Snowbirds

Fine Feathered Friends

Last month we enjoyed visits from our Great Barrington friends Jan, Mike, and their daughter, Amanda; as well as our Milford neighbors, Deborah, and her daughter, Anastasia.  The weather was somewhat cooler than usual, but the sun shone abundantly and even the windiest days found the kids frolicking in the water.  The girls easily fell back in to their friendships and made new friends on the beach with other cruising kids.  Water is a great equalizer and, no matter a child's age - youngster, adolescent, teenager - they all find ways to mingle, play, and interact in a positive way.  Hamburger Beach, with its abandoned shacks and tiki huts, is the perfect venue for imaginary play and the girls embraced it all - from making hermit crab farms to playing "restaurant" and building sand castles.  The only real worries we had all week was whether or not the girls were wearing enough sunscreen to avoid being burned by the intense tropical sun.  

Jeanette, Amanda, and Anastasia

The More the Merrier

I guess I can't honestly report about our friends' visit without owning up to a communication breakdown.  A couple of months ago, Jan and I had been talking about a possible visit over Amanda's break.  Until Jeanette enrolled in school 7 years ago, I was unaware of the northeastern practice of having breaks in both winter (February) and spring (April).  In Florida, and everywhere else I've lived (which is a considerable number of places!), there has only been one spring break in March.  So, when Jan and I had a flurry of texts in January and she said that they might come down over break, I said "Sure!", all the while thinking that we were talking about March or April.  In the meantime, Deborah and Anastasia had plans to come visit over A's winter break in February and were going to stay on land.  This proved to be a Godsend, because Jan later sent me an email saying that they were booked for the very same week!!  It took me a day or two to get over my embarassment and recover my composure enough to reply, but we figured that everyone would get along; and, in fact, having them all here together just doubled the fun and the laughs.  Such is the challenge of communicating from the Bahamas where signals come and go, and not always when you want them to.  More importantly, such is the allure of the water and sand that brings everyone together in the spirit of these friendly islands.  

3 peas in a pod

A Near Sinking - Not!

To fully appreciate the freedoms of boating life, one must have a mode of transport to navigate short trips and increase accessibility to the shallows.  For us, that means having a dinghy or, as some sailors call it, the family car.  For Deborah, it meant renting a small Boston Whaler type boat with a canopy for shade, like a surrey without the fringe on top (have I been watching too many musicals?).  Although she was told that the maximum number of people was 5, we all crammed ourselves in, figuring that kids didn't count.  As it turns out, kids do count and, with all of us on board, the boat had very little freeboard (the space between the top of the sides, or gunwhales, and the water).  In truth, there was really only one time when we all piled in together and that was to go to Georgetown to meet the van that would drive us to Turquoise Cay for an afternoon of food, drink, pool, and play.  All was well until Ken, the driver, noticed that the gas tank was near empty.  As he tried to switch tanks, some of the harbor chop made its way into the boat, sloshing alarmingly around our ankles.  Although we were never in any real danger, there were some tense moments while our guests tried to gauge whether or not they should prepare for an abandon ship scenario and we tried to reassure them that this boat is unsinkable.  And who could blame their skepticism?  After all, look what happened the last time that claim was made!  I could go on and give you a blow-by-blow report of what actually happened, but I think Jan's account, below, captures it best:

To be sung to the tune of "The Ballad of Gilligan's Island"

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from a tropic port,

Aboard a tiny ship.

Beth the mate was a mighty sailing gal

Ken the skipper brave and sure.

8 passengers set sail that day 

For a three hour tour. 

A three hour tour.

As the little skiff crossed the harbor blue

It started taking water on.

"This boat can't sink" Beth said aloud

But the harmony was gone. 

The harmony was gone.

The waves came in and the water rose,

Jan put her life vest on.

"Just get me off this boat" she said, 

"I'm about to come undone".

"I'll call for help" said the mighty Ken.

A rescuer appeared.

He towed the skiff safely back to port and 

we gave a mighty cheer.

Now, problem solved, the boat was dry,

We started out again.

If not for the promise of a good, stiff drink

Jan wouldn't have gotten in.

She WOULDN'T have gotten in!

We made it safe to Georgetown Town

And on to Turquoise Cay. 

In spite of our close brush with death

We had a fabulous day!

We had a FABULOUS DAY!!!!!!

Jan recovering on the therapy hammock

To infinity...

Deborah on deck

A Closing and An Opening

There's almost nothing that happens in the Bahamas that a little time and a good rum drink won't cure.  We spent the rest of that afternoon at Turquoise Cay, sampling exotic drinks, lounging on the many seating and reclining options, floating in the infinity pool, and kayaking.  I could elaborate about the latter, suffice it to say that we went there and back again.  With Deborah sandwiched in the middle on what is probably a child's seat, Jan and I paddled and tried our best to steer a straight line.  All in all it was a great workout for the arms (paddling) and the abs (laughing).  With that highlight of the trip behind them, Jan, Mike, and Amanda departed the next day.  Everyone tanned and relaxed, they stepped onto Elvis' water taxi and puttered away - the water a safe 2' or more  below the gunwhales.   Deborah and Anastasia had one more day and joined us for the Opening Night festivities of the Cruisers Regatta.  It was fun to share that aspect of the cruising community with them and we all enjoyed the evening of entertainment and parodies that poked fun at the trials, irritations, hilarity, and fun of a season spent on the water in Georgetown.  The next day, while Deborah and Anastasia flew home to colder climes, we launched ourselves into the regatta with our first race.  Although we didn't have a lot of downtime to savor the moments we had just had with our friends, they left us with a happy, warm glow and the hopes of getting together this summer.  

A Boat is a Hole in the Water

Ka-Ching, Ka-Ching

There are many jokes about the expense of boats.  Not just the cost of buying one, but the regular maintenance and inevitable repairs, which can seem endless at times.  You see, boats are like thoroughbred horses – they are fragile, temperamental, and expensive to maintain.  In a similar vein, marine stores are like bridal shops - take an item at a reasonable cost, mark it up an absurd percentage over wholesale…… well, you get the picture.  Taken together, these factors give rise to the old adage “A boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money.”  Since we’ve bought Dreamcatcher, I often find myself wondering if we aren’t living the sailboat version of the old movie Moneypit with Tom Hanks.  I’ve given up asking Ken how much something costs, because, frankly, I don’t want to know anymore.  I just figure that we’ll add it onto the number of years I’ll be working upon our return.  Most concerning, it seems that disaster can strike at the most innocuous moments.  Take our entry into Nassau, for example.  Yes, it was blowing hard on our beam as we tried to move into the marina slip – but did that mean that a stray line had to find its way into the water at that very moment and wrap around our propeller?!  And, yes, we were running a test on the watermaker because it didn’t seem to be producing the right amount of water – but did that mean that it had to continue running when we shut it down and start sinking the boat?!  Okay, that last bit is an exaggeration, but the event was sufficiently nerve-wracking that I had to break into a new bar of chocolate just to pull myself together.  (Thank you, Marie, for leaving us so well stocked!)  Not surprisingly, I slept fitfully that night, with dreams of swimming against the current.  As usual, everything looked better in the morning when the bent sail drive turned out to be just an optical illusion, and the watermaker issue was a manufacturer failure.  Though we both ended up emotionally frayed from the experience, we were also happy that we didn’t have to spend a month on the hard in a boat yard ($$$) waiting for parts ($$$$) to be shipped from the US ($$) and repairs to be made ($$$), while we stayed in a hotel ($$$), before re-launching the boat ($$).  What seems like a disaster at first glance can be like that sometimes:  a narrow but sobering miss causing tremendous anxiety, followed by great sighs of relief. 

Projects Galore

Since then, we’ve had a steady stream of “issues.”  The generator that we spent $1,000 to fix in Nassau began to act up again shortly after our arrival in George Town.  Really??!!  We babied it a bit, trying this and that, and troubleshooting to no avail.  Eventually, Ken got around to checking the impeller, something he did not suspect because it had been replaced last summer and we only began using the generator after we left Connecticut in September.  When he showed the part to me, it looked ancient (was it really replaced when we paid someone to do it?) and was not even the right one, according to the documentation!  Fortunately, he had a spare and replaced it with no problem.  It’s a relief to have a reliably working genset again!  Ken was also able to resolve the watermaker malfunction when his sister Lisa brought the parts he had shipped to her (thank you, Lisa!).  We can now make our own water, which is especially important here where fresh water is so scarce.  On the other hand, while recalibrating the fuel tank gauge, the fuel sender was broken, which just happens to be a part that must be ordered through a company in Europe.  International shipping charges?  Like I said, I don’t want to know.  Then, a short time later, an essential rudder fitting on our sailing dinghy became bent out of shape as Ken sailed it into shore.  I couldn’t help but think, “Et tu, Pico?”  While that little mishap cut short our sailing fun that day, the repair was quick and required nothing more than a pair of vise grips and some elbow grease. 

Since I began writing this entry, the watermaker has acted up AGAIN!!  While it didn’t try to sink the boat this time, it’s producing water that is too saline – never a good thing for a reverse osmosis mechanism.  At present, Ken and Eric from Makai (one of Ken’s go-to, fix-everything guys) are chest deep in the hold beneath our berth where the watermaker resides.  Before they got started, Eric regaled us with his latest close-call project.  One of the heads on Makai was malfunctioning.  After tinkering around with the flushing mechanism, he discovered that an octopus had made its way into the intake valve!  While it was not happy to be dislodged from its new home, we’ve no doubt that both the head and the octopus will be happier for the separation. 

My Super-Hero battling the evil Spectra Watermaker!

Misery Loves Company

George Town is an ideal place for cruisers’ gatherings.  Every day there are events and established routines that invite cruisers to get together.  In our case, we typically join the other parents in the afternoons as our kids play on the beach “after school.”  Inevitably, our conversations turn to boat projects, successful repairs, and what’s not working.  The array of “what can go wrong” is mind-boggling.  Exchanges become almost comical, at times, and one wonders how any of us ever made it this far when our boats seem to be constantly riding the razor’s edge, a hair’s breadth away from complete and utter ruin.  Our friend Andrea on Rollick explained it this way:  Although not many people know this, the word “BOAT” is actually an acronym for Break Out Another Thousand.  We all laughed, though I, for one, was secretly crying inside. 

Each view more beautiful than the last.....

All’s Well That Ends Well

As I pass tools to Ken while he’s squeezed into one compartment or another, there’s always the temptation to throw in the towel and give up.  Then we take a look around at where we are and figure that we’d rather be sweating over a boat project in the Exumas than shoveling snow in the Northeast.  We agonize over whatever happens to be on the blink and then, once it’s fixed, quickly forget the misery it caused us.  We spend more time together now than we have in years and are sharing experiences, making memories, and re-discovering each other in ways that will stay with us for a lifetime.  “What’s that odd sound?”  “Do you smell that?”  “Is that smoke?”  “Is there supposed to be water in here?”  Moments of real panic are short-lived and we are learning to take it all in stride.  Laughter and Surrender are our best allies; and, in the long run, whatever inconveniences we experience by our misfortunes are eclipsed by the beauty and wonder of this place.   Each day seems to bring new challenges; one of the realities of cruising in a very tough marine environment that we have come to accept.  We just hope that they continue to be solvable problems rather than cruise-ending catastrophes.