyes & left at first light on Monday morning for a 12 hour trip north to Stainel Cay.

Sunrise the morning we left Georgetown

 

You can't possibly leave the Exumas without passing by a few of this big boys. The Exumas are FULL of them. This one was pretty amazing.

The red boat tied to their side is worth about a half million. That's their "dinghy". There was a matching one on the other side. Full staff, lots of toys. 3 garages. It's insane! Even if they don't own that boat....it would cost several hundred thousand dollars to rent per week.

Anyway, we had a nice relaxing motor sail to Staniel. It only took 9.5 hours instead of the 12 we were planning on which was nice because it gave us time to see our friends Matt & Dana on s/v Corsair & some time to rest up before the next day's journey.

For once, Jib wasn't a nervous wreck! Yay!

Once again we took off at first light, this time headed ALL the way back to Marsh Harbor, Abaco!! This is a trip that normally we would take our time & make over the course of a week. However, there is big weather coming & if we stay south we won't get to Abaco for another week. We're running out of time so we decided to just do an overnighter.

Scott's on his break while I'm at the helm. We take shifts.

Things went great for most of the day. We just motor sailed along hour by hour. Jib was mostly happy until we put all the sails up. We were heeling quite a bit at times & he just hates that. Sunset came & went & now it's dark. Almost a full moon though, so not the usual pitch black. It was pretty the way the moon lit up the ocean. Just kept plugging along. Scott & I both managed to get a little (and I do mean LITTLE) sleep on our breaks. And then.....the wind picked up. A lot. So the seas got rougher. Once again we're bobbing around like a cork, in the dark, tired. Jib is sure he's going to die. All of a sudden our engine starts making funny noises. Scott changed the fuel filter (while the boat was bouncing all around in every direction) & it was better but still not right...And we still have 3 hours to go before reaching the inlet into Abaco. It sucked. But it SUCKED a lot more when all of a sudden our auto pilot stopped working. Omg. While not an emergency, this couldn't be a worse time. Hand steering ( and staying on coarse) in those conditions is so hard. It takes 100% concentration. We were in 20knot winds with 6 foot waves pushing us all around, in the dark & had been on the move for almost 24 hours. Then, Jib gets up & gives me this most sad look & starts dry heaving. Poor Jib was sea sick. Needless to say, the crew on Malaika got crabby & emotional pretty quickly, which of course doesn't help things. We calmed down & eventually barreled through the inlet & finally were in smooth waters. Only 4 more hours to go.

Calm before the storm

After 28 hour & 3 separate island chains, we anchored in Marsh Harbor. Completely spent.

Storm's coming...

So, we'll be in Abaco for a couple weeks & then headed back to Florida. Already! Time goes so fast.

Love & Miss you

Michelle, Scott & Jib

 

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