Report #9 - Dec 3 - Dec 10, 2013 - Chub Cay to Nassau
We only stayed for a day in Frazer’s Hog in the Berrys as
the winds were picking up and for the next week or 2. We listen every morning on the SSB radio at
6:30am to God – aka Chris Parker – who tells us all when we can come and when
we can go and for how long and how we shall get there. Chris is a climatologist who lives in Florida
aboard Bellamy, a very nice motor yacht.
Chris broadcasts between 6am and 9:30 am on various frequencies across
the HF bands. He is available to listen
to by anyone with an HF radio but he also makes a living from this so cruisers
sign up – some do anyhow – and pay a fee of $200 per year for weather info and
these “sponsoring boats” can speak to him daily and get specific
information. He also offers an email up
date for the Bahamas, the East Carib and the West Carib for another $100 a year
which we also got and we receive it by email on our Pactor 3 modem also over
the SSB radio. Since weather is THE
factor the price is great and Chris is one hard working guy, 6 days a
week. He updates his daily forecast by
the email service and he also clears urgent traffic, emergencies and co-ordinates
lost boat searches ie., a cruiser left for the Abacos at the beginning of
December and had not been heard from for a week. Boats look out for other boats and Chris is
such a central character that this is another benefit of the weather net. There are other “nets” and we’ll talk about
them at some point.
Cruisers from Charleston to Florida, from the Bahamas to
Trinidad, from Texas to Guatemala, all tune in to hear the good news. Lately, Chris tells us that there is more bad
news than good which is retarding much progress south and to the promised lands. The Christmas winds have arrived early and
that means high trade winds from the East.
One boat got to Luperon in the Dominican Republic and wants to get to
Puerto Rico and Chris said it may be January before the winds let up
enough. However, we are a bit north and
the winds are not so bad and we seized a decent window and are fortunate to be
in the Bahamas.
So, you now have an idea why our Berry Islands stay of
several days changed to an overnight.
Chris forecast the winds would build by later afternoon to 15-20 knots
from the east and east-south-east to change it up a bit and that would only
build to 25 knots steady for the following week. Since that was our heading we decided to run
to Nassau before the seas grew too much.
Dec 4 we left and we beat hard on an ESE that became increasingly “interesting”
into the later afternoon. We were glad
to make Nassau in 5+ ft waves and a nauseating frequency, our progress so slow
we were fortunate to have the last twilight to set our anchor.
Clearance granted (thank heavens!) from Nassau Harbour
Control, we anchored between the King George cruise ship docks and the Paradise
Island bridges in about 10 feet. 
The
anchorage is rolly and there is a good current that runs between the east and
west entrances. We have been quite
surprised at how few boats (only about 6-8) there are here but it is both early
in the season and the weather has been brutal.
We visited Atlantis, docking the dinghy at the Atlantis
Marina dinghy dock, no charge, and walked around but found most of the areas
are only open to guests and to those willing to pay $30 a day to access the
grounds (other exhibits are extra!) 
The
place is huge and there is a local basketball league that plays on a court in a
conference /meeting room – the place has many such rooms, did we mention this
place is huge? We decided we needed the
$ more than King Neptune so we retreated to the other side of the harbour with
the unwashed masses.
We dinghy to shore at least once a day, doing laundry at a marina, shopping, we have filled diesel and gas (((we have shifted 2 of our 4 diesel jerry cans to gasoline for the outboard now for a total of 4 jerry cans of gasoline, 2 of diesel), and have walked and walked. The cruise ships come and go and the rhythm of the harbour revolves around them and the Atlantis resort. The glass bottom boats, snorkelling boats, party boats, parasail boats, and dive boats whiz back and forth starting at about 8am until dark and then there are just a few party boats with music drifting until about midnight.
There are also the fishing boats, work boats, island freighters, ferries, passenger island ferries and the Mail Boat all making their journeys at all times of day and night. Great entertainment and the holding has been great, no dragging at all.
We have been here long enough that a number of the boats
wave at us and the guys on the conch boat anchored in front of us chat with us
and have invited us to go conch diving with them. That's them in the three boats. The harvest the conch, get the meat and sell to the restaurants and the shells go to the bottom for a couple of days and then they bring them up (now minus the last bits of the meat) and dress them up for sale to the tourists. The guys at the pirate bar where we get the wifi know our
beer (Sands and Sands Lite.) 
The conch seller in the little
skiff at the downtown wharf greets us and always helps Edi in or out of the
dinghy and the conch salad guy at Casablanca Bar waves – that’s him beside Edi.
We have met some Canadian expats living and
working here at the Poop Deck, sort of the local boating bar-restaurant who
have given some info and local knowledge – yes they always lock the dinghy.
Shopping has been an experience. Basically prices run from the same as home
(all dairy products including milk, eggs, cheeses but for some reason not
yogurt; some canned foods are also the same), to 25-50% more like red meats and
a lot of canned items and pastas to 100-200% more like all paper products (12
pops for $8, 1 roll TP $1.89, 1 box Kleenex $6.09 etc.) Our 120 rolls of TP, 50 boxes of Kleenex and
30 rolls of paper towels that brought some jokes are turning out to be our best
investment ever – maybe we should open a store and fund the cruising kitty,
smuggling paper products from Miami!
With these prices, we had a great surprise when we went to the local
Dominos Pizza down from the grocery store and got the special – 1 large, 1
medium and a half-rack of ribs for $25?!?
Forget shopping, we can go there every 3 days! The Dairy Queen next door was double the
price from home.
The weather has been outstanding – 28 degrees C daytime and
dropping by early am to about 22 and today we had the first rain since around
Vero Beach. While it only lasted 30
minutes, it got the deck wet enough to give it a scrub with a salt water
rinse. Liquid soaps (not bar soap) will
lather in saltwater but not nearly as well.
In filling the diesel and gas we also looked for water and
found only $1 a gallon water – no, not Perrier from France! At Chub Cay the price was $0.55 / gal. Prices may be slightly less at marinas but
all water here is made by desalination and there is not much free anywhere so
we decided to commission our watermaker.
We have a Katadyn PUR 80 and we were going to wait until the Exumas but
the harbour water is quite clean, being changed over constantly by the tidal
flow. We didn’t make water in the US
since we always had a free source of potable water. So, now we make water out of water, making 12
gallons yesterday. Amperage draw has
been quite above specs but then we found online a note on one model stating
that there is a breakin period where the amperage draw will be higher for the
first 20 hours or so. The amperage draw
for the first hour was over 16 amps (spec is 8) but by hour 3 it was down to 12
amps. We purchased the watermaker on a
great sale 5 years ago and it has been installed but never used. I have greased the piston with dialectric silicone
compound per maintenance instructions and it seems to be helping grease the
seals and loosen up the piston action.
Water quality is excellent with no taste at all which surprised us but
at less than 100 ppm (we have a digital analyzer and potable is less than 1500
ppm and the Miami water we got is 335 ppm) we are happy. We are also making about 3 US gallons per
hour, within 10% of specs in high salinity water so it is just the amperage
issue which seems to be halfway to specs now and improving as the unit breaks
in. Yay, fewer jerry cans to lug – and
water is about 10 lbs a gallon. We just
need to figure out have to turn on the beer output lever.
Life is quite comfortable in Nassau and we have a well-set
anchor, the lie of the land, the dinghy dock locations, the cheap bars with
free wifi and the locals’ grocery store.
Must be time to leave.
We spoke to Chris this morning and he said the day after
tomorrow should be a good day to jump to the northern Exumas so we are in
departure mode getting the boat set, the garbage rounded up and listing the
last items to buy (perishable foods.) And
we must say goodbye to the gang at the Pirate’s Pub and the Poop Deck and
Casablanca and… Maybe a Thursday
departure is a little ambitious.
s/v Kind of Magic @ anchor, Nassau Harbour, New Providence,
Bahamas
2475.4 NM / 2846.8 STM / 4554.8 KM travelled
Tuesday December 10,
2013, 4 months out
B & E out
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