Category Archives: Failure

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Moving to Ragged Island in the Ragged Islands, The Bahamas

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Sunrise on Sunday February 22

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.

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Snorkeling and Diving The Piano at Rudder Cay, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

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Just before the sunrise on Friday, January 23

A popular tourist attraction in the area was a statue of a mermaid about to play a piano that David Cooperfield had sunk for an activity for his resort guests. After Christi and Keith finished school, Eric and Keith snorkeled the statue with Bogumilia.  

We’d read that the statue was hard to see while snorkeling because it was kind of deep, and they recommended going at low tide, when it was only about 10-feet down, for the best views. While they could see it, it was tough. Low tide meant a strong current, and it took a lot of strength to stay in place over the statue in order to get a good look at it. From what they could see, it appeared the statue was a 1:1 scale of a person and a grand piano.

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Moving to an Unnamed Sand Bar in the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, The Bahamas

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Dawn on Saturday, December 27

We forgot to mention that one of the chores that Eric had done a few days ago was change the generator oil. Today he put away the tools. Eric frequently says that in boat maintenance, getting everything out and putting it all away again often took longer than the task itself. Eric also spent some time in the morning trying to figure out why the air conditioner in the salon mysteriously stopped working. He cleaned the sea strainer and checked the oils, but didn’t see a problem.

Today the wind was dead and the seas were completely calm. Here was our flopper stopper.

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Christmas with the Ranger at Warderick Wells Cay, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

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On Thursday, December 25, 2025, Christi woke up at 0500, before first light. Warderick Wells basically has zero lights and it was cloudless (which was rare), making the stars especially vibrant. She sat outside for a few minutes and saw a shooting star! This was the dawn.

Early in the morning, the park ranger’s wife sang to us about the rules of the park. We’d forgotten about her morning announcements!

Some of the other parents organized a scavenger hunt around the island for the kids. in the morning, Keith went on the scavenger hunt. Here was a shot of the group.

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Lying Low Between the Majors, Staniel Cay Area, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

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On Wednesday, December 10, 2025, we woke up wondering if the Apocalypse had just happened.

While Christi and Keith did school, Eric removed the salinity probe and cleaned it. But it didn’t help — the sensor still wasn’t working. When he put it back, he tightened it as much as he could to ensure it didn’t leak.

We needed to go to the grocery store. We decided to go to shore at 1130, figuring that would give us enough time to have lunch and do our grocery shopping before the current was too strong in either direction. We somehow made a big mistake in calculations. Going in, the current was still strong. We made slow forward progress while the battery power was quickly sucked down. Eric had intended to bring a spare battery for the dinghy to be safe, but when we were about halfway to shore, he realized he’d forgotten it. From there on out, he was really anxious about getting stranded. We made it to the yacht club dinghy area with no problems. It was high tide, and the sea wall was again underwater.

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