Anam Cara Adventures

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Leaving Georgetown

"Anam Cara, Anam Cara, this is Dream Odyssey" said an unfamiliar voice on the VHF radio.
"This is Anam Cara" I replied from our navigation station.
"Hi, switch to channel 17", says the female voice.
I dial in channel 17 and the voice introduces herself as Michelle
. "We heard that you needed some charts for Panama", says Michelle. "We are also going there and have been there before. Would you like us to meet up so we can share with you what we know?"
"That would be great" we say.
And so it is that the next afternoon we entertain Roy and Michelle, as well as our friend Russel from "Aspara" in our cockpit with freshly baked baguette topped with tomatoes, onions and lashings of garlic. Michelle brings a Mexican dip, and we sit and chat about the beauty and wonder that is Panama. In fact, Roy and Michelle love it there so much that they have bought a house there, and are on their way back there after six years of cruising the Caribbean. They tell us that they have been looking for other boats to travel with, and so it is that we make new friends, and start preparing for our journey.

Leaving the Bahamas from Georgetown is a step into the less protected areas of the Caribbean, and we know there will be few places to provision or much civilization once we leave. So we have to jerry can fresh water in our dingy as well as fuel, propane and provisions. This turns out to be quite an adventure, as the wind off Georgetown does not ease up, and our ride back aboard is like a roller coaster ride in steep chop created by wind against current and a very shallow bottom. We are constantly soaked from head to toe, and so I take to going ashore in my bathing suit and getting dressed on the dock. Any other solution makes for a very wet land visit! We do many of these trips, do our laundry, last minute phone calls to family to let them know we shall be on our way shortly! And in the evenings we visit with our new sailing buddies to discuss the weather and route. We say goodbye to Sam, Alex and Guin on Splendid with the hopes of encountering them again soon. Little Guin brings us her two dollar bill as a present to remember her by! They are having such a great time in Georgetown that they decide to stay on a little longer.

We pick up our anchor at dawn, and follow "Dream Odyssey" (nickname "Dreamy") out of the southern exit to Elizabeth Harbor, an area strewn with reefs. As we have the light against us, we are glad to be following them as they have been through here previously. Our first destination is Conception Island, and we have a superb wind to sail all the way. About half way Dave reels in his first Mahi Mahi, while I am puking my guts out with seasickness. He has to do it all - handle the fish and the boat, and step over my half dead body to make things worse. I am thankful when we finally approach calmer seas in the lee of the island, and when we have our anchor down, we feel like we have arrived in Paradise. Conception Island is said by many to be one of the most beautiful in the Bahamas, and I believe it. Completely uninhabited and remote, with the most gorgeous beaches you can dream of! Crystal clear water, blue sky, and a handful of sailboats - what could be better?

While I gut the Mahi ( we are getting a bit better at this!) and throw her entrails overboard, we watch as several sharks come and devour the tidbits we throw out. Russell too has caught a fish, and Michelle invites us all over to dinner. She prepares the fresh, delicious fish, and we make the vegie dishes. Yummy - what a feast!

During our time in Conception Island we snorkel the reefs, explore the windswept beaches, and meet other cruisers. We encounter Vicki and Mike again from "Double Exposure" and have them over to dinner to eat the other half of our Mahi mahi. A wonderful time for us which we completely appreciate!

Southbound

Early every morning I am up at dawn to listen to Chris Parker, our "weather guru" on our single side band receiver. We get word that bad weather is on its way, and we need to find shelter. We set sail two days later for Clarence Town in Long Island, where we fuel up and fill up the boat with some very foul tasting brackish water. What a mistake! From now on our anchorages are all rolly and somewhat uncomfortable, but I embrace that hoping that it will inure me to my worst enemy thus far - seasickness. At our next anchorage, where we sit out 30 knot winds from the east, we rock and roll for four days. This anchorage is on the southwest side of Long Island, and we are the only boats there. Roy and Michelle pick up Russell in their dingy and come over to teach us how to play Mexican Train Dominos with us. It is fun, and we have a lovely afternoon together in this very desolate place.

Russell, who is on a much smaller boat than the rest of us, always leaves earlier to make up time. And so he is the first to leave when the winds have settled down, to sail across the channel to the Acklins Island group. He radios us some hours later, announcing that he has been beating into some heavy seas for hours, and is turning around. So we all turn back, and hang out another day. Since we have our sails up and are out and about already, Dave and I sail in the lee of Long Island for some hours, trying to figure out a weather helm issue that still has us perplexed. Whenever we sail on a beam reach, Anam Cara wants to round up into the wind, and it takes quite a bit of effort to keep the boat on course. The autopilot is overwhelmed by it, as is the windvane. So we are learning about mast rake and specific sail trim techniques that we hope will eliminate this for good, as hand steering is incredibly tiring and wearing.

So the following morning we all set out to make our passage. It sucks. The wind is dead on the nose, the seas are large and close together, and so we tack for twelve hours, with our rails in the water, and lo and behold, we find out that our boat is not water proof. The bilge pump keeps coming on, eventually every ten minutes, which certainly has us a bit alarmed. When I go down below I see water pouring through the starboard settee, soaking everything in its path. While one of us steers, the other one naps to keep our strength up to continue hand steering. Our autopilot at this point has given up the ghost completely, and we realize we have a few issues that need resolving for our upcoming longer passages. And then there is the mystery with the leaks and the constant bilge pump going... When we eventually arrive at Long Cay it is dark. We drop the hook, completely exhausted from the hand steering. Poor Russell had an even harder time getting across the Acklins Channel. A fish trap wrapped around his boat, causing him a further days delay. This gave him an even worse trip into the wind than we had, and twenty-four hours later in the pitch dark he arrived, deserving a rest!

A Concert in Alice Town

We decided to walk into Alice Town on the other side of the island, and meet the "friendliest people in the Bahamas" as our cruising guide stated. A long dirt road led across the island to an almost completely deserted little village. No grocery store, no restaurant - just a few chickens and dogs running around. Eventually we saw a thin line of smoke rising up from a small shack. As we approached, we met an old gentleman who was cooking flapjacks on his outdoor stove, a compilation of metal and wood with a fire underneath it. He gave us a toothless grin, and welcomed us back to his island, as he was convinced he knew me. He sat us down in his front yard, and gave us a grand concert on his guitar. He only knows two chords, but he managed to bring rythm and style to his music, and he rocked! A delightful experience indeed! In between songs he filled us in on his life as a cop in Nassau, which he didn't dig at all, and his youth in Alice Town, where a small jailhouse still stands that would lock up those who got drunk, and send them home in the mornings! Other than a handful of fishermen cleaning conch on the beach, the town remained almost completely deserted to our eyes. At one time, Alice Town was a mecca to which boats transported coal, and it is still proud to show off a beautiful old church, although nature is doing its best in reclaiming this piece of real estate.

Our next plan was to stage ourselves on the southern tip of Acklins Island. As it turned out, our designated anchorage was untenable due to the swell. So a new plan evolved, which was to anchor on the south side of Castle Rock, a beautiful spot with an old fashioned light house on it. You couldn't feel more remote than here! The weather became lovely and calm, and one could gaze endlessly into the crystal clear water, and see every speck of sand on the bottom.

It was here that Dave and I decided we might have a bigger problem than we would like in such remote an area. Our bilge pump kept piping up, and through careful inspection, Dave decided that there was water leaking into the bilge through the drive shaft. Weeks previously we had managed to wrap the dingy painter around the propeller. This, we deduced, may have caused our cutlass bearing to break, or something to shift inside the drive shaft mechanisms. Within minutes of us radioing our friends with our dilemma, Russel had his dingy down, and they all came over to help out. The guys probed and talked, while I cooked us all spaghetti for dinner, all the while listening to Michelle's stories of her days as a prenatal nurse. The end result was that we weren't sure what was wrong, but it worried us. And to our delight, our friends insisted on following close behind us that evening as we left for Great Inagua. On a dead calm sea we motored about twelve hours next to Dreamy, all the while keeping in radio contact. As I looked out at the incredible starry sky that night, I was filled again with a deep sense of gratitude for this experience. All around me nothing but beauty, and close by people who not long ago we had never met are keeping a vigil out for us should anything happen to us. We are truly blessed and touched by all the generosity and consideration we have been given by our friends at sea. Every so often Dave descended into the lazarette to check on the drive shaft and packing gland, which remained a concern. Dave had added new packing material to the gland, and now it was getting increasingly hotter, not the most desirable thing to have happen. Eventually the wax on the packing material melted, and before long the area cooled back down, while we breathed a sigh of relief. The bilge pump, however, continued working through the night.

By late morning we were anchored outside of Mathew Town, getting our dingy down to go ashore and clear out of the Bahamas, readying ourselves for our next passage to northern Jamaica. We had a good weather window for it, and so the next morning we all set off on our two-hundred-and-fifty mile journey south.

A Rolly Ride

Imagine this. We have been out at sea for twenty hours. The windvane has steered somewhat. The seas are running partly on the beam, partly on the stern. We are tired, sailing down the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. There are ships going north, others heading south. They are lit up like christmas trees, and so it is hard to make out their running lights. I have just laid down to sleep when I hear Dave on the radio hailing a cruise ship, asking for its speed and heading. The captain of the ship assures us he has us on his radar, and that they have altered course to stay clear. Of course so have we. Altered course that is. Now we are again, on a collision course. The captain is a bit annoyed, and alters his course again. Technically we have the right of way. We are sailing. But it is damn hard to figure out which way these boats are going, especially when you are beat. We pass each other with no problems ultimately, and I, with a queasy stomach go to sleep. The waves are now kicking in out of three directions, and are much higher than predicted. Luckily the wind is behind us, so we sail on with only our genny up, reefed quite a bit, and still making good speed. The waves are towering over us, and look huge in the moonlight. Before long I can no longer fight the queasiness, and am fully seasick. Only sleep will put me out of my mysery, but I don't want Dave to have to do all the work, so I force myself to get up and keep watch. Luckily the windvane on this downwind course comes into its own, and steers the boat like an ace. So all I have to do is lay in the cockpit with my kitchen timer, and every fifteen minutes wake up to look around for ships, and make sure we are still on course. Every so often I have to throw up into my little "puke bucket", and I continue to do so until there is nothing left but stomach acid. It continues to come up. Not even a sip of water will stay in my tummy, and Dave later tells me my feet looked like shrivelled up prunes due to dehydration. It is the night before my forty-fourth birthday, and all I can do is fantasize about selling the boat when we get to Jamaica. I want solid land beneath my feet, because surely one cannot feel much worse than this... I begin to question whether I am really cut out for this, and my dreams of crossing an ocean become a laughable thing of the past. Now that I have been at a secure anchorage for a while I can think these thoughts, and regain hope that perhaps I will overcome this after all, and become the sailor I so longed to be...


On my birthday we sail into the beautiful, lush, tropical Port Antonio. We have left behind the flat islands of the Bahamas, and we are here, in the land of tropical mountains, waterfalls, and Blue Mountain Coffee. It is a dream come true! We arrive in the protected bay in the morning, and get ready to clear customs and immigration. Errol Flynn Marina welcomes us to their lovely facility, and we relish our first real shower in months. There is a pool, and a bar and a restaurant, all set amongst tropical lushness. In spite of incredible fatigue, and dehydration, we manage to celebrate my birthday with Jerk Chicken at Rusalka, the restaurant above the marina. It has a lovely view over the whole bay, and the full moon and balmy air lets us forget the rough, rolly passage we endured to get here! That night we sleep like logs in spite of the heat, humidity, reggae music and mosquitos!

Jamaica!

One of the first desires we have is to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables, after consuming the sparse fresh food we could buy in the Bahamas (cabbage, and more cabbage, and did I mention cabbage?) Around the corner from the marina we find a market. Papayas, mangos and pineapples! In spite of the shock of the iggledypiggledy town which is dirty and full of people who want to sell you reggae music and beggars, we are happy to fill up our boat with lovely fresh foods. Music blares 24/7 from all corners of the town, and with the heat in full swing, we are quickly exhausted. It takes me days to acclimatize to the new humidity and temperatures, and we are lucky to have the showers and a nearby beach we can go swimming at for some respite.

Apart from the ever present boat jobs (packing gland, oil change, weather helm, autopilot ...) we do want to see a bit of Jamaica. One day we hire a driver who takes us to see the northeast coast and hills of the island. Our first stop is the beautiful blue lagoon, where the movie was filmed long ago. Next we find ourselves at Reech Falls. The closer we get down the path to the river, the more excited we all become. The water is crystal, like an emerald. The most beautiful blue I have ever seen, among giant bamboo, hibiscus and other tropical trees. A guide takes us up the river in our swimming suits to a to us unbeknownst adventure. We come across a small gap amongst bolders into which the water flows. Our guide disappears completely into the hole, and sticks his head out, beckoning us to follow. As I slide down the narrow shaft into the dark, I feel like I am entering a womb. Once at the bottom I see Dave sitting in the water in a lovely cave. Russel, Michelle and Roy follow behind, one by one. From here we dive behind our guide under the rocks to exit one by one into a very small pool. Once we are all in it, we breathing into each others necks! Again our guide disappears, and we find ourselves following through more tunnels, until we emerge on a ledge with a small waterfall. From here it is a slide into a pool of water. We are all laughing, and enjoying the magic of the moment! What a great experience.

Hungry from our aquatic adventure, our driver takes us to the infamous "Jamaican Jerk Chicken" place in Boston Bay, which we are all looking forward to. To say we are disappointed is an understatement! The chicken is so dry it turns to powder in your mouth, and necessitates copious amounts of water to get down ones esophagus. Oh well. After a drive through the lovely hills, from which we can see the famous Blue Mountains, we come back to Port Antonio, back to the reality of all our boat jobs!

Rescuing Splendid

Our friends Alex, Sam and Guin emailed us from the Bahamas that they would be leaving for Jamaica shortly! I was looking forward to seeing them again. On the 6th of May I listened to Chris Parker (the weather guru) and heard Alex calling him for a weather report, stating their position, and saying that their transmission had blown, and they were without an engine. Normally that wouldn't be such a big deal on a sailboat, but that all changes when the wind is non-existant. Which is exactly what happened! We monitored our VHF radio all day to be ready to help them should they require assistance. By 2000 they had made it within four miles of Port Antonio and were not moving at all. The current could have easily taken them onto any of the many fringing reefs of the island. We were all willing and ready to head out to sea to tow our friends safely into the harbor. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that the best boat for this mission was Dream Odyssey, as they have the biggest engine, and the most experience with towing. Dave and Russel went with them, while I waited behind, ready with our dingy to assist once in the harbor. A few hours later, a tired but very happy Splendid joined us in Port Antonio, and it is great to have so many friends around us! Little Guin has since befriended three year old Teddy on the boat "Lolo", and they are spending lots of time swimming together in the pool!

We are now waiting for our weather window to sail to Panama for the hurricane season, which starts in less than a month. Unfortunately the predictions for the next ten days are very high seas and strong winds, and seeing as this will be about a five day passage for us, we will wait for things to settle down a bit.