Holidays 2021

How we celebrate the holidays has shifted almost annually for our family. For years it was dictated by duty stations, watch schedules, and even a cute kid intubated in the PICU. These days the weather and the moods of teens tend to shift how we celebrate! We have never been big on lavishly celebrating so this constant shift seems to suit us. 

This year we celebrated the season in the cerulean and turquoise waters of the northern Exuma Islands, surrounded by nature and dear friends! We spent the days swimming, snorkeling, gathering and eating conch, visiting with friends, watching Christmas movies, playing with our one big Christmas present (the new dinghy engine!), and talking to our girl between all of her Christmas parties in France. And perhaps my favorite…having our Christmas lights on at anchor! 

Good times in and around Highbourne Cay! Conch were plentiful and we were able to share with our friends!

Dusk on Christmas Eve.

Love "lights" season! We leave them on for a few hours each evening.

It was a truly enjoyable, salty, laughter-filled celebration!

Life in France

**We are SUPER excited to welcome our daughter, Katreina, to the writing staff of the family blog!!!**

Happy Holidays, everyone! As we are coming up on the New Year, I’ve started to reflect back on my time in France. If you don’t know by now, I’m currently taking an exchange year in France for my 10th grade year of high school. I’ve been here for about four months now, and every moment is one that I will cherish forever.

Orientation in Paris included the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and a cruise on the River Seine!

WHERE DID I GET THE IDEA?

I came up with this idea around the age of 10, when my love for Harry Potter made me dream about living my life in England. As I got older, I told my parents about my desire to spend an exchange year in England, to which they blatantly said no. They explained to me that while it was amazing to have a desire to travel, they wouldn’t send me to another country for an entire year where I already knew the language (which, I mean, fair enough). So, with my want to do an exchange year still high, I started thinking of different countries I could go to. I almost immediately thought of France, as I had spent my 7th grade year learning French in school, and it was up there on the list of countries I wanted to got to. This was just at the beginning of COVID, and with lockdowns and basically sitting around doing nothing, I said “why not?” and started to intensely learn French. 

Flash forward almost two years later, I’m speaking a new language in a new world, surrounded by some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I live with an entirely different family, and I’m living an entirely different life. To some (or maybe to many), that would scare them to death—and there have been times where all I’ve wanted to do is go back to the U.S.—but I’m loving this journey. I’m learning to be independent, to make my own decisions and to find myself, all while learning a new language. It really is something you’re able to experience only once in a lifetime and everyday I’m grateful that things have worked out well for me.

TRANSPORTATION

I live in Tours, France. It’s a relatively big town, and I live close to its city center. There is a lot of public transportation, so I can go almost anywhere I’d like. It’s a very big change from my remote life on a boat, but I love being able to be very independent when I need to go somewhere. I don’t have to ask for a ride places, I can just look at the bus schedule and leave when I need. 

L' Hôtel de Ville of Tours 

The tram...to school and around town.

SCHOOL

My school schedule is amazing. Most days, I finish by 3 o’clock in the afternoon, which gives me most of the afternoon to do what I want. I have 10 classes (each with varying hours throughout the week): English, French, History & Geography, Math, Physics & Chemistry, Earth & Life Sciences, Technology Sciences, Social & Economical Sciences, Civics, and P.E. I would have 11, but early into the school year, I was removed from Spanish since I had never previously studied it. I have more than an hour and a half to eat lunch everyday (and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I go back to my house to eat), so I never feel rushed like I did in the U.S. My grades are on average, and as time moves on here, I’m slowly getting better and better grades. School is definitely more professional than in the U.S. We refer to the teachers with vous (you but when referring to more than one person, someone you don’t know, or someone who is superior to you- in this case, we use vous because teachers are superior to students) and every time a teacher enters the classroom, we stand up and wait to be seated by the teacher. In the U.S., teachers are much more friendly, but here teachers are never ‘friends’ with the students.  It’s definitely different, but it’s nice to experience this type of change. One big difference that even French kids don’t like about high school is the fact that there aren’t school sports, prom, or anything like that. Most of these things are solely in the U.S., so many kids here want to go to the States for one year just to experience it. All in all, though, I really like high school here, even if the classes are a little more challenging.

FREE TIME

After school, and during my free time, I’ve become much more social. I usually like to walk around town with friends or my host sister (who is the same age as me). Sometimes we’ll have a small coffee in town, grab a bite to eat, or browse clothing stores. I also really enjoy going to the movies and just in general talking to the people I know. Their lives contrast greatly to the normal that I know and it’s nice to hear about their experiences. I love hearing and talking about the differences between the States and France because I can learn all the things that I’m missing- and gaining- while I’m living here. 

Croqué Monsieur with friends...dining out around town is a favorite activity.

HOST FAMILY

Most of all, I am very lucky to have a kind and loving host family. In my host family, I have a mom and dad and two sisters—one my age, and one who is six years old. I know several other exchange students who haven’t had as much luck as I have and to have a really great connection with my host family is great. They have been truly nice to me (even buying me Christmas gifts when I couldn’t go back to the Bahamas to spend Christmas with my family) and they make sure that I don’t miss out on any French experiences. They help me with my French when I can’t pronounce a certain word (for the moment it’s the special r sound in horrible), and now I help them with their English. I am truly content to be placed with this family; I would never think about changing families.

Ma famille. Love learning about France with my sisters, Margaux and Romy!

IS IT WORTH IT?

While this is only a sliver of what my life is like in France, I can promise that every second is amazing. There have definitely been tears and homesickness (especially during the holidays) but every day I’m learning how to cope and appreciate living in the moment. I don’t want to go back to the U.S. just yet…I still have so much to experience and so much to learn. And while my French has definitely improved, I don’t think I’m quite ready to call myself bilingual. All of this is a learning experience, so if you ever have the opportunity to do something like it, I would 100% say GO FOR IT!!

~Katreina, 2nd Mate and young nomad extraordinaire

Dinghy adventures--Nassau edition

We left a great group of friends in Great Harbour Cay a few days ago and we were on a mission! We have been toying with the idea of getting a 15hp dinghy engine for a while now and with our growing kiddos we just couldn't get up on plane with our 9.8hp engine anymore. While in GHC we contacted a shop in Nassau and found out they had a 15hp 2-stroke Yamaha in stock and after a bit of discussion we decided to go with it! We figured if we don't like it we can always sell it stateside since it's a very popular engine among cruisers. So we paid for it and started to look for weather that would allow us to get there! 

The anchoring in Nassau Harbor is, um...it can suck. There's a lot of current, reports of poor holding, and tons of boat wakes to contend with. But I wasn’t a fan of staying at a marina and possibly having to get a car if we didn’t have to. We opted to sail overnight, arrive in Nassau in the morning, anchor in the east end of the channel and head to Harbourside Marine via dinghy to grab the engine. We figured if all went well we could be in and out in just a few hours. So how did it go?

It went GREAT! We dropped the hook at about 1000 and took the dinghy to the dock at the Nassau Yacht Haven/Poop Deck--worth the $1/ft to have a safe spot to leave the "car" and Harbourside is pretty much right across the street. Since we had already paid for the engine, pickup was super easy. We grabbed some spare parts for the new engine and one of the guys from the shop actually wheeled our engine across the street, helped unbox it and drop it into our dinghy, and even took the box away! It was so easy! We stopped by Rubi's to fill up our new 6-gallon fuel tank and headed back to the boat.

Getting the engine into our dinghy was easy with a little help! 

So we could have just moved the new engine to the big boat, pulled the anchor, and left at that point, but we were waiting for some friends so we made the (perhaps foolish) decision to make the engine shifts in Nassau Harbor. This means we had to hoist the old engine up onto a rail mount (holy crap, the wakes SUCKED during this), then lift and drop the new engine into place (again, THE WAKES). It was frustrating, hard work, but we did it! Once the engines were in their new homes we decided to raise the dinghy and prepare to get away from the harbor.

The old and the new in their new homes. We need some stickers!

But first...more dinghy action! Well, sort of. Our friends on S/V Bella Vita said it best--"We may visit beautiful islands and pretty locations, but it's the people we meet that's the best part of cruising!" It is so true! And when those people need something to get their dinghy back in action and we have a spare from our now old engine that will work, we rig fenders down our port side and have them to come alongside to grab it! With their dinghy engine being down and ours not being fully hooked up yet, this seemed like the best way to hand it off. And this meant that we could hand off the part and then pull our anchor so they could drop their hook to get some things done in Nassau as the anchorage was filling up. The handoff was executed beautifully! I handed them a propellor and they handed me a box of yummy chocolates! 

Bella Vita passing alongside for the smooth exchange. 

And at 1330 we pulled the hook, waved good-bye (for now) to Bella Vita, and snuck away to what ended up being a private anchorage just an hour outside of Nassau. Still can't believe how much we managed to cram into three and a half hours and so happy that we got our Christmas present and that our friends' dinghy is working again!

Op test...SAT! Woo hoo! Let the break-in period begin!

Christmas winds are in full swing here and that means we have been dodging westerlies and northerlies and are patiently waiting for the easterlies to settle in so we can have a big selection of protected anchorages. For now, we are surprised to have found relative comfort east of New Providence Island for a few days. But the sun in rising and it's about time to move along!

Another fantastic stop at Great Harbour Cay!

For three years straight we have spent over a week of our time in the Bahamas at Great Harbour Cay Marina. As we hardly ever head to a marina, why does this one attract us? The people. I mean, the all-around protection and reasonable rates are awesome, too, but King and the staff are just amazing. They coordinate with the customs and immigration folks, host “chill & grill” and pizza nights, offer trips to the fuel depot and town, deliver fresh bread right to the boat, and are just plain nice! And for the cruisers…$2/ft/day or $10/ft/week with free wash down water, decent showers, free WiFi…RO water, reliable power, and laundry extra. There are also anchorages on both the SW and NE sides of the island.

Clockwise from UL: the cut into Great Harbour Cay; Chill & Grill; delicious coconut bread; the welcome sign over the cut; Lehe Paine all snug in a slip!

Being in the marina also always gives us a chance to easily meet and mingle with other cruisers. This year we loved hanging out with old friends from S/V Pleiades and meeting the crews of Nō Ka 'Oi, Journey, Sloth, Inti, Bay Dreamin', Salty Emerald, and Privateer. And in perhaps the strangest meeting, I got to renew a friendship with a guy from my tiny, cornfield-surrounded hometown in Illinois when S/V Makae pulled in! Such a small world! It was lovely chatting with everyone and we look forward to sharing anchorages with them in the future!

Easily the craziest meet-up yet! Kurt and I hail from the same land-locked town in Illinois and even crossed paths in our younger days. Great to see him and his wife, Shanty, and their beautiful new boat, S/V Makae!

With lots to explore via foot, bike, and dinghy, we really just love GHC and really can’t wait to be back!

We loved exploring Shark Creek and Hawksnest Cay with the crews of Pleiades and Nō Ka 'Oi!

I went a little coco-nuts! We collected 6 or 7 of these yummy guys and froze some of the meat for snacks along the way. The fresh coconut water was such a treat!

Ruins, beaches, beach clean-ups, swimming, game nights with friends...plenty to do even when the wind is up.

We departed at sunset after a wonderful visit! (Photo credit: Kurt on S/V Makae)

~ Jo, 1st Mate

It's all about the people (and the food!)

The title says it all! In my old life, a tough day at work was always balanced by getting to work through the challenges with some pretty awesome people. Now that we're traveling all the time I can say that it still holds true--the best memories, whether they be made on pristine beaches, in a hot engine compartment, or in a crazy storm, are usually all great memories because of the people. But then there's the other travel joy...THE FOOD! And when those two glorious things come together, that's when the real magic happens.

And that's what we have here in Great Harbour Cay. Two years ago we had our first conch salad of our cruising lives (and the Skipper's first ever) at Brown's Garden. Ronnie Brown served up his specialty with a smile and a good dose of stories about the island. We visited him a few times that week, even celebrating our 15th anniversary with his conch salads served in plastic bowls with plastic spoons and cold Kalik beers. That conch salad became the one we compared all others to! We were back again last year, in the midst of COVID, and while things were definitely slower on the island, Ronnie was still in good spirits and we chatted quite a bit over Kaliks. This year, things still aren't quite back to how they were the first year, new family members are working with him, but his spirit at that great conch salad are still there!

Conch salad (background), scorch conch (foreground), and a cold Kalik!

Based on a conversation we had last year, we had a little gift for Ronnie from the states...a culinary treat that is a little hard to come by on the island. Last night the three of us headed to an early dinner at Brown's so we could deliver and Ronnie was so surprised! He has brought us so many smiles over the years and it was great to give him a little joy in return. Hugs and shots were shared, and when it was time to get dinner going, Ronnie took Trent down to the water with him to learn more about conch. We gather and clean our own conch onboard, but here Trent was getting to learn from a real master! Ronnie told him all about how to get the conch out and let him do one, taught him all about the conch anatomy, showed him how to clean it, then gave us a peek at his salad technique. And we ate and chatted and smiled and left with full bellies and hearts. 

Cheers to good friends!

Ronnie's "office" is stunning! And he and Trent had way too much fun cleaning those conch!

Ronnie sporting a big smile while making that conch salad...you can't help but smile back!

I love learning about a culture through its food. Eat the exotic stuff, hear the stories, and appreciate the work that went into the food!

~Jo, 1st Mate

Our Florida Painter--how to lock a dinghy

Ok, before anyone gets all upset over this, WE ARE FLORIDA RESIDENTS. The simple truth is that as we've cruised between Maine and the Bahamas, Florida is the only place we have ever been advised to lock our dinghy. Hence why we call this our "Florida Painter." Once we hit some spots in the Caribbean this setup will see more use, but for now, that's what we call it! It's not at every dock (and it's not just docks in Florida!), but reviews of various dinghy docks will let you know which ones are susceptible to theft.

Dinghy locks can get a little controversial in the cruising community for one simple reason--do it wrong and you screw over other boaters! Yep, it's all about courtesy. Crazy, right?

In general, just tying up a dinghy should be simple. You tie off with a cleat hitch with a sufficiently long painter so that other boaters can maneuver your dinghy tie up at a crowded dock. You don't need 12 wraps on the cleat to be secure--just a simple hitch does the job and allows another boat to cleat off on top of you if needed. And with the long painter (one boat length after you're tied off) other boats can scoot around you and land their crew. When you get back, you nudge theirs out of the way on their long painter and pull your dinghy in to load up. Easy! Or at least easy as long as everyone does it. It's generally poor form to tie up your dinghy fore-and-aft as it takes up two cleats and makes it so that no one can maneuver to the dock for the entire length of your dinghy. Please, just don't do it.

But some places are prone to theft and locks are recommended. Even if everyone is only tied up with one line, locks can piss people off if they are super short (or worse, strung through the dinghy handles and locked fore-and-aft). A 3' cable lock means your dinghy can only move a little over a foot from the cleat--it's not maneuverable at all and makes it hard for others to land on a crowded dock. I've seen the super short cables locked to a dock and the long painter floating in the water next to it. The long painter doesn't do any good there--it literally does nothing! 

So what do we do? We use an obnoxiously long steel cable and a U-lock. We have a 30' long, 10mm (I think...maybe 12mm) steel cable. It is looped around our dinghy engine lock, routed over the deck, and led out to the dock. With that kind of length and our 10' dinghy, we can lock up so that our "painter" is 10-20' long! On some cleats we feed the cable through the cleat and back into the dinghy. On others we just slip the U-lock through the center hole of the cleat and lock the cable on. Either way, the cleat is still totally available for someone else to tie off a painter and with all of that cable we can adjust the length of our "painter" to fit the crowding at the dock. Our cable and lock are so beefy that we don't even bother with the rope painter. 

The cable is looped around our outboard lock and run along the deck to the bow under the fuel tank.

The cable is fed through a sturdy cleat and the lock is kept in the dinghy, leaving it 10'+ away from the dock.

This beefy bike lock was left over from our land days and works well!

We've seen skinnier cables, stainless steel chain, and shorter (but not super short) cables just run from the bow--all are options. Just be considerate other boaters and you're good to go!

Once final note...raising your dinghy engine at a crowded dinghy dock is also not a good move. This puts your prop in danger of slicing open someone else's tubes. At really shallow docks where there is plenty of room and everyone can be on about the same length of painter without turning all around and bumping, it can work. But in general, just try to avoid it at docks. Engine up on the beach, engine down at the dock!

Back in the Bahamas for another season!

After an overnight sail/motorsail/motor from Lake Worth, FL, we have arrived at Great Harbour Cay in the Berry Islands! We checked in here two years ago this week and it's great to be back again for our annual stop. We are here for a week (or more depending on weather!) and look forward to exploring some of our favorite spots! And super excited to be sharing this stop with old and new cruising friends!

Clockwise from upper left: sunrise departure; great conditions crossing the Gulf Stream; sunset; sunrise as we approached the Berry Islands.

The Skipper raising the "Q" flag in Bahamian waters.

All tied up at Great Harbour Cay Marina!

Why Lake Worth just works for us

Lake Worth (West Palm Beach), FL has just "worked" for us coming and going to the Bahamas over the years. It's pretty much the northernmost "easy" crossing point and has been an easy place for us to do last-minute provisioning and COVID requirements. The inlet is easy to navigate day or night (ok, maybe not on sunny weekend afternoon with all the small boats!) and I also like the option to dinghy over to Peanut Island for some exercise.

Trent & I were pretty excited to see the bottom!

There are many anchoring options from North Palm Beach to West Palm Beach. Perhaps the biggest challenge is where to get fuel and pump out. We emptied our holding tank while we were offshore so we didn't have to worry about that, even with an extended stay on the hook. Fuel was a little harder as one of the main fuel docks in the area is currently shut down, but we hit one we were familiar with in North Palm Beach to top up. Dinghy landing spots run from $16 for a few hours in Riviera Beach to free under a bridge or at the West Palm Beach Public Dock (locks are recommended at those), or the Palm Beach Sailing Club (PBSC) lets transients tie up and use their showers/trash/parking/wifi for $20/day when they have space. We were lucky and got in with PBSC before they had to close it down as the dock was FULL! It's a great place to get mail, tie up safely, and meet other cruisers.

We rented a car for three days and could have Uber'd to the rental place, but there is actually a local bus that got me there for $2. We picked up a big birthday present, propane, COVID vaccine boosters, and LOTS of provisions while we had the car. We also hit Walgreens for a drive-through COVID test--that was SUPER easy and we had our results in less than 2 hours. We also hit downtown WPB for some great happy hour dinners (Crazy sushi deals and all-you-can-eat tacos? Yes, please!) while we had the car! Returning the car was just as easy with another bus ride back.

A stupid amount of food and booze; we got shot up; momma got mail!

PBSC is walking distance to a drug store, bank, really good taco truck, and a few local laundromats that aren't fancy, but they work. There are also a few Latin grocers that had plenty of good fresh food for our taste. A little further walk or a bus ride gets you to a big marine chandlery. And it’s a short dinghy ride to Peanut Island.

Heading to the laundry that is next to Dani Market (an awesome Latin grocer!); Trent stylin' for a walk around Peanut Island with another cruising family. 

We started to make plans for a departure and were happy to have old friends on S/V Pleiades anchor nearby. Trent loved reconnecting with friends so we made the decision to celebrate his birthday a little early so we could ensure he celebrated with friends and that we had help eating a big cake! We also met some other cruisers on S/V Northern Light that were about to celebrate a birthday, so...party on S/V Lehe Paine! It was so great to celebrate with a crowd, especially as we had all knocked out COVID tests!

Birthdays are so much better with friends! We celebrated Trent and Rob with a chocolate-peanut butter swirl cake and "COVID-safe" candle ops; Trent got his new Xbox!

As we looked at weather windows we realized we needed another COVID test to meet the Bahamas timing requirements. Without a car this got a little more complicated, but not too bad. We went with a free option at a CVS testing center that wasn't a drive-through. We could reach it by bus so we made a day out of it, hitting Game Stop to sell some old games and Target for, well, Target as we were out.  

Between Uber, Lyft, the bus, and rental cars, this place is just easy. And it works for us!