Our frist Sunrise in the Bahamas after Crossing

Where oh where have the past two months gone!! They feel like they’ve been a complete blur even though my perpetual forward motion seems to only average about 4 knots! So many updates, so many amazing places, faces, and tales to tell. Here an now is a quick run down. Many more details, pictures, and stories of these happening to come as things have now begun to slow and routine is slowly working its way back into my life. To bad cause I sure do love that whirl of initial new beginnings, awe well routine has its perks as well.

Down the Intercostal and across the Gulf Stream Jun 24 -26

Spent two nights in the intercostal then hit North Palm Beach about 4 O’Clock refueled and jumped that night cause the window was perfect! We were sent off well by some new friends at the fuel dock, and even though I can’t say it was a “Smooth” crossing it was a complete success in the respect that we totally made it!!! After 36 hrs, down the intercostal that morning, then across the Gulf Stream that night, then across the northern Bahama bank all the next day we made Great Sail Cay in the northern Abaco by 5pm anchored up and slept a much needed whole night threw.

Jamie the auto helm of the night!! She held it down through the wee late hrs of the morning

Me losing steam after sunrise.

Cheers WE MADE IT!

Great Sail Cay to Fox Town to Alan’s to Green Turtle Jun 27-Jul2

We got a late start out of Sail Cay due to groggy-ness and a stretched out alternator belt giving me headaches. We were headed directly to Alan’s but ran out of day light so eeked into the cut at Fox town to anchor over night just by the last light in the sky – Haven’t made that mistake again! Next morning we made the jump over to Allen’s got both the anchors dove down into some good holes just in time for a south westerly blow to come in strong. The next day high winds and rain kept us at Allen’s another night but we did get a few hrs of sun at the beach, made some friends with the neighboring sister tri’s and hung an ordament on the “cruiser tree.” Got out of Allen’s in a fresh breeze the next morning but unfortunitly that breeze was once again right on our nose. A slow motor to Green Turtle meant we didn’t make it in to port in time to clear in that day. We anchored up in Black Sound hoisted our quanintine flag and waited for morning. I cleared us all in the next morning Jul 2nd. We meandered around town most the day and found a nice little place with a pool, a bar and internet connection. Roo (our 3rd crew member who I have shamefully failed to introduce here up to this point) made her arrangements to fly out the next morning. We met up with a couple of our friends again from Allen’s and made plans to go over to the Staranded Naked party with them on their Tri the next day.

In the “Cruiser Tree” hanging our trinket

Stranded Nacked and Abaco Regatta Week Jul 3-10

The real BLUUUR begins!! What can I say about this week it was crazy, every day felt like three in one. We met SO many awesome people, there were so many parties and oh yes races, lots of sailboats racing. We managed to get on a 60ft Catameran for a couple days of racing – Not quite my ushual crewing experience of foredeck on a J24 to say the least!!! And know Jamie has a completely skewed experience of what crewing a sailboat during a race is actually like, but hey I can deal with fun and relaxing. It even gave me the opprtunity to bring out my camera and get some real nice shots, that hasn’t happened during a race since my days with Team High Sea’s in St. Augustine. We pretty much followed the races down from Green Turtle to Guana to Marsh and lastly Hope Town through the week.  The last Hope town race was cancelled due to fears of the developing storm Chantal to the south. As it turned out that storm broke up to mostly nothing and the 10th would have been a beautiful day to sail. Awe well most the boats in the area headed back to the states. We bid fair well to our departing new friends and were thankful that our livers would be recieving a break 🙂

Me and Jam rockin tu-tus at Stranded Naked Party!!

Shoots out Racing!

The Abaco Rage my favorite boat at the Races – Sorry Double Trouble!!

Me at the helm of Double Trouble

Hope Town – Tillo – Lynard  &  Little Harbor

Ever since the races ended Jam and I have been throughly enjoying our no plan “plan”.  We kinda just meander here and there as we please. We made it down to Little Harbor and throughly enjoyed being out in the wild southern regions of Abaco.  We’ve been trying to fish and kite but haven’t had to much luck with timing either yet. With the exception of being rather sucessful at collecting conch. We are now in Hope Town waiting on some friends to arrive and I’m obviously starting to go through pictures and notes from the log to find things to share. There will be much more to share on all the subjects and new happening coming soon right here.

Or was I saving the beast for last? My last majorly daunting obstacle to having the boat sail ready is some updates to the electrical system.  What’s there works for the most part, the problem is I have no idea how.  Guess it’s a good thing I have a few important items to get installed and working correctly cause I definitely need some educating in the realm of DC electrical systems.

The main objective in these updates is adding a house bank and a couple solar panels to support it. My electrical needs are pretty basic since I opted to go without refrigeration.  I just need to be able to support lights, fans, VHF, bilge pumps, auto-helm, and the charging of a few select electronics.  So this weekend I’ll be diving in head first trying to get it all straight and hopefully learning a thing or two along the way. Wish me luck,  just thinking of all those wires has me feeling a bit fried already, I just need to CHARGE it, HAAAAAAA.

So Lynne Marie has a couple soft spots due to some delamination on her forward deck. I should say had, since I’ve mostly fixed them now, just need to do a bit of sanding and paint to finish the job. The simplest way to fix minor soft spot on a deck is to drill holes and inject thickened epoxy. I used West Systems 610 self mixing cartridges which made the process exponentially easier – no mixing, low mess, no catastrophic mixing failures! They are a bit harder on the budget, but for small jobs in my opinion they’re totally worth every time saving penny. I used them when installing my ports as well and can attest to their no slump, no drip, can be used overhead claims – its a great product in my book.

Materials need; 610 Epoxy Cartridges, Caulking Gun, Drill, Squeegee, Acetone

Overview of deck, at this point I had already filled port side and was getting ready to start on starboard.

Pile of goo a good sign that area’s filled 🙂

So here’s the process in case any of you ever need to inject a deck. Drill holes in soft areas of deck, being careful to only drill through the first layer of fiberglass and not punch right on through the bottom layer. I could tell right away that the interior of my deck was not damp rotting wood because my drill was spitting out nice dry shavings – good news! Now for injecting, load up the 610 epoxy into a high thrust caulking gun (any caulking gun will work but I learned on my ports to spring the extra $12 for the sake of not crippling my hands) fit tip down into hole in the deck so that tip seals and begin injecting. Squeeze in a good amount give it a moment to settle, pull the tip out, if the goo does not begin to rise back out of the hole keep injecting there’s more space there to fill. Now pull your mind out of the gutter. 😉 You’ll know once the deck won’t take anymore in that spot when the goo starts backing its self out of the hole making an epoxy pile on the deck. I tried to start in the center of the biggest area and work my way out to the edges, and I did one side of my deck at a time. Use a squeegee to clean up excess epoxy on deck, and acetone to wipe off the stickiness around the holes and more than likely off your hands too. That’s pretty much it! Make sure you have zero chance of rain and let that goo do it’s thing. Revisit the next day to make sure everything is firmed up and repeat process anywhere that’s still soft. All an all about a 20 minute project. Talk about easy.

So I recently made a new friend who owns the website flafish.com. After he saw my site here he asked if I’d be interested in writing some wild life articles for FLA Fish, I said I would, and my first article is up. You can go check it out here: www.flafish.com

The article is about the Lionfish invasion of the Caribbean, a subject I am now much more educated about. I have to say, the research I did for this really got my wheels turning, how can I help? The article is written and done with but my research hasn’t stopped. I’ve reached out to a couple organization that are complying information in an effort to gain more knowledge about how I may be able to support Lionfish research while I’m cruising in the Bahamas this summer. I’ve already herd back from REEF who has encouraged me to attend a free Lionfish Collecting and Handling Workshop they’re hosting in April 5th on Key Largo. Key Largo’s a bit of a trek for me so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it but I certainly hope I can. I’m anxious to learn more about this this invasive fish, and to get some hands on experience catching and filet these bad boys. Here’s hopping that I’ll be seeing of these suckers on my dinner plate soon 🙂