Manjack Cay, Abaco to Ft Pierce, FL

As our last posting stated, we left Boat Harbour in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas on Thursday, April 10th, 2009.

We crossed through the Whale Cay cut without any problems. We traveled with our good friends Pat & Pat Dwyer on Salty Dawg.

After our brief stay anchored at Manjack Cay and no additional Internet available - our spare time was spent enjoying our hobbies. Wilma worked on jewelry making and painting. Wink enjoyed his computer game.

Lionfish painted with acrylics - still working on this project. Wilma painted a Junkanoo bean with a picture of our boat John Henry. Wilma also learned how to crochet necklaces at Boat Harbour. The best part is that Wink and Wilma collected the shells themselves for these necklaces and matching earrings.

We've enjoyed walking the beaches and collecting lots of shells, fans, driftwood and sea glass. Of course, all these had to be cleaned - another part-time job. Wink also took lots of underwater photos.

Sara Sota the sea dog adapted well to living on board John Henry full time. She has a favorite area for doing her business and she always is a lady about it.

On Allan-Pensacola Cay, Pat, Pat, Wilma and Wink explore the beaches and the abandon ruins of a old radar station. On this cay we found a great hanging tree of ornaments left by other travelers and explorers.

Mr. Pat found a couple of buoys on the beach and had a great idea of putting our names on them and then placing them on the hanging tree.

He painted them and on our last morning in Allans-Pensicola Cay, we had a hanging party.

Wilma and Wink on our 2008 Mirage Skiff with our John Henry Buoy for the Allans-Pensicola Cay Hanging Tree.

A group photo of the explorers and their buoys. Wilma, Wink and the Pats.

Wink and Wilma pose under the John Henry & Salty Dawg buoys.

Mr. Pat climbed the tree, did all the work and should receive all the credit for the fun. We all had lots of fun.

Pat and Pat's turn under the buoys. Enjoying the day before head north to Double Breasted Cay.

Double Breasted Cay has a large sandbar area where we found a conch.
The water here is emerald green with the sky a royal blue while fluffy white clouds dance across. Wilma would like to paint like this.

Wilma on the bow of the skiff and Wink driving - we spent the day diving, and exploring.With Grand Cay only a couple of miles away, we skiffed over and had a look around.

We bought fresh bread at one of the local bakeries. We walked the entire town, bought souvenirs and had lunch in a one table cafe in less than two hours. This is an extremely friendly small town.

The winds changed so we moved from Double Breasted Cay on the south side of Grand Cay to the north side of Grand Cay. We tried to explore Walkers Cay but due to hurricane damage, the cay was off limits.

The weather on the ocean side was calm so we went diving and beach combing.

Wilma photographed from the surface while Wink dived the 15-20 feet hunting fish.

He caught a grouper and a mutton snapper. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner that evening.

We are thankful that Wink is a strong and steady swimmer.

As Wink was swimming back to the skiff to put the first fish in the boat, the skiff was missing. With fish in hand, he swam faster as the skiff was drifting quickly into the ocean. Wilma couldn't keep up and had to stop and wait. Another few minutes and we would not have been able to retrieve the skiff by swimming. (Luckily the Pat's were with us and could have taken us out by boat to retrieve the skiff). At first, we thought the anchor had dragged, but as it turns out, the anchor line loosen and slipped away from the boat. The anchor was still firmly on the bottom.

This was truly one of the scariest moments in our lives while living on the boat. Now we double check the anchor line - maybe even triple check.

WE were looking for a weather window to return to the USA. The winds were about 20-25 mph for days. We checked the weather on WeatherWorks for a Gulf Stream crossing. There was a possible weather window on Thursday, April 22nd. On Wednesday, the weather window seemed to have closed. So Thursday about 8:00 a.m. we were preparing to go ashore with Sara when we checked in with Salty Dawg. They had just received an update and the day was perfect to cross. We agreed and within 30 minutes both boats had aweighed anchor and we started making our way across the sea of Abaco from Grand Cay towards the Gulf Stream

About noon, we received a call from Salty Dawg, they were having a problem and needed to stop for a short time. Wilma decided that water was too beautiful to pass up the opportunity of fishing. Within 15 minutes, Wilma had caught 5 small fish for dinner. Salty Dawg called and said they had made their repair so away we went.

We left the Sea of Abaco about 4:00 pm and traveled through the evening crossing the Gulf Stream with no incidents. The water was beautiful, the sunset wonderful and all was good.

With Wilma on the bow of the boat using her night vision, and Wink in the pilot house utilizing electronic charts, we made our way into the Ft. Pierce Inlet about 12:30 pm and anchored south of the ICW bridge in front of the condo's on the west side.

Salty Dawg on the bank in the sea of Abaco.
John Henry in the sea of Abaco.

The Gulf Stream as we crossed back to Ft. Pierce, FL.

When we awoke on Friday morning late - the Pat's moved to the city marina for repairs while we stayed in the anchorage. When we anchored at 1:00 a.m. there were many boats in the anchorage. There were so many boats and so little light, that Wink and Wilma went into the shallow water to set the hook as we were exhausted. It was dead low tide and we had less than a foot under the boat, but that was enough. However, after we set the hook, the wind changed a little and we ended up on the bottom. It wasn't a firm hard aground, only a soft hard aground. With a rising tide, we were floating free within a few minutes. So early in the morning during high tide, we moved our location to a deeper spot as many of the boats had left.

Later in the day, it was old home days in Marsh Harbour. Puffin, LoQueSeA and Tally Ho trawler made their way to the anchorage. They had arrived the day before also entering at Lake Worth.

On Saturday, we went to the city marina to visit the Pat's and also visited with Indemity and Terralee who were in the same marina. We also spoke with Tim of Pokey. He said Pokey was at a Harbortown Marina while they were at home. We also learned that Jim on Christine was in Harbortown also. He had sold his boat and was spending time with the new owners getting ready for them to take possession.

On Sunday, Our Time and Silver Foxes came by and hailed us on the VHF to say hi as they continued up the ICW toward Cocoa Village. We left Ft. Pierce on Monday morning and anchored north of the bridge at Cocoa Village.

Getting Ready to Leave Bahamas

It's the beginning of April and it's time to start packing up all our treasures and putting them away for the voyage back to the USA in the middle of the month.

Wink and Wilma have collected lots more sea shells than shown here. But here are some of the largest collected. Conch is also a island local food attraction. We find the conch out in the Sea of Abaco and place it in a zip lock bag and freeze it. Then we thaw the conch for a few hours, take a pair of plyers and remove the creature from inside. Wink cleans the creature and we usually give it to Sue Graham who makes us all fantastic conch fritters. Wilma then soaks the conch shell in bleach water for a couple of days at which time she cleans it with a small toothbrush.
Our friend Bettie on Tar Heel made spectatular artwork on giant junkanoo beans. She was going to help Wilma paint her own bean, but alas time ran out. After several repainting of the John Henry - Wilma finally began to get the idea. Also above the John Henry bean is the beginning of a Pine Cone Basket that Sidonia on Double Trouble starting teaching Wilma. Wilma plans to work on the basket during the cruising time to the USA

Vanessa on Tally Ho saw my John Henry bean and really wanted one so she came over with a picture and we created it together. She painted the bean brown and Wilma did the artwork. Wilma has several other art projects that shed didn't complete. Wilma ran out of fabric paint and will wait until the USA to get more. Those projects will be displayed later. The projects include a self expression art work on an Apron from the Art Teacher (Tonia) in Abaco and a Lion Fish throwdown which needs more work.

Man-O-War Cay had their first ever Heritage Day (Sojer Day) is their name. Wink and Wilma went over to the island by ferry along with about 8 other RMHYC members. Wilma got a T-Shirt for future memories.

This baseball field is right on the ocean. The above picture of Wilma was taken just below on the beach. These island are a great place to raise families. Everything here seems so safe.

There were several small booth exhibits of local art and treasures to be purchased at the event.

The next few slides are of wonderful flowers that Wink enjoyed taking pictures of and we hope you enjoy them as well. We don't know the names of many of these plants.

Sue Graham has a GH37 Trawler and had left Abaco Beach Resort on April 1 tomoved their boat to Man-O-War where they will stay until at least June (or if her refrigerator breaks). The refrigerator is making a noise occasionally. Here, Wilma and Sue pose for a last goodbye until we meet again in the USA.

This is an Allamanda Plant. Wilma had never seen a pink one and thought that they only came in Yellow. Growing side by side were Yellow and Pink.

It's wonderful living where the coconuts are usually free for the picking up off the ground. We had lots of wonder fresh coconut this year.

The day after the Sojer Day at Man-O-War, our friends Bob and Judy on Shade-Mor invited 39 of their closest friends to go on a short trip over to Nippers on Guana Cay. As we left at 11:00 a.m. Wink took this very nice photo of John Henry sitting very lonely at the end of the dock.

Wilma stands on the dock in front of Shade-Mor in Guana.

After our visit to Nippers, we stopped by Grabbers and had a visit with a few dogs. My most favorite boy in Abaco is Sebastian. He's really beginning to like dogs. He likes small dogs.

He likes big dogs. Especially if they are calm and submissive getting affection. (Ceasar Milan's plan on The Dog Whisperer).

His birthday is tomorrow and I didn't get a chance to say goodbye because he was in Florida when I left. Happy Birthday Sebastian. But his most favorite dog in the world is::::::::

Sara the sea dog...........He loves her best and she loves him too.

On Monday, we went diving and went took some spectatular underwater pictures. Wilma was going to put a couple in, but time is running out for this anchorage. Wink's pictures are so good that Wilma is going to do an entire posting of underwater shots - Wink's Waterworld - look for it at our blog in the future.

On Tuesday, Wink and Wilma got out the Hooka system (compressed air by compressor on the surface) doned their dive gear and set out to clean the bottom of the boat. Our friends Andrew and Dick kept and eye on us and the machine for safety. It took us about 2 hours to clean the bottom of John Henry and get him ready for cruising. Wink then went down to Andrews boat bottom and spiffed it up as a thank you for watching us.

On Wednesday, our friends Pat & Pat on Salty Dawg called us on VHF and said they needed to leave the islands and head home. They had a generator problem and couldn't continue cruising without one. Wink offered them our spare generator - Honda 2000. They were amazed that we had one and accepted graciously so they could stay in the Bahamas longer.

We were planning to leave Marsh Harbour on Sunday (Easter), but then changed to Saturday for better weather, then Friday because Pat & Pat really need to get moving, but.......

on Thursday, we woke up and the weather was beautiful - very beautiful. In fact it was so beautiful that we couldn't miss this opportunity to get out of our slip with no wind, glass like water and wonderful sunshine. So we left Marsh Harbour on Thursday, April 9th about Noon. Andrew on Tally Ho sent us this picture via email.

It was a quick get away and we decided it was so wonderful that we went into the Atlantic Ocean just north of Man-O-War Cay and had less than 1 foot swells. Wilma fished and fished, but no fish were hungry. We re-enter the Abaco bank at Whale Cay (a very dangerous area if it's bad weather). We anchored about 4:40 pm at Manjack Cay. Our friends Kathy and Milt on LO KEE were already there so we skiffed over and had a soda with them.

After leaving LO KEE, we stopped by Salty Dawg as they had invited us to dinner. It was fabulous, steaks on the grill, bean salad, sweet potatoes and white potatoes on the grill. A lovely evening.

On Saturday, we (Salty Dawg and John Henry) dones our skiffs and went beach combing. The weather was still nice so we drove our skiffs into the Atlantic Ocean side of Manjack Cay and enjoyed the amazing day. Later we drove our skiffs to Green Turtle Cay to fill our skiff up with gasoline. This is the only thing we forgot to do with our hasty departure.

One of the marinas in Green Turtle had purchased gas a long while back when it was expensive and was still charging the expensive rate of $6.18 gallon. We said no thanks - we could get gas later. Just for curiousity, we went across to the other marina and did buy gasoline there for $3.82 a gallon (it was in the same area) crazy!!!!!

Gotta go for now. We're moving away from internet until we get to USA. We're also going to check out Allen's-Pensacola Cay (should be very secluded).