Author: equinoxgardens@gmail.com

Since our time in Hope Town we’ve spent two nights anchored in shallow waters a short distance from fabulous beaches, which is becoming a rhythm that I could get used to.

The first night we were near Baker’s Rock off of Tahiti Beach on the southern end of Elbow Cay, and when I say shallow, I mean shallow. We had a whopping six inches to spare under our keel at low tide, a fun sight to dive to see.

We spent the day following the tide out onto the ever-increasing spit of sand that Tahiti Beach consists of, while the kids hunted for treasures in the surf, and made yet another beach house. They’ve really hit their beach house stride, I must say.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday our plan was to make a quick trip south to Sandy Cay, which is reportedly a great place for snorkeling and diving. En route we realized that the mooring field and nearby snorkeling area were a bit too rolly and rough for a safe and fun experience, so we kept going and dropped the hook off of Lynyard Cay, a private island with a fantastic beach for combing and swimming. Just after killing the engine the kids start vibrating with the sight of a new land to conquer and new potential houses to make, so the kayaks go over the side and poof! they’re off to explore while we old folks are left to get our butts into gear to follow. (Since the reward for doing so is sitting back on those butts in the sand, it’s not usually too difficult to motivate.) We now pack the bags with rote efficiency: beach blankets, sunscreen, water, books, kadima paddles, SNACKS (emphasized because it IS the most important piece), and our folding umbrella. One bag, the snorkel gear at-the-ready in the dinghy should the need arise, and so begins the unwinding from a busy morning of breakfast, schooling, work (both of us have remained pretty steadily busy with work projects, though we’re lucky to be able to do it all at odd hours and pieced together through the day), boat chores and pulling things back together after our sail/travel. Again, the rhythm of the days is an easy one to get accustomed to.

Our kids are so lucky. We’re so lucky. We just keep sighing this phrase to ourselves and to each other while we spent this uber-rich time together. Though the girls got into a bad routine early on (thanks to us, we are the first to admit) of defaulting to their Kindles while we furiously got the boat ready, an activity that they often forget is even an option at home, the crackdown of screen time per our normal order has led to the girls as they best function- creating constant scenes of imaginative play here, there and everywhere, which, on a boat, means in the rigging, in the head (I wish this was a joke), and everywhere in between. Our gratitude extends to the friends they keep- our Ruach family has kids in sync with ours, and the eavesdropping we’re able to do on their house-creating worlds has been endearing, to say the least. We are teaching Lily to play cribbage, our Chutes and Ladders gaming has been intense, and dinner prep has begun a time for a United States quiz game (quiz me all you want, I can’t seem to dedicate to memory which states border Missouri). THIS is the thing of it: does winter get better than this for a family whose summertime life is scattered chaos?!

Late this morning we steamed into Little Harbor and picked up a mooring, just to change scenery since we woke to rain, and the skies (though not the forecast, strangely enough) indicated that we wouldn’t be getting much variety for the rest of the day. On a ‘hooray, rain!’ note, after the initial downpour which washed the salt and any residual ick off of the decks, we started collecting water off of the bimini by pulling the edges to catch in bowls. Ayuh. The Squatleys strike again.

Though it was a new experience to milk our bimini, it was also a great time for the kids to learn about how precious fresh water was, and the lengths that we’d potentially have to go to get it if the need was dire. (By the end of today with our ace catchment system, we estimated that we’d put about 3-4 gallons of water in our tanks- that’s a $0.75-$1.00 savings down here-boom!) Chickadee holds 71 gallons in tankage and we carry an extra 10 gallons in jerry cans on deck, plus two 5 gallon sun showers as well; we’re stingy on usage and can stretch our stores for quite a long time, but it was good to help the girls to understand that it’s a process that we continuously think about, even if it seems free and easy.

On a usage note, the girls have each tried their hand at washing the dishes, but the system that Andy and I have is a tough one to follow, especially with one of us watching over and cringing when we hear the pressure pump come on too often in one go. We wash and rinse in salt water (we have a foot pump in the galley), and then make a game of rinsing a vessel in fresh and then passing it on to the next item, swishing until you need to re-up from the faucet. It’s sick, really, and it’s more for the benefit of the Who Uses Less Water game than anything else. (For the record, it’s me, but Andy will no doubt say otherwise.) Like I said, we stretch our water out like nutters.

Once in Little Harbor we cozied up for a bit more rain (and water catching), and Half Ass Builders was aboard installing a new shelf and fiddle under our bunk and also the bungy cord for the girls’ book shelf/rail in their cabin. The creator and proprietor of Half Ass, one Andrew Allen, claimed that today’s efforts may have even been Three-Quarter, to which I whole heartedly agree. Steppin’ on up. (But not on the shelf- it’s not that strong.)

 

A Sunday walk ashore here in Hope Town led us in and around the sweet neighborhoods that wind and wend their way along the waters. We watched a local outdoor basketball game, sniffed fragrant gardens and delighted at the cozy little porches that looked perfect for a Sunday morning read. Upon stopping to explain the gutter-to-cistern systems to Lily on one particular house, the man standing at the dutch door said hello and invited us in for coffee after a quick conversation found us united in a Boothbay Harbor, Maine bond. Small world, small circles, small something, but oh, the luck! An absolutely lovely morning sitting on our new friends’ deck, enjoying coffee and breakfast brownies (as if the girls needed winning over!).

We invited them to lunch with us later, and at their recommendation went to On Da Beach, which was, you guessed it, on the beach. The skies threatened rain but held off the earnest dumping until we’d eaten, had a nice walk back on the beach, and dinghied home.

Once back onboard we hunkered down and had an eating, game-playing, reading and movie-watching afternoon and evening: is there a better Sunday to be had?!

 

Yesterday’s sun brought us back out into the land of the living, and after school we conquered the 101 steps of the Hope Town Lighthouse, which offered incredible views for our hard work.

More beach time in the afternoon, and work and boat needs led us individually on errands to find hardware stores, markets, post offices and photo copies. While we adults scurried to and fro to do so, the kids made another beach house, this one amazingly detailed. We noted that if were to be stranded on an island, we should be so lucky as to have those kiddos with us to make our safe havens.

A small cocktail gathering in the early evening to introduce our new friends to Chickadee, and zonk, we were out after a long day.

This morning we FaceTimed with Violet’s kindergarten class, and it was SO very sweet. She was so happy to see all of her friends’ faces together in her classroom, and proud too to give them a tour of the boat (though she reminded me just before we connected that she was shy and would need me to do it so that she could duck away and hide if necessary- she made it through without tucking into the bilge, I’m happy to report).

Today after school we’ll head down to Tahiti beach to anchor for a night or two. It’s a whopping three miles away, but it’ll give the kids their chance for kayaking and snorkeling between boats, and it’ll be our stepping stone to our next destination, wherever that may be.

After a lazy morning, we had a very quick hop yesterday that brought us from Man O War to Hope Town on Elbow Cay.

I’m already smitten. Though the harbor is packed, and we feel like we can practically reach out and touch our neighbors, what we’ve seen of the town and the easy access to the beach has sold me. A good thing, since we’re planning on staying through Tuesday or so, letting us wait out the next possibly wet front with shoreside options other than beach time.

First on the docket is to continue butchering at Violet’s hair- she has a specific hair cut in mind, sweet particular child of mine. The first attempt was performed down below (to keep the wind from sending the clippings into our teeth), and combining the components of me using a sewing  kit’s mini scissors, the swell running, the fact that Violet has ever-thickening pin straight hair, and the most important fact that I am NOT a hairdresser, it’s completely amazing that she doesn’t look like she was attacked by a weed whacker. Shocking, really, but as we go shorter still this morning, and the layers become less forgiving, I have more doubts. Perhaps task #2 for the day is finding a ‘fine-tuning’ salon.

There is a sweet, candy-striped lighthouse that we want to explore, and miles of ‘roads’ to walk and picturesque homes to view. We passed two playgrounds and a little maritime museum in our travels yesterday, so those will be on our to-do list as well.

For now I’ll enjoy the semi-quiet of the cockpit on this Sunday morning. I was up here reading last night and thoroughly enjoyed the bustle of the hoards of cruisers getting taxied back to their boats after what seemed to be a pretty wild night ashore. (I’m not surprised everyone is still asleep, and the few who have taken their dogs ashore for their morning business look like they wish they still were.)

Whelp, change of plans. Instead of heading to Marsh Harbour, we ducked across to Man O War Cay instead, and now joyfully find ourselves on the dock face of some friends who have rented a charming dock house rental for the month.

Our entire crew was up earlier than usual this morning (which is what crashing out at 7pm does to us), and at 7:45am we left Treasure Cay and headed out. We had a great sail across (or so I’m told, since the girls and I were mostly below with schooling) and we arrived here around 11am, giving us plenty of time to explore the island.

Our hosts are gracious and knowledgeable, as this isn’t their first season on the island- we gained insight to family genealogy and tradesmen’s stories as we walked the “Queen’s Highway”, which is a golf cart’s-width sandy trail that runs from stem to stern on the island. We found ice cream that came in vast quantities with a scooper du vivre, emoting great embellishments with each choice our varied group made. We visited a local chicken farmer’s set up with their fat and healthy flock scratching around the sea grape roots, we marveled at the sculpture garden of one home while oohing and aahing at the artistry of the next. The kids trooped on while we adults got exercise, saw great sights, and did some provisioning to boot.

Back at the boats and dock the kids kayaked, swam, and Lily and I took an afternoon dinghy ride that introduced us to three local sea turtles and one Maine cruising family, who we saw in Green Turtle but not to speak to before today. There are so many Mainers here, there, and everywhere- second to Canadians; you’d think it was super cold up there and that they were trying to escape or something!

A potluck on shore at the house had me testing yet another pressure cooker recipe (I CANNOT expound enough on how grateful I am to Ruach for introducing me to the joys of boat pressure cooking- beef stews in 20 minutes! risotto in 6! The possibilities are literally endless, and make the boat-impossible so VERY possible..) and we gathered for a wonderful meal and even better company. Our kids were lucky enough to be serenaded afterward, a couple of them literally to sleep.

I’d like to say that I know what tomorrow will bring for a plan, or a forecast, or a goal, but…. I’d come up short. What I DO know: it’ll be Saturday, and I’ll see how well I do in tricking the girls into not recognizing it as a not-school day (I’ve been ‘teaching’ six days a week, since it’s easier to stay in a routine if we don’t fall out of it for too long), we have plenty of food stores and I have an incredible itch to be switching on the hook. Since that’s all I know… tomorrow will be as big of a surprise to me and as it may be to you. Here’s to remembering our true admiral, Gumby- stay flexible!

 

We’re poolside at the Treasure Cay Marina after a ‘routine’ morning of schoolwork for the girls under my tutelage (poor things), and boat projects for Andy (replacing a track slider on the mainsail, and prepping for the varnish on the companionway that he did after we were packed into the dinghy). As soon as the Ruach crew comes ashore, we’ll head to the beach across the street.

We left Green Turtle yesterday morning, and after a rolly crossing of ‘the whale’- the only truly exposed part of the Abacos- at school time, we had a more settled finish to our journey for a nice lunch along the way.

Mooring fees are only slightly more than the anchoring fee here, plus it comes with shore-based amenities, including pool use, showers, laundry and amazingly, free water fills. Andy and I have boiled our constant background concerns down to the basics- water and fresh produce, with the secondary tier being trash disposal, meats and fuel. Our fuel tankage plus our supplemental jerry cans allows for a decent range (as does our water, frankly, but it’s nice to have the assurance of a cushion for the occasional shower on board).

After beaching it for the afternoon (we lounged and played on the world-famous playa yesterday, so we’re excited to get its silky sand in our toes once more), we’ll spend another night here and head to Marsh Harbour tomorrow to replenish some food stores.

To the beach!

Side note: photos are from Green Turtle, since the wifi isn’t allowing me to upload any from here. Fingers’ crossed for Marsh Harbour!

 

Our blogging silence has been entirely due to lack of hearty enough wifi, and not lack of excitement. A recap of our days:

 

Friday morning at 12am we hoisted anchor in Palm Beach and set out across to the Bahamas Bank. Though conditions weren’t ideal and we didn’t see glassy-calm seas for our trip, the 6-9 knots of apparent wind almost behind us made for a good night of motor sailing, albeit a busy night, since we spent it messing with preventers and ensuring that things (kids) were still stowed properly after the sloppy waves would come along. Andy was at the helm for most of the night, and I got my favored pre-dawn shift, which can boost any tired sailor in a pinch, since the sun rising on the horizon is second best to coffee in the cockpit.  The girls joined in just as we were coming onto the bank- twenty feet of beautiful blue green waters for the rest of the day.

 

We motorsailed for the rest of the day until we landed in an anchorage on Great Sale Cay, and were able to go ashore to stretch our legs.

 

Up early on Saturday and we had an amazing sail to Green Turtle- wind on the beam for the morning and comfortably shifting ahead of us in the afternoon. Third favorite piece? Napping in the cockpit while someone else does the work- check.

We decided on dockage in Green Turtle since it was forecasted to blow quite a bit through the weekend and into Monday/Tuesday, so we pulled into Leeward Yacht Club and have so far found it to be pretty perfect. A pool, a bar, a restaurant and wonderfully helpful people all around. Yesterday we rented a golf cart and went to Gillam Bay beach, which was an incredible sight to behold. White sand forever, a shallow bay with plenty of sting rays and sand dollars (though we came up short- our sand dollar hunting excursions were easily distracted by general beach fun by the kids), and aqua water to blind ourselves with. We kept saying that it looked fake it was so beautiful, like a Hollywood set director had been here minutes before to touch it up for our arrival.

 

 

Now it’s Monday morning and we awoke to rain blasting the boat (hooray! free washdown!), and an incredible squall. It has been blowing all night, but we arranged ourselves in the marina on the leeward side of the dock, so we’re comfortable, and rocking just the wee-est bit. The bulk of this system looks to be out of our hair by late morning, so our plan is to take the kids into New Plymouth to explore the town for a bit before beaching it for the afternoon. First though, breakfast and school. Lily is currently putting to paper a story of Violet’s (that Violet plans to also illustrate) about the rats that lives in Violet’s hair. Their names are Hairold (see what she did there?!), Bob, Jeff and Curtains, but that’s the only sneak peak you’ll get for now. Good stuff.

 

After my most-prized boat life moment-coffee in the cockpit at sunrise- we departed Peck Lake and began the more scheduled version of our days. This, for starters, included the girls’ first day of boat school, complete with Headmaster Mom.

Our structure will be similar to last year (breakfast first, school work next, boat hijinks for the rest of the day), but the content has certainly changed, and for the better from my perspective.

As a fourth grader, Lily’s work load runs the gamut of usual suspects: reading, writing, math, science and social studies, each with a task list to guide her along. (We are more than lucky to have such supportive teachers at home, who spent hours of their own time prepping for us in this detailed manner.) Today we spent time reading aloud with discussions on literal speech vs. personifications vs. similes, she worked from a math workbook, studied the counties of our state, and began her ‘Feature Creature’ series, where she’ll detail specific information about a mammal, a bird, etc. Tomorrow we’ll start on the journal that she is to keep, and begin a second realistic fiction piece of her own.

V has her own set of daily tasks, which include as many worksheets dealing with phonics, blends, word games and math problems as she wants to complete. Since she loves them, she’ll eat through my stores of these quickly. We also added a ‘Creature Study’ to our daily list, so that she can choose an animal that she’s interested in learning more about, and together we can research a few facts about it. (Today’s creature was a roseate spoonbill…) Violet is also making ‘How to’ guide books, and today’s was How to Make a Picture, complete with ‘iDea’ on the list of ‘things you’ll need’; brilliant.

Both girls are avid readers, so I don’t utilize our official school time for this, though V has plenty of emergent reader books that she’s already gone through at least twice. She’s game for reading ANYthing aloud to us at bedtime, even if it takes her time to struggle and practice to sound words out- she’s up for the challenge.

Aside from this formal 1 1/2 to 2 hours (I’ll be honest- it’s rarely 2), this world we’re living in is an endless stream of teaching moments. Systems, navigation, tankage, knot-tying, rules of the road, communications, they all make for good lessons, and Andy and I are both working on how to customize what level of detail we need to give for each situation, since it’s certainly easy to overwhelm them with too much.

OTHER things we learned on the boat today, for example, pertained to black water tanks (it’s not great when your macerator pump fails and black water leaks into the bilge), fuel filters (also not great to have an old spin-on cartridge version with ancient lines enabling air to enter and bog the engine down), and TowBoatUS (great insurance, especially for those moments when the bogged engine (see above) threatens to cut out whilst going through a bridge opening in the [albeit small] current of the Intercoastal). See?! Teaching moments!

In the end, though we called TowBoatUS for the first (and let’s hope last!) time to have us on their radar, we were able to limp our way into the North Palm Beach Marina, where Andy dispatched we non-mechanics (the moms and kids) to the pool while he and Dan raced to West Marine for a new racor filter, and then installed it. Five hours, our first swims, a sweaty work day on the boat later, and Bob’s your uncle, we’re now anchored just inside of the inlet in Palm Beach, with plans to wake at midnight for the crossing.

It’ll be about 12 hours to get to the bank, and from there we’ll head to Sail Cay for the night before heading to Green Turtle on Saturday. We’ll be out of range until then, but you can probably still hear us singing Hamilton if your ears are sharp enough!

After a long day of gathering necessary pieces and parts yesterday, we enjoyed a cookout on shore in the marina’s common area. The entertainment afterward included a most unique synchronized scooter show performed by the three girls, complete with musical accompaniment (Martin DJ-ing ‘ocean music’ on an iPhone), jumps and twirls and all of the stylings of future Rockettes. The only thing missing was any photographic evidence, so you’ll have to take my word for it: life changing.

Coming back to the boat we were met with the mess we left, which may have left me in tears had it not made me laugh with the ridiculousness of the situation. I fell asleep to the age old provisioning chant: “We WILL find a place for everything, we WILL find a place for everything…”

The best part was waking and tripping over one of Violet’s school readers first thing this morning. It really nailed the mood:

Today’s episode of “Two Steps Forward/One Step Back” included  finding a corroded hole in one of our galley sink bays. A few layers of JB Weld later, and I may not have an excuse not to do dishes for much longer.

We also have a couple of freeloaders onboard in the form of pale, creepy little frogs living in the anchor locker. Tomorrow’s project: eviction notices.

As for other projects, all is now to be done… underway!! We’re off, in fact only a few miles from where we’ll drop anchor tonight, a little bulge off of the ICW called Peck Lake.

Things are miraculously stowed, and I’ve already pulled out the sewing kit to make a few doodads here and there.

I’ll leave you with one of two painted Chickadees that we received as Christmas cards this year, both now on board- our girl’s first ‘custom’ art!

Well, we’ve hit the ground running here in Indiantown. After a dinner in St. Augustine on Sunday night, we stayed just off of the highway for the night, which allowed us to arrive here at the morning yesterday morning. Since then, it’s been a flurry of activity, on and off the boat.

Our sailing plan for the winter is to get to the Abacos in the Bahamas, and getting there is hugely dependent on whether or not there is a weather window for us to cross over. With a north-flowing Gulf Stream in-between our current position and our destination, we’re waiting for stretches of weather that don’t have any northerly components of wind, which can fiercely kick up the seas. Naturally, a great weather window for crossing is… right now. Lucky for us, it stretches into the weekend, but we’re two days from the departure spot of Palm Beach/Lake Worth, so our aim is to leave Indiantown tomorrow (Wednesday) to be set to kick off from Lake Worth on Friday.

THAT means a lot of work for today. Provisioning the boat, rigging the sails, returning our U-Haul, trouble shooting our GPS, which seems to be wanting to rest more than it wants to work, and stowing stowing stowing. I started the day by hoisting Andy aloft to be able to spray the wasp nest that had tucked itself into our radar dome. He’s now spraying the dead wasps off of the deck while the girls and I are soaking up a bit of Wifi.

Having a known, sensible home for everything this year compared to last has made it immeasurably easier to unload the car into the boat, and the clean up was a breeze since our mildew-repelling tricks and systems seemed to have worked.

Also easy is the fact that our Ruach II friends are here in the marina as well this year, so all four kids occupied themselves around the yard with rollerblades, scooters, bikes, turtle feeding and art stands (Violet and Maeve made a LOT of artwork that they hawked for 25cents a piece- they even did some work on commission!). We got a lot accomplished yesterday, but there is plenty more to do today, so off we go!

A groggy morning here on the highway in North Carolina after an overnight slog, but it feels great to have made such progress, and hey, now we have Pedro’s South of the Border signs to keep us occupied while the coffee kicks in.

We left Maine yesterday afternoon after a gymnastics meet for Lily, or as we now call her, Miss Bronze.

The plan is to stay somewhere within striking distance of Indiantown tonight, so that we can make a daytime approach to the boat. It’ll be nice to unpack a few bags and have time to make our nests before our first night aboard.

As co-pilot today I’ll be catching us up on Skipper Bob’s recommendations for the Abacos, and amusing myself with a weather app a friend just brought to my attention.

Meanwhile, this U-Haul is REALLY tailgating.