On Monday, March 2, the sunrise was blocked by a cloud.
In the morning, it was very windy with on-and-off drizzle. We went to shore for bread and groceries. These birds usually moved as a flock and had an interesting wing pattern. Christi has been trying to get a photo of them flying. She’s never been successful at catching the flock at the right angle to see the pattern, but she finally caught one with its wings open so you can kind of see the pattern.
Thanks to the full moon, it was an extra-low tide, and we were surprised to see there were a lot of conch shells along the part of the shore that was normally underwater.
It was still calm in the morning. We’d never put out the flopper stoppers, put on the window covers or got the dinghy down, so we had very little to do to get ready to go this morning. We pulled up anchor about 0630. It was a smooth passage to Blackpoint. We had a current with us and made amazing time, arriving at 1245.
Our friends on Algonquin and a Nordhavn 50 called Grey Goose were in the anchorage. Keith and Eric met them onshore. Christi stayed aboard to attend an online meeting.
They went to Lorraine’s on the road for lunch. Lorraine’s directed them to go to High Tide (the Lorraine’s on the waterfront) instead. After 30-minutes, the server still hadn’t taken their drink orders yet, so they left and went next door to the Yacht Club, instead. Eric had a nice time talking Nordhavns, but Keith was bored. After lunch, they headed back to Kosmos. Eric and Keith did stop by Lorraine’s mom’s for bread on both the way in and the way out, but she wasn’t home either time.
We’ll take a moment to share our opinions: we think the three restaurants in Blackpoint are all very comparable in terms of price, menu selection and quality of food. That said, we’ve decided that the Yacht Club was the overall best restaurant. We thought Lorraine’s had the best food, in part because she cooked the food to order, but the service was the slowest of the three, in part because she cooked food to order. Deshamon’s and Lorraine’s were inconsistent with hours. Emerald Sunset had stable hours and good service, but it was also the most expensive and the food was mediocre. The Yacht Club was reliable, with consistent hours, food, service and middle of the road prices. The biggest downside of the Yacht Club was that cats lived on the premises and sometimes the cat smell was quite strong — and for Christi, that was a big negative.
Christi hadn’t been on dry land since Wednesday and was anxious to go to shore. She and Eric headed to shore as soon as her meeting ended. Here were some of the birds watching them as they approached the dock.
Friday, January 31 – Saturday, February 6: This week has been fun. On Saturday, more boats shuffled. On Sunday, nothing bad happened to us, but the strong winds caused a few boats to drag.
Cette semaine était amusante. Samedi, plus de bateaux ont bougé. Dimanche, il ne nous est rien arrivé, mais des bateaux ont dérivé parce que le vent était fort.
On Wednesday, February 25th, the sunrise was blocked by clouds, but it made a neat lighting effect.
The wind had shifted in the night. It was still very windy. Now that we were no longer protected, the anchorage was filled with small, bouncy waves. It was uncomfortable. As soon as we woke up, we got Kosmos ready to go – brought the paravanes in, raised the dinghy up, took the snubber and window covers off, tided up — and pulled up anchor at 0830.
Everyone else was leaving, too. We joined the conga line of boats. On the radio, we heard the Bahamian coast guard call a particular boat that was already en route to notify him they were going to board him. In the distance, we could see the coast guard boat approaching another boat.
We dropped anchor in Hog Cay at 1015. The anchorage was calm since the wind waves couldn’t get in from that direction, but there was still a strong, cold wind. Christi did not bundle up before going out on deck to drop the anchor, and she froze for the few minutes she was outside.
In the early afternoon, Eric and Keith went to the beach with several of the families. Christi stayed behind to make lunch. When it was done, Eric and Keith came onboard to eat, then all three of us went back to the beach until sunset. The kids played on the floating donut trampoline and the adults sat under the hut and talked. The single-hander who’d been boarded was there, too. He said that the coast guard staff were very polite and just wanted to see his cruising permit.
Last night, there was a big storm with strong, cold wind. However, our anchorage was very protected from that direction and we had a calm night. This morning, the wind was so cold that Christi couldn’t sit outside to watch the sunrise.
Also this morning, Eric realized that the AGM battery shared by the wing engine and generator was starting to die. The last few times he’d started the generator, the voltage had dropped and it didn’t sound right. Today, when he exercised the wing engine, it had trouble starting. Knowing that both the wing engine and the generator were having a hard time with start up, he deduced the problem was the battery. He checked the voltage and it had dropped. The battery was only four years old. Usually they last five years, but that battery didn’t get discharged very often, which shortens its life.
After Keith and Christi finished school, we decided to walk to town to get groceries and lunch. Yesterday, we’d noticed an airplane in the bushes a bit west of where we’d landed the dinghy, but we hadn’t investigated it. We’d read on the No Foreign Land app that it had been a restaurant, but was out of business now. Today, Christi walked over to get a better look, curious about a restaurant made out of a plane. It was actually a building with a plane built into the roof. It looked like it was once a super cool place for the cruisers to hang out!
Big pieces of what was probably once a ship were scattered along the shore near the airplane-house.
