Letter to Friends and Family, Christmas 2002+ Larger Font | + Smaller Font
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Written by Trudy and Graham |
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December 20, 2002 Hello to all our friends and family. As the holiday season fast approaches we wanted to take the opportunity to share our journey with all of you. We achieved our goal of reaching the Bahamas before Christmas, after an overnight crossing from Fort Piece, Florida to Great Sale Cay on the Little Bahamas on December 3, 2002. To find more information on the crossing, you might like to read Graham’s Crossing the Gulf Stream article on our web site. As we traveled through the more populated regions of the Abacos, we found beautiful clear water, sandy beaches and many areas that had attracted people to permanently move to the area in more recent years. We both struggled to slow down enough to really enjoy the laid-backed approach to life, and Trudy in particular seems to need occasional reminder that there really isn’t a rush, or anything else we “must” be doing instead of whatever activity is taking more time that it should. For example, we recently missed the lunchtime deadline to drop our propane tank off for filling, and thus had to wait until the following morning before we could complete the task. One drawback of the area being so heavily dependent on tourism is that there appears little incentive for people to share local knowledge without the guarantee of monetary gain. Maybe the frequent bad weather and consequent lack of visiting yachtsmen made it worse than it usually is? We really enjoyed our short stop at Little Harbour, Abaco where artist Randolph Johnson found his tropical island to “bring up his children and work in peaceful, beautiful surroundings, undisturbed by the high-pressure battles of modern life and uncorrupted by its materialism” (Artist On His Island; A Study in Self-Reliance). Randolph died in 1992 having achieved his dream; his son Pete and grandson Gregory continuing to live and work in the bronze foundry the family built next to the beach. Greg’s seafood catch of grouper, lobster and snapper provide a wonderful lunch as we relaxed in Pete’s open air pub. So far our fancy trolling fishing rod has yet to yield us a meal. It was comical watching Graham pull in our large blue “swimming plug” (fish shaped lure that dives to 35’ when pulled behind the boat) as we had to slow down in order for him to haul it in on its own! Every time I look at that same lure, I wonder just how large a fish will eventually be tempted to take the bait?! Graham had more success with his Hawaiian Sling (a rubber band powered spear thingy) once we found a suitably secluded area in Eleuthera called Royal Harbour. After a bit of practice, he bagged a smaller Nassau Grouper which was just large enough to make a tasty lunchtime snack. Apparently the very well protected harbour has been all but deserted after the owners of the large plantation left around 25 years ago. All that remains are a few paths around the island and a number of stone buildings with floors covered in elaborate but faded ceramic tiles. Currently we are anchored at Hatchet Bay Pond, Eleuthera, awaiting the passage of yet another weather front. There are no longer any facilities for cruisers here due to the devastation received as a result of hurricane Floyd in 1999, and hurricane Andrew a few years earlier. The locals are very friendly, and every one says hello as we walk through Alice Town. We tried the local delicacy of conch fritter (pronounced “conk”) for the first time after being directed to a local take away which was little more than a window into somebody’s kitchen. It was great! Graham said the presentation and taste reminded him of fried scampi, which is a pub seafood special commonly served in England. We plan to move to the Exumas in the next week or so, and are looking forward to the promises of great fishing, snorkeling and diving found in most of the cruising guides. We have both been practicing our free diving as it is illegal to catch fish while in using SCUBA gear. Hopefully when we get tired of bread, soup, and tins of food we will have sharpened our hunting skills sufficiently to have fish for dinner. I did find a tin of Heinz “English” style baked beans in the local food store. It is also possible to find McVitees Digestive Biscuits and Fox’s Glacier Mints that were not readily available in the USA. On a humorous note, we did find that having vacuumed packed an (excessively) large quantity of rice, that “peas ‘n’ rice” is a staple of the Bahamas, and thus freely available at very reasonable prices! Our cats Shadow and Sylvester seem to be settling into the lifestyle, and very much enjoy the large rug Graham attached around the mast in the main salon. Whenever they think nobody’s looking, they will run up the six foot structure as fast as they can, as if it is their very own indoor tree. They both seem to love having us around most of the time. For the first time since his illness a couple of years ago, Shadow appears to be gaining weight from his new diet designed to help cats with renal problems. We spend much time trying to prevent Sylvester from eating Shadow’s high fat diet, as he already has high cholesterol and his digestive system rebels rather horridly if he manages to binge on it. As we continue our travels we hope to keep in contact. While in the Bahamas we are limited to a satellite phone that appears very temperamental, and frequently disconnects calls at the most inopportune times. We continue to develop our website and will upload new information as soon as possible. Email is probably the best was to communicate with us, please keep them small (no attachments!) as the connection is very slow at 9600bps. We do not have access to the internet at this point in time. We do have a regular mail service, but due to the very slow delivery times in the Bahamas, it could take up to two months for us to receive anything. If we did not receive something in the mail before leaving the USA, the next time we will pick it up is in about a month! The temperature is now climbing to 86F at just gone eleven in the morning. Last night we had a full moon so I was able to put out all our crystals in the moon light. This morning they look magnificent with wonderful shiny surfaces. The cockpit of the boat looks gummy in the bright daylight as it seems to take more fresh water than we have available to keep it beautifully clean. The water maker is turning out to be a marvelous work horse as we are able to take fresh water showers every time we go snorkeling. Sadly, our wind generator has not turned out to be so successful. Despite sending the blades back to the manufacturer for rebalancing, it still suffers from significant vibration at certain wind speeds. Graham thinks he spent more hours trying to make it work, than possibly any other piece of equipment on the boat! There has been little time to read the numerous books we managed to stow on the boat, but we do seem to have brought along the perfect amount of stuff for all the nooks and crannies available. Other than our wind generator, our next biggest challenge seems to be keeping the computer dry, yet able to collect data about our passages while we are underway. Yesterday one of the cowl vents was turned the wrong way and a large wave washed over the deck, came straight down the hole and landed on the keyboard (again). We are very lucky that so far there have been no ill effects from the two occasions when this has happened. We would be lost without a way to collect and manipulate the abundant digital information we accumulate in the form of logs, charts, photos, email etc! We hope this reaches you all well, and wish you all a wonderful holiday season. Lot of love, happiness, understanding, giggles and smiles (Can you hear Graham reaching for the bucket about now?) Graham, Trudy, Shadow and Sylvester Crew: Trudy and Graham Norbury, and their cats Sylvester and Shadow
Written and edited 20th December 2002
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Copyright © 2004 Trudy and Graham Norbury. All rights reserved. |