February / May 2007
Miami – Bahamas
In early February GD was at anchor south of Venetian Causeway between Miami City and Miami Beach surrounded by moored transient, live-aboard and local boats: In the near distance there are cruise ships coming and going, the office and condo blocks of Miami on the skyline and the air is full of flying adverts while laser lights sere across the night sky. The city is gearing up for the Superbowl this weekend!
Michael & Sarah Claus, fellow Moody owners who live here in Miami kindly visited me on 1st February and invited me over to the yacht club where we had a pleasant short evening of drinks and a meal before returning to Sail La Vie, their Moody 41, to haul Michael up the mast in the dark to rig a new burgee halyard and investigate a mainsail furling issue. It was most interesting to visit a very similar boat to GD. I was very impressed with the installed diesel powered / water-cooled generator and the air-conditioning it powered!
I have been testing GD's new Honda portable generator for the last two days and so far I'm impressed. The noise (my main worry) is not too bad when the generator sits on the aft deck (big advantage of a centre cockpit boat) and quickly you hardly hear it as it's a constant background hum - somehow less intrusive than the variable swish noise of some wind generators. (5th Feb: Solar panels would be useful but it's been overcast here in Miami for three days now!) The generator is plugged straight into the shore power socket and recharges the batteries through the existing inverter / charger. It supplies mains voltage to the 110v AC sockets so I also charge up all the bits and pieces of electronics that need or prefer mains voltage to charge (computer, camera, mobile phone, torch, hand-held VHF - it's amazing how this stuff accumulates). I've experimented with running the fridge all day now I don't have to run the main engine to recharge, but this would mean running the generator twice a day so the 'fridge really could do with some extra insulation in this hot weather - mid 80's today.
I've also been testing the new SSB radio installation and can communicate with boats during the cruisers 'nets' a good distance off, but they don't hear me too clearly - so more copper-strap ground plain was added this morning connecting another through-hull to the circuit.
The SSB additional ground plane improved transmission power and I was able to have a good conversation with boats the other side of the Bahamas this morning.
We had crew change in Miami with my friend from Tent Sea Training, Jacky Neild, arriving for the next section of the trip into the Caribbean.
After a few days, re-supplying, waiting for weather and fixing a few last minute gear problems we set sail early on 14th for a perfect broad reach across the Gulf Stream to South Bimini - our Caribbean landfall.
We spent a short day exploring the Bimini Islands before setting off for the 80 mile overnight crossing of the Great Bahama Bank.
We of course managed to cross the shallowest part of the Bank at extreme low tide (a lower than LAT tide!) with only a foot of water under GD's 6' keel at one stage.
At the eastern side of the Bank we turned southeast for the final 14 miles to an anchorage off Chub Cay. We spent a bouncy night in building winds before moving into the flashy, expensive but part-finished marina to wait out the forecast 30 / 35 knot winds.
Before the winds came in we managed to row across to a small reef off Mamma Rhoda Island for some great snorkeling amongst an incredible variety of colourful fish and corals and then later off a long white-sand beach on the south coast of the main island. A pina colada in the marina bar finished a great day!
From Chub Cay our route through the Bahamas was: Nassau, Rose Island, Allan's Cay, Rum Cay and Atwood Harbour on Aklins Island.
For Jacky's log - a fuller account with more photographs - go here.