Author: equinoxgardens@gmail.com

TexT NoTe:Lily came up wiTh a greaT plan for geTTing around my keyboard issue, so geT used To These fun copied and pasTed Ts! (Unless The word auTofills, and Then we’re good To go..)

We had a great sail from our anchorage in Lynyard Cay To Nassau on Wednesday. A long, fifTeen hour day by The Time we dropped anchor in Nassau Harbour, buT The day was beautiful, winds had clocked around enough so ThaT we weren’t beaTing upwind, and we made good Time. Our AIS also proved invaluable as we came into The very busy porT– plenty of cruise ships and tankers coming and going To avoid!

We’re enjoying our firsT Atlantis experience wiThOUT a massive fronT ThaT we’re waiTing for, which means we’re here with lighT winds and sunshiny days for The firsT Time, and I musT say, iT‘s a delight! NoT Too many phoTos since cameras and waTerslides aren’T usually friendly, buT a wee smaTTering of our good work Thus far.

Added bonus is ThaT friends from home are vacationing here for The week, and our Time here is even more fun with friends To enjoy iT with! IT‘s amazing ThaT The Timing worked ouT so well.

Tomorrow we’ll head south (and easT) over The Yellow Bank To my favorite land of The Exumas Land & Sea Park- miles and miles of unspoiled islands and Their beautiful snorkeling opportunities, whiTe sand beaches, and compariTive solitude after days here aT This busy resorT!

Well, my computer’s ‘t’ button called it quits, and my writing options were getting comical before I gave up and committed to plunking away on my phone.

Our nights in Hope Town were productive, and included lots of schoolwork for the girls (bribery never worked so well! Stay tuned for the reward), a rig check and cleaned up winches for Chickadee, a long island walk, a longer beach walk and a beachfront lunch for the family. Another island community working hard to repair and heal.

On Monday we worked further south still, landing in a nice anchorage on Lynyard Cay. The neighbors were planners, and had a fun roster for yesterday- we did a big beach clean up on the ocean side, and in lieu of not having space to haul giant pieces away, it was all tied together in artful piece- the Trashy Lady of Lynyard Cay.

The girls then played on the beach sand bar on the west side for HOURS. A lemon shark visited them a couple of times, they rescued a little yellow snapper, played with sea biscuits, and we tried (and failed) to identify a strange looking dead sea worm. Busy Tuesday.

We shoved off thirty minutes ago on our way south again. The cut out of Little Harbour was a bit rolly but ultimately fine, and the dolphins that just visited the boat are surely a nice send off from the Abacos. Here’s to sailing in waters without worrying about hitting a sunken refrigerator or house roof for a while!

Well, we certainly made a day of our first run out of the barn. After our short hop around from the boatyard to White Sound on Friday, we realized that our best weather window for crossing ‘the whale’ – a short passage that is often pretty junky due to its lack of barrier island to the east- was in fact the next morning. We enjoyed our first night aboard thoroughly, and it was Friday night movie night, so after refreshing Lily on cribbage and having her whoop our butts, we endured the skipping and skipping of old DVDs and an even older DVD player (put that on the 2021 upgrade list) in our familiar spots in the salon. Plus, popcorn as a major component of dinner, which I’ll suffer through disc skippage any day for.

An early morning and an easy crossing (though the girls were not too pleased with the swells and chop), we made it to Marsh Harbour by lunchtime. A year ago it was difficult to find a spot to anchor in the harbor, it was so packed with dozens of boats. This time, it was a breeze, since we were one of only six. Andy waited for a dinghy to return to one of our neighbors’ boats and pounced on them for access information, as the usual docks and dinghy floats were far from gone. We learned of our one option, and went ashore with jaws on the ground. Partially sunken boats around the edges and in the harbor itself, pilings shredded off, leaning over, floating in piles, electrical and water conduit from the docks tangled and floating in gnarly masses.. looking just at the damage in the water was enough. And then we stepped ashore. I’ll let the photos do the talking, but consider that these are taken five months later, with considerable cleanup action taken (of the roadways, etc.). It’s mind-bending to consider what it looked like the day after, and nauseating to imagine what it felt like to live through it. 

On that note, we are all interested to hear the personal stories of survival, but I had originally felt quite timid about asking people that I talk to. Do they want to relive the horror for the sake of a near-stranger’s ‘context bank’? Are they ready to talk about it? Do they remember, or was it a blur? It turns out, the answer has been a resounding ‘yes’. When we spend any amount of time with people (cab drivers, shopkeepers, and so on), I’ve been asking how they’re doing, and if their families and homes are okay. What has come as an answer every time is a detailed account of the state of those things, but also  where they were when the storm hit, and the timeline of everything falling apart around them (most often the very walls that were to protect them). Moving from one place to another in the eye (which went over Marsh) for safety, rescuing friends and family from flooded spaces, the stories are varied but the theme is the same. Surviving a Category 5 hurricane and living to tell the tale means that you have one hell of a tale to tell, and it turns out, they want to share. I’ve been told a number of times now that Bahamians are never afraid of storms, and that they weren’t particularly afraid of this one, either. Sure, it’d blow, but they’d all lived through Floyd (a Cat 4), and came outside afterward to see a few roof shingles damaged and some trees down. That’s what a lot of people expected. When windows blew out and people moved into the safest rooms in their houses, they still didn’t think it’d be much more than water damage. One story after another expressing the total shock and awe of stepping outside for the first time after it passed. 

This is all to say that our context bank is indeed growing, and stitching these stories together makes us feel more connected to their plight and also extreme incredulity of the ‘plugging away’ spirit. In every community we’ve been to so far, at least one market is open, the liquor stores are open (duh!), services are rounded-out if not comprehensive, and they’re making their way. What a process to experience. 

Marsh’s big provisioning trip aside, we weren’t thrilled at the idea of waiting out the next blow there with so little to do with the kids ashore, so we made quick work of stowing our bounty and shoved off for Hope Town. A quick trip, and once again we have our pick of the harbor, since there are so few boats here. More loss and carnage visible here, but a safe harbor and beautiful beaches flanking the village that we love.

I’m currently living the experience that I wait ten months every year for- sitting in the cockpit as the world wakes up around me, coffee in its spot at my elbow, and a book to read. Must get to the reading bit. Happy Sunday, everyone!

You know what’s SO great? Things that are supposed to be cold that are actually cold. We have refrigeration again! After the speediest battery removal and install on Wednesday, yesterday was for refer upgrading. (The timing meant that we postponed our launch until this morning, boohoo, but with winds picking up for the next few days, another day on the stands was fine. (Unless you ask Lily.))

Naturally, the evaporator plate that they sent was not the one we ordered, because that would be too boring. It meant a call to the company to confirm that we could retrofit the one we had into participating as the one we want, and then Andy worked his skills. (We ordered a vertical unit, and they sent a horizontal one- complete with a door, and regular ice cube trays. What a novelty that would have been. Good thing we’re happy with our vertical ice.)

It did mean another day in the yard for the girls to occupy themselves while we work, which we’re pushing the limits on, we realize. School was interesting in that the entire interior was torn up for refrigeration purposes, and they did what they could, where they could. Violet did her work in the two and a half remaining square feet of the cockpit, crunched up like a Jack-in-the-box, and you can see below that Lily made the head her classroom. Finishing up these bigger projects will be a relief to all of us. After school, they use up their hour of ipad game time pretty quickly, so they’ve been roaming around, facetiming with friends when they’re out of school, and playing with their newest friend next door. 

——— Writing break for launching! ——-

The camaraderie felt in this boatyard in any given moment is intense and sweet to say the least, with neighbors cheering on neighbors as we all progress in our projects. Since some things seem so never-ending, it’s an important boost to have, not to mention that we’re getting to know others through the lenses of their own fixes. A borrowed tool means a fetching visit and then a returning visit, and the subsequent conversations that come- first the approach for the fix, and always some context for attendance on Green Turtle in the first place. Two weeks here and I feel like I have a family in the boaters and workers here at Abaco Yacht Service, and the pop-in congratulatory visits during and after our launch cemented that. The four of us were beaming with pride and excitement as she splashed, but so were so many others! Lots of farewells, oohs and aahs over Andy’s fine work, and kind sendoffs. (We’re just going around the corner to White Sound tonight, mind you, but we won’t see these fine folk on our walks to the bathroom, the laundry, etc. etc.)

Between the new batteries, the new bank manager monitoring system, our new solar panel, and the interest in what our air-cooled refrigeration unit draws, there has already been some serious nerding out over amperage flow. It’s so nice to be able to properly measure what our individual ‘necessities’ draw. 

It’s time to head over to fetch the girls from their last Green Turtle Cay playdate for a while, and to say goodbye to a family who has been so wonderful and dear to us. They have folded us in to their rhythm, feeding and entertaining us, for which we are so immensely grateful. More wonderful people on our journey; our Chickadee tribe gratefully swells in numbers even more.  

I just got a call from the Treasure Cay airport saying that our batteries and new refer will be on the 3:30p ferry today, and we’re all beside ourselves with excitement. (About batteries. Our kids’ standards for joy are getting pretty grim.)

Just AS exciting is the completion of all work on the hull, as of an hour ago. Andy did an amazing job, and it looks better than ever, truly! Now to clean up the mess below and around the boat.. Our yard space is littered with tarps, sun shades, a homemade-cinder block-and-old-door table covered in spent supplies and little projects, bilge pumps, buckets, kayaks, shoes, hanging suits and towels… I’m glad we’re in the corner of the yard, or I’d be appalled at anyone having to walk by Chickadee’s grotto of junk.

After school yesterday we blew up the paddle board and threw the kayaks in for a tour of Black Sound. There are a few places that we can’t measure the damage (and/or subsequent repair efforts) from the road, so I was interested to see them from the water. A favorite marina, just a few docks in from the yard, is a mess, and void of any work happening. It looks completely untouched since the storm, and I wonder what its fate holds.

There are SO many boats along the banks of the mangroves. Some sunken, some partially sunken, some overturned, some shards… all quite difficult recoveries if, for the sake of cleanup, that’s what’ll happen. It’s hard to guess at this point, since there are so many other priorities for the land-based damage. I feel like a novel based on the secrets that the mangroves will envelope will be on our shelves shortly- SOMEone will be inspired to write that!

For the mangroves themselves, I was happy to see a bit of green within the intricate networks of dead-looking branches. They’re coming back! And thank goodness for that, since they’re such a valuable ecosystem here. I didn’t spot any nudibranchs (my favorite mangrove denizens), and apart from a bunch of upside-down jellyfish, we didn’t scout too much in the way of sea life. The grasses were still and quiet, with a piece of roofing or siding folded into the bottom here and there. The new Abaconian decor.

Once we greet our batteries this afternoon we’re off to a cruiser potluck at a local bar and restaurant. I’ve never met a more planning group of people than cruisers- there is always something going on. And it often involves beverages and food, which isn’t the worst thing to join forces for, I must admit.

Tomorrow we launch! It felt so good to float on the paddle board yesterday, I feel like a kid on Christmas Even with anticipation of how great it’ll be to be in the water. Until the splash!

Mondays. Kind of the same everywhere. Ugh. Schooling has been largely kid-driven thus far, and surprisingly so- they’re one step ahead of my organizational prowess at the moment, since our gear has been so scattered until a couple of days ago. Now that we’re aboard and things are where they properly live, schooling things are easy access and I have no excuses but to bring my School Marm A-game. So.. ugh. For now I’ll enjoy my hot coffee, and the fact that they’re still snoozing.

No surprises on the Chickadee crew front, the weekend was a busy one. While prepping the bottom for paint, Andy found a crack on the keel, and spent more time grinding and fiberglassing. We thought we’d have put that chore to bed, but alas, always surprises. Thankfully the crack wasn’t deep, and didn’t even near the very-beefy glass on the structure itself, so his repair was easy. He then painted the bottom (sans keel until he puts the faring compound on), and it looks super sharp. A new waterline to account for a cruising family and all of our junk looks much better than it did. Can’t wait to see it in the water. Today a fiberglass and gelcoat whiz with fancy tools will come and spray our boot stripe on the starboard side, and then a hull buff is in order. And fin! That’ll be it for the hull repair. 

In the mean time, halyards and sheets have been run, Andy installed our new bank manager (for house battery monitoring), I mucked out the final hadn’t-yet-been-cleaned space behind the stove, we’ve sorted lines for cleaning and storage, and our Underway Project shelf is orderly and ready to go. 

We also managed some socialization and fun, in the form of dinners with friends, an exhausting-but-holy-cow-so-satisfying beach clean-up with about thirty people, and plenty of time at the beach not hauling splintered boards with nails in them. 

Yesterday Lily participated in her swim team’s aquathon from afar, which was an ordeal. She raised pledge money, and her goal was to swim 160 laps (of 25 yards) in ninety minutes. We started off doing what we did last year- measured off a stretch of beach with markers at the ends, and had her go back and forth without the luxury of flip turns, but with the added bonus of potentially seeing plenty of sea life. We opted for a leeward section of Gillam Bay, though the weekend’s winds hadn’t yet died down, so the semi-frequent rollers wrapping around the nearby point made for some interesting laps. I stood at one end and had V at the other, so she’d be able to get as close to a straight line as possible, and also to check the scene for incoming sea life. At lap 52 we had a visitor in the form of a very large (3’ wingspan) Southern stingray, and when I called out to her, she scrambled out faster than I’d ever seen her move. In areas where dive and tour boats feed them, they can be quite social, so we waded  back out to see if it’d come bump our ankles, but instead it proceeded to bury itself smack in the middle of Lily’s ‘lane’, which would have been a painful scene if a kick landed too low. Any further out and the waves were too much, and any closer in was too shallow- we had to wait. And wait. And… we gave up, and went to the only functioning pool on the island to finish up. Also salt water and still blowing quite a bit, by the time she saw 160 laps, she was so salt-saturated and exhausted, Diana Nyad would have been proud. We’re all glad it’s over!

Three more days until batteries and refrigeration! (But who’s counting?)

Ahh, the sweet relief of routine.. even if it’s not the floating version just yet, the days are finding their pacing nonetheless. We school, the girls roam, Andy and I tick items off of our ‘to do’ lists, and we unite throughout the day for meals.

The errand/chore list has had me running back and forth into town most days, and it’s amazing how much assimilation I am beginning to feel from these simple, mile-long golf cart runs. First of all, EVERYone waves here, whether you know them or not. From carts, cars, work trucks, tractors… just as you don’t pass anyone in town without saying ‘Good day’, you don’t pass a vehicle without a friendly wave. The fun part is that we’re now recognizing cars, and putting newly-made friends’ faces with their rides. As a non-driver still, Lily doesn’t quite see the parallel with our small town home here, but it’s more of a comforting gesture that I had realized. “Hey, guy I just saw in the hardware store!”

The other thing that we’re making mental maps of are the animals. (Of course.) When we see ‘Plump White Hen’ (plump being a rarity around here in the chicken world) by the fire station mural, we know to search for her three chicks, likely nearby, and always adorable. When we turn down a specific side street, we know to look for the brindle pup, always trotting this way and that with a big grinny look on his face. And if the orange and white hound isn’t curled up in her yard on the main stretch somewhere taking a nap, she’ll be found slowly circling to look for the next best spot. Creature comforts, literally and figuratively.

For some discomfort, we’ve learned that we have a major leak in our refrigeration run somewhere, likely a result of the boat falling over. So.. block ice is our new best friend. We’ve been holding our breaths with this system for about four years anyway, so rather than source the leak and pay for repair, we’ve ordered a new unit, which will hopefully arrive with our batteries next week. Fingers’ crossed on that, since the no-fly zone of the Superbowl (yep, that’s a thing) is messing with regular delivery schedules.

On the hull front, Andy’s still making headway with the repair, and he’s working on the final coat/coats of gel coat. We’ve tweaked our waterline a bit, so he’ll redo that as well, and once we have a launch plan, we’ll get the bottom paint on and.. splashy splashy.

In the mean time, we’ve been working on running halyards, and sending the Bird aloft to cut away a stray line that found its way around (and around and around) our mast during the storm, preventing us from tightening lines, etc. etc. Handy to have a lightweight flyer in the family!

It’s a bank holiday here today, so the girls’ friend is off from school and they are roaming around and off to lunch, like the socialites that they are. Back to the grind for the grownups!

We woke up in the yard this morning, after staying aboard for the first night; yip yip! We chose a fun one- an intense thunder and lightening storm for hours starting at 1am, with the added excitement of high winds and seriously heavy rains. Not being able to swing on anchor while up on stands, we had water coming in in places we haven’t seen before, while also listening to our mousing lines thwacking against the mast for the higher winds. Let’s just say that today might be a slow one for the brain waves…

We went to sleep last night full of contentment, ironically enough. Not only the relief and comfort of being in our own beds, but filled with gratitude for what we have experienced here. The people of these islands have withstood so much and lost so much, and yet we have never encountered such gracious attitudes, everywhere we turn. While looking for a place to live, someone we had not yet met offered us a free home, and it wasn’t the only offer.

We have been offered showers, activities for the kids (the yard’s next door neighbor is becoming a great friend), friends have come to help us on the boat, and last night when picking the girls up from a painting playdate, we were sent home with a gigantic and most-delicious plate of food. We are overwhelmed and oh-so lucky!

Saturday is a cruiser-organized beach clean up day, and I gladly signed us up to help. Though Chickadee repair and sailing is our goal here and the reason for our visit, spending all hours onboard while forces unite to clean up and rebuild the island around us feels selfish. We’re happy to be able to tip the scale the other way, even the littlest bit.

Another night of not-on-the-boat ‘not-so-much’ sleep. I’ve gotten a LOT of reading done in the past three days (nights). To the point where the girls know that I’m always worried about running out of books each year, and they come stop me when they see one in my hands. “Conserve, Mom!!” Nice to know I’ve got the Reading Rangers looking out for me. 

Yesterday was a big day on the boat. Andy fiberglassed the interior bits (inside of the hull spots, and a bit of tabbing repair in the bilge), and completed the faring and sanding on the hull. It looks amazing! While he was fiberglassing the other day, he ground down some spots on the rudder that he also glassed, so that needs to be fared and finished, but it’s a small area, and I’m hoping the dust situation won’t be crazy. 

I finally made sense of the cabin, did a detailed fiberglass dust removal on the majority of spaces, and started putting our cushions back together. All of the galley lockers and drawers and all of their contents are still covered in dust, so I made a makeshift wash space in a bucket on a couple of cement blocks and started a very inefficient washing scene. About an hour in, ten glasses were clean though, so.. 

Lily started a new book on Sunday on her ipad (we’re all training ourselves to read on tablets since the bags couldn’t support our book weight’s needs), and she hung her hammock under our neighbor’s swim platform and spent most of the day absorbed. Not helpful to the cause, but out of the way in any event. 

Violet spent her day shadowing two friends who came to help, and chattered away while they graciously replaced our fore and aft cleats. She was perched on the dinghy at the bow and was drawing at the same time, sent away only to do laundry for me. Always a social butterfly, and helpful this time, too!

A neighbor of the yard who we’ve met has a 10 year old girl who came to fetch the girls after she got out of school yesterday, and they played at her house while we cleaned up. They’ll see each other again today, which makes me so happy. Lily was wistfully wondering when we’d see some ‘kid boats’, and then poof! Emma arrived. Land kid, but kid nonetheless!

Time to get to the yard!

Winding down from a long, sunny Sunday. Fun for ¾ of us, less so for the one sanding and sweating in Tyvek all day, but the fiberglass dust has become too much for anything other than the primary task at hand (grinding, glassing, faring compound, more sanding…). I’ve attempted clean-ups down below to be able to make some headway on our eventual move aboard, but the dust from grinding and sanding has a way of swirling back over ‘completed’ areas in a way that makes me feel like a hamster on a wheel… When the yard opens back up this morning, we’ll be able to give the boat a good washdown, and I’ll be able to sort things out again without tainting clean things (there are only a few of them!) by putting them on a dust-covered surface. The itchy skin and more cleaning it would create isn’t worth the itch to get aboard!

To give Andy space to work yesterday, and to get out of our less-than-stellar digs for the day, the girls and I luxuriated by beach-hopping and island exploring in the cart. First stop: Ocean Beach, where the waves were good for being tossed around (their favorite pastime), and the sand was comfy enough to make myself a good reading perch. Second stop was Coco Bay, which had calm waters but a nice breeze coming in, making it the perfect venue for the girls’ first beach house. I quickly realized that while Violet was the architect and Lily the G.C., I was the only grunt-laborer available. After helping for a bit and hauling downed trees for limbs, I escaped the work force and retired to my book to try and calm my brain.

I’m having a hard time being so close to the boat and not being on it; I want to wake up in our bunk, prep my coffee, cozy into the cockpit… I want to clean and organize and put things back together and find our onboard rhythm. I want to plans meals, both for the yearning to cook, and the challenge of sourcing various ingredients in the smattering of provisioning options. I love waking up in different anchorages and having different adventures each day, but I’m recognizing how much the routine keeps me sane. As of now, school work is piecemeal, my own work is in scattered fragments of wifi availability, and not feeling productive in any one direction is making me crazy! 

The girls, as always, are as adaptive as we could ever hope for. They’ve definitely used up all of their ipad time each day with our distractions, but they’ve gotten to know the neighbors in the yard, roll with whatever we suggest with minimal (V) or no (L) complaints, and are overall understanding of needing to go with the flow for the sake of the Chickadee tasks at hand. Violet’s notebook and Lily’s kite are never far, allowing for constant entertainment.

We spend a lot of time walking around the yard, and the more I see and the more stories I hear, the more I realize how lucky we were. Boats were sandblasted, completely swamped inside before they fell over, resulted in incredible damage to at least one half of their interior- wiring, woodwork, systems under water for over a month.. Because of our wing keel, as best as we can guess, we went over farther than others, and I think that the windward side of the hull itself must have protected our hatches and companionway from serious intrusion. The result is that our hull damage is further up and above the waterline for the most part (bonus), but the downside is that a flubbed attempt to fix it will be on display in the gelcoat rather than covered up easily with bottom paint, and water. No worries on that front- Andy’s work has had others “ooh” and “aah” as they take breaks from their own work to check his. We’ve got a near-professional on the task.

Off to breakfast at the Liquor Store (yep, that’s a thing!) before schooling. Here’s to hoping for a dust-free day of work!