I broke it :(

I don't think there's a cruiser out there who hasn't had something break on their boat while they've been in the middle of paradise, but this year I seem to have been especially good at causing things to break! The galley faucet, the aft head (eh, not me specifically, but a team effort by the crew!), and the dinghy. The dinghy kind of broke my heart a little. I mean, she's NEW! But I'm 99% certain that the fish spike we found in the starboard tube was from the hogfish I speared and I was the one to take it to the dink, so...my fault. As much as I wasn't into putting chaps onto a hypalon dinghy, I'm starting to reconsider and will likely tackle that project before we head out cruising again. 

But anyway, we had to patch the dinghy! Thankfully we had the material and a good glue onboard, but finding the time to do it so that it could properly cure was probably the hardest part, followed closely by where exactly to put the dinghy while we did it. To properly do that patch we needed to deflate the tube, prep the area, put three layers of glue on the boat and the patch with varying setting times, then apply the patch and roll over it to bond the two surfaces, and finally let it cure for 24 hours before inflating. So we had to basically commit ourselves to being boat-bound for a day. We were in Rock Sound, had plenty of food, and a good anchorage so we went for it. 

We left the dink in the davits and just deflated the punctured tube. Then with the help of a small cutting board and some clamps we had a decent working area. And I'm happy to report...the repair went well! She's been holding pressure beautifully for about a week! Whew! I promise to take WAY better care of all things boat and crew from here on out!

A successful "boat project in paradise!"

About this time I also did a fun little poll on my Instagram story. We are approaching out 13th Boativersary and it can make us a little nostalgic about what we've done over the years. At this point, we've sailed about 19,000 nautical miles on Lehe Paine! She's a good boat and has cared for us well over the years.

It's been a good ride!

~Jo, 1st Mate

The Cat is out of the Bag--We head to Cat Island!

 Is it seriously April already? Anyway...

We left the Jumentos and hit Long Island for a few days on our way to Cat Island. We love Hillside Grocery and Tiny's Hurricane Hole in Thompson Bay/Salt Pond and had a few nights there before heading north. 

Tiny's--great good and fun! As weird as it sounds, I crave the brussel sprouts from here.

We were expecting strong winds from the east and lucked out with a VERY private, peaceful anchorage off the private Hog Cay (a different Hog Cay than the one we were at in the Raggeds!) for a night. We had some great snorkeling on the reefs (no dinner!) and enough solitude to properly shower on deck! The only downside was the discovery that a fish spike (likely from my hogfish) had pierced the starboard tube of our less-than-a-year-old dinghy! Gorilla tape and frequent pumping works for now, but a good patch is in our future.

It's blowing 20+ knots, but our anchorage is calm! But, ugh...the dinghy! Boo!

The next day we went "around the corner" for protection from SE winds in the south corner of Calabash Bay. The adults went for a little snorkeling/exercise and found even more corals we hadn't explored before here and a team spearing/wrestling match resulted in a very nice lobster! It was a nice way to close out our time on Long Island!

Frank's monster lobster that I helped secure. It was a sunrise departure from Calabash.

As we departed for Cat Island with winds and big swells on our stern, the forecast showed two days of NW and N winds. We decided to take a gamble and anchor at Port Howe on the south shore of Cat Island. A new place! It is an anchorage lined with a large reef that is notoriously reviewed as "rolly," but we thought we might luck out with the forecast. We entered the cut in the reef and anchored easily, but with winds and swell out of the SE on the first day we had a dreadfully rolly, sleepless night. It got better as the days went by, but surge definitely makes it in there. But it was also definitely protected from the north wind. The real treat? Super reefs to snorkel! And Frank brought in a beast of a lobster that we decided would be the last of the season for us. It's been a great run!

The entrance went really well considering we had waves and wind pushing us in. Great job, Skipper!

Frank's end-of-season mega lobster and a stunning sunset!

As winds shifted to the NE, we left Port Howe for the familiar waters of "the bight." We hit New Bight to visit the Hermitage, do laundry at Gilly's (SUPER nice laundromat!), get baked goodies and fresh eggs and tomatoes at Olive's Bakery, and find good food and cruiser camaraderie down at the Fish Fry. By the way, if you've never tried the island favorite "Chicken in da Bag," Gippy's is a great place to try it and they have ice cream, too! Next we shifted to Old Bight to wait out some strong SE winds before continuing our journey north, first to Bennett's Harbor then onward to Eleuthea. 

We had a nice walk up to the Hermitage.

The "parking lot" at New Bight gave us easy access to Gilly's Laundry, Gippy's for "Chicken in da Bag," and Olive's Bakery for those delicious Cat Island flour cakes. Some water is more green here, but some anchorages are this stunning blue!

Cat Island is really great and we are happy to see that more cruisers are making it a stop on their journey through the Bahamas. It's the home of Rake & Scrape and some really sweet folks. And while there is pretty much no where to hide from westerlies (unless you try Port Howe), you can anchor almost all up and down the west coast. Even with it's increasing popularity there was still plenty of room to spread out and skinny dip respectfully! And while we could happily spend more time with the lovely people here, more adventure awaits us to the north!

~Jo, 1st Mate

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!

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!