Even at 1/4 full, the moon was amazingly bright on Wednesday, March 11
Dawn
Yesterday morning, Tiki Tour arrived in the anchorage. After all the kids had finished school, the other four families took their dinghies to Rachel’s Bubble Bath. Keith tagged along with them. Eric and Christi stayed aboard Kosmos. They worked on getting things ready for Keith’s upcoming birthday party, including baking more cupcakes. Christi also worked on her land life project, and was thrilled about accomplishing something important (or so she thought). It felt like the anchorage was a bit rollier today than it had been yesterday.
The dawn on Monday, March 9 was colorful, and even though the moon was only half full, it was still especially vibrant:
After Christi and Keith finished doing school, we took the dinghy to Staniel Cay. We went to the pink grocery store and picked up a few items. We wanted to get a bottle of alcohol, and had been told the best place to buy it was at the Yacht Club’s laundromat. Eric went around to a small building set back from the shore on the Yacht Club’s property and saw a faded sign that said “Laundromat and (unreadable) Liquor.”
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.
The wind is going to change this evening to the west, a direction that was not protected by this anchorage, so we needed to move today. It was actually a good time for us to move — the boat was a mess and moving always forced us to tidy up. The majority of the anchorage that we were going to, on the southwest side of Ragged Island, was shallow. Eric wanted to leave early to ensure that we could get a spot in the limited deeper area.
We got Kosmos ready to go as soon as we got up and pulled up anchor at 0800. There was quite a bit of seaweed and/or sea grass and at least half a dozen little things living on the anchor chain. The creatures were firmly fastened to it and Christi had a hard time removing them and dropping them back into the water. Here was a small sampling of the collection of items that came off the anchor chain.
In bad news, as we were getting the dinghy raised, Eric realized the dinghy’s solar panels were dead.
