Gearing up for George Town Cruisers Regatta

Everyone is gearing up for regatta and we’ve been busy as usual.  The wind continues to be challenging and we’ve had a couple of days hiding out in the hurricane hole.  

Last weekend we continued to track the typhoon “Winston” that was barreling through Fiji where our friends Al & Jill have left their boat Dragonfly.  Rec’d an email from them this week that the boat survived the blow, thank goodness.

Went to an "ARG  (Alcohol Research Group) Meeting on the Beach one evening and a group of us wore our Exuma T-shirts that were designed by our good friends Bruce and Joyce.  We all raised a glass in Bruce's memory.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with 2 other couples on our boat and on the 16th we celebrated my “big 70th” BD. Joe opened a couple of cans and made me a nice dinner.

This week there were two dinghies that flipped in the harbour due to high winds and seas.  Everyone was ok but it’s a bit challenging getting around.

On Monday the cruisers got together for a Craft and Bake Sale with all proceeds going to the George Town Red Cross.  I baked Farm Cookies for the bake sale and won a painting at the raffle.  We raised over $1,100.00 and everyone got their fill of cookies, cakes and homemade bread.

Joe goes to softball practice twice a week and admits that he isn’t getting a whole lot better but he is having fun.  Every afternoon he’s on the volleyball court playing and doing clinics to get players ready for the big tournament.  With all of this beach volleyball our boat is starting to look like a sand pit so I spend a lot of time sweeping up after him. 

I’m alternating between yoga and water aerobics most mornings and going to Bible Study on Tuesdays.

We did go to the Chat N Chill dance one night and Joe actually danced with me.  

Did I mention we've had a lot of wind?

Registration for regatta events is Fri. and Sat. is the variety show.  Joe will be doing the tug of war and I’m doing a skit with 6 other girls.  We’re dancing and singing to “These Boots were made for Walking”-we’re wearing rubber sea boots and have added some pretty funny moves so should be a good time.  Will post some pics.

Sun. night is the big softball game with the cruisers vs. the Bahamians and it’s always a hoot.

Next week Joe will be crewing for the big boat races, we’re helping with the coconut challenge and of course, there’s the big volleyball tournament at the end of the week.

Two days after regatta ends, Jeanne and Marcia arrive and we’ll be heading north through the Exumas to Nassau.  They fly out of Nassau on the 16th and after that we’ll be on our way back to Florida.  

Contract on DejaVu

We have accepted a deposit and have a contract to sell DejaVu.  The buyer is a friend of a fellow cruiser and he came to see the boat when he was here in George Town.  The next day he brought his wife and 8 month old baby girl to the boat.
They fell in love with it and left a cash deposit with their friend who delivered it to us yesterday.
Benny and his family live in Palm Harbour Florida so the boat will go full circle and be back where it came from in the Tarpon Springs area.
We will finish our cruising season here in George Town and head up the Exuma chain with Joe's sister, Jeanne and her friend, Marcia on March 9th.  They will fly out of Nassau on March 16th and we'll sail back to Florida.
Of course, this is a very emotional time for us but we know in our hearts that it is the right decision and now we're looking forward to new adventures.

Now on to what we're doing here.
The weather this season has been very unusual as it has been everywhere.  Lots of cold fronts coming down here from Florida with winds blowing hard out of the West and NW.  This just means that we move the boat from one side of the harbour to the other every 10 days.  Luckily for us DejaVu only draws 3 feet so we can tuck into an anchorage that has protection from the wind.
We still get lots of sunshine and the temperatures are still much better than up north.

Everyone is gearing up for the cruiser's regatta that starts on Feb. 26th.  Joe is busy getting teams set up for regulation volleyball and he's going to softball practice twice a week.  I'm still doing my water aerobics, bible study and selling T-shirts.

Lots of get togethers with our fellow cruisers and we try not to talk too much about this being our final season with them.

As our friend, John, says "It's all good".

Lots of fun in George Town

Sorry we haven’t updated our Blog in some time but have been very busy with inquiries about the boat.  It seems to have taken all of our time and energy just to answer emails.  We finally set up a blog site to answer questions and post pics and have also decided that we didn’t want to show the boat until we get back to Florida the beginning of April.

catdejavu43.blogspot.com

We’re still managing to have lots of fun here in George Town and Joe is going full speed ahead with his volleyball and has also decided to play baseball on the cruisers team which plays against the Bahamian team.  Yesterday he went to baseball practice in the a.m., went to play two’s volleyball after that and then played 4’s volleyball in the afternoon.  You can imagine what he did in the evening.

On Sat. we went to the Stakeout and Raffle picnic at St. Theresa’s Church.  Helen sold 4 books of tickets and the cruisers really came out to support the fund raiser for a youth centre building.  

 Church Picnic

Women's Bible Study

Church Picnic

 Flip Flop Beach

Joe & Joe having a serious talk

Helen going to Bible Study on a windy day

After the church picnic we gathered on flip flop beach for a cruiser get-together.

Yesterday while Joe was gone for his “sports day” Helen went to water aerobics, came back to the boat to change, went to Women’s Bible Study and then a Ladies Luncheon at St. Francis Resort.

Joe has agreed to be the chairman for the 4’s regulation volleyball so he’s busy getting that organized.  He will also race his Laser sailboat in the small boat races.  We’ve decided not to sail DejaVu in the big boat races this year-can’t take a chance that we’ll break something just when we’re ready to sell it.

Tomorrow is laundry day so we’ll pick up Brian and Yvonne and go to the Exuma Yacht Club to get fuel, get a ride to the laundromat, get propane and then back to the boat in time for Joe to play volleyball.

Yes, it’s a good life and we’re really going to miss it but who knows maybe we’ll be back someday in a different boat.

Hope everyone is well and that your winter hasn’t been too cold, snowy or rainy.  Pls. keep in touch we love to get news from home. 

Big News about DejaVu

Enjoying our season in George Town but we have made a big decision to list DejaVu for sale.  Nothing wrong but we’ve decided that it’s time for us to do something different with our winter travels.

We realize it may take some time to find the right buyer for the boat and we’ll continue cruising until someone comes along.  In the meantime if any of you know of someone who would like to take up this wonderful lifestyle please send them our way.  Check out the listing at:

http://www.sailboatlistings.com

We’re still playing volleyball and doing water aerobics.  Helen is helping to sell Regatta t-shirts and we’re looking fwd. to the cruisers regatta which starts on Feb. 26th.  

Hope to hear from you.

Christmas and the Big Blow of 2016

Our Christmas dinner on the beach was a big success.  Yes I was able to get that 1/2 turkey in my small oven after beating it down a bit.

New Year’s Eve was spent on Hamburger Beach with a bunch of French Canadian cruisers-lots of great food and drink.  The French really do know how to party.  Of course we started at 4:30 so Joe & I were back on the boat by 8:00.  

Everything settled down after the Holiday Celebrations and we kept busy with water aerobics, volleyball, Joe sailing his laser sailboat, walks on the beach, church and bible study and having friends over for dinner.

The weather has been very warm and windy with the winds clocking around in all directions. 

 It all caught up with us  last Wed. evening.

 As we finished dinner Joe noticed the clouds were building and we could see lightening south of us, the wind generator started turning so fast we couldn’t hear anything so he went out to turn it off and that’s when the wind hit.  We started up the engines to run up on the anchors to take pressure off of them and then the boats around us started dragging their anchors and were bearing down on us-of course, as usual, we were right next to the beach at the Monument and the wind was blowing out of the West so everything was coming our way.  The radio was alive with boats yelling “your dragging”. A monohull beside us was  blown on to the beach but they managed to get it off with their engines.

Now in a situation like this there isn’t much you could do to help others except get out of the way so after two boats came very close to crashing into us Joe realized one of our anchors had broken loose and he started backing up to get the other one out and we moved away from the boats and he let the anchors loose-had to cut the rope on one to get it freed.  We powered across the harbour with waves coming over the transoms.  

It wasn’t as windy over there because we were in the lee of the land.  it was still too windy to re-anchor (thank goodness we carry 3 anchors) so we just went back and forth for 2 hours and finally got settled.  Highest winds were clocked at 90 mph.

The next morning we came back over to Stocking Island and Joe snorkeled around looking for the anchors-he found one and later with the help of our friends, Joanne and George on Bristol Cream who had a tank and hooka rig Joe was able to dive down and find the other one.  It was buried deep so we had to bring the big boat over to pick it up. Of course I was praying to St. Anthony to find the anchor and another cruiser came by to help-guess what his name was?-Anthony.  oh well.

We were so lucky and felt bad for some of our friends.  Several boats had damaged dinghy davits and dinghies, bow pulpits bent, lost dinghies, kayaks and paddles, fuel tanks, water jugs, bent rigging and rub rails.

We’ve heard that a boat was lost near Highborne Cay and a fellow lost a finger while trying to pull his chain up.

The amazing thing was that no one was hurt here and everyone has been helping each other-it’s a great community.

Bahamas Crossing

After spending 4 days in Miami we were ready to set out into the “big” water and make the crossing to the Bahamas.  After listening to Chris Parker we set out at 7:30 A.M.

The big factor in crossing to the Bahamas is the Gulf Stream and the wind direction and if they are in competition you can have a rough ride.  We started out motor/sailing but soon found that the wind was on our nose and the sails were slowing us down.

It wasn’t too uncomfortable but Helen spent as much time as possible laying down on the settee cushion.  she was able to take over some of the watch at night so Joe could close his eyes.  Now that we have AIS (automatic identification system) on our GPS it’s not as scary traveling at night.  If we see a light near us we can look at the screen and it will tell us the name of the vessel, their speed and course and the closest point of approach.  Two big sport fishing boats passed us-no problem.

In the morning we decided to just keep on going since conditions weren’t too bad and the predictions were that they wouldn’t get any better.

After being underway for 33 hours we anchored at Highborne Cay.

Early to bed that night.

the next day we got underway at 7:45 A.M. and again had a motor boat ride to Black Point.  Anchored at 3:00 so we were able to go ashore for a walk and check email.

If we’re going to make it to George Town for Christmas we need to keep moving because a Cold Front with winds up to 30 knots out of the north is predicted for this weekend so we got underway again and arrived at one of our favourite anchorages in William’s Bay.  Seeing other boats that we know from George Town made us feel like we’re getting closer.

We went out the cut at Black Cay  at 7:30 A.M. and finally had a good wind for sailing-big jib and main up, dragging two fishing lines.  No luck with the fish and we came into the cut at George Town at 10:30 A.M.  Sailed right into the anchorage.  Brian and Yvonne came over to welcome us and to let us know about “Cheeseburgers in Paradise” party at St. Francis Resort.  Got things settled and put on our party clothes.  

It started blowing hard that night so after we went ashore for “Beach Church” decided to move the boat to a more protected anchorage.  The wind blew over 30 knots all day and night.

On Monday we took the boat around to Kidd Cove and went into town to get checked in, buy an internet card for our phone and a few groceries.  Moved the boat over to the monument beach anchorage.  

The weather has been beautiful all week with sunny skies and lots of wind to keep the generator happy.  

Our days are filled with water aerobics in the a.m. and volleyball in the afternoon.  Lots of catching up to do with our cruiser friends.

Christmas Eve we’ll join friends on the beach for a bonfire and carolling.

On Christmas Day we’ll go over to town so Helen can go to Mass at St. Theresa’s church, then we’ll come back across the Harbour for the potluck dinner.  

We are cooking half a turkey for our table.  Can’t fit a whole turkey in the oven so Yvonne and I split one.  

Hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday celebration.

Miami Bound

We moved the boat to the anchorage next to the Lake Worth Inlet so we could get underway early on Wed.

Restless night knowing we wanted to be up and underway around 4:00 A.M. When we got up the skies were still overcast but we decided to go anyway.  On the way to the Inlet as Joe tied everything down and got sails ready to put up Helen noticed flashing to the south and Joe agreed it was lightening.  At that point we were in the inlet so made the decision to keep going.

Not too bad going out against the current and wind and we knew once we cleared the inlet we could get out of the swell and then motor/sail close to shore.  The squall clouds were all around us with some rain but not too bad.

We stay within 1/2 mile of the shoreline in order to stay out of the Gulf Stream that flows north along the coast of Florida and which can run as fast as 5 knots and considering we we’re motor sailing at 7 knots we wouldn’t be making much headway.  It was nice to see the sun come through the clouds.

Not a bad motor sail but we were glad to come in near South Beach at the Port of Miami at 2:30.  Exciting seeing all of the cruise ships and container ships being unloaded there with the Miami skyscrapers in the background.

When we were in Lake Worth, we passed by a container ship that had lost a couple of their containers offshore.  Later we saw on the news that people were picking up some of the cargo on the northern beaches - containers of Joe’s favourite coffee “cafe bistro”.

Continued in the ICW to Dinner Key and found a spot to anchor. Looking forward to spending a couple of days here so we can re-connect with our old friends Don & Olga.  We met them in 1977 when we first cruised in the Bahamas onboard the original DejaVu, a 30’ Trimaran.  Since then our paths have crossed a few times and we have always kept in touch.

The next day we took the dinghy to the dock at the Coconut Grove sailing club that Don & Olga belong to and they met us at the dock.  So good to see them and it’s just amazing how we all look just the way we remembered.

Spent a wonderful day with them-did laundry at their condo, enjoyed a delicious  lunch at Versailles a world famous cuban restaurant.

We took them out to DejaVu and continued sharing our stories until Olga totally lost her voice and they had to go home.

The next day we saw some of our other cruising friends coming into the harbour. Everyone is staging to head over to the Bahamas.

All of the captains listen to the weather guru, Chris Parker, on the SSB radio at 6:30 A.M. and he tells everyone when they could expect the best wind and weather to cross to the Bahamas.  In order to make this 24 hour trip across the Gulf Stream and the Bahama Banks in relatively comfortable conditions we would like to have light wind out of the south.

On Sunday we’ll get the boat and crew ready and hope to head out early on Monday.