11. TMI About My Dinghy (and Atlantis, too)

We have had an exciting week in Nassau!  

We made lots of new friends heading the same direction we are.

    Dinner at the Poop Deck w/ friends.

Spent time at the local Starbucks using their wifi to video chat with family & take care of business.  We got our BTC (Bahamas’ cell carrier) service connected and picked up a few precautionary prescriptions to have on board in case of emergency.  

But by far the most exciting “chore” was picking out the new outboard engine for our dinghy “Slow Dancin”.  We sold our small outboard while in Ft Lauderdale in favor of keeping our larger 15 horse 4 stroke engine because it had enough power to move our family around with ease.  Us moving it around with ease never quite happened :)  Loading it onto the back of the boat for long passages required all hands on deck with Paige wrangling the dinghy alongside the boat with Andrew aboard to manhandle the engine, Sky manning the winch and me controlling the boom and hoisting the engine.  We would pull it off the transom, Andrew would hug it tightly while Paige walked the dinghy to the back of Abby where we then used our over engineered swim ladder as a lever to pull it up and strap it snugly to the back of Abby’s rails.  Sound like a lot of steps?  You should try doing it in rolling seas!  So Andrew was waiting patiently to get to the Bahamas where the 15 horse 2 stroke engine he dreamed of was readily available, and promptly bought it.  It was an exciting day when they delivered our new and shiney outboard to the Marina fresh out of the box and took the old heavy monster away to consignment.  Andrew, with Sky’s assistance, got it onto the dinghy no problem and we have been enjoying her ever since.  

That may be all you ever wanted to know about dinghies but we had a few more exciting moments this week:  Like the time we were crossing the channel to Atlantis and decided to tow Slow Dancin instead of hoist her aboard only for her to break free mid-channel.  The glass bottom boat following us was treated to the entertainment of watching us try to catch her and me almost falling in while quickly climbing on into it before she drifted away again.  But we got her secured and continued on our way.

Or the time we dinghied back across the channel to run some errands in some rough seas and all were completely drenched before reaching shore!  Lesson learned - we now always travel with the rain gear when dinghying in :)

But enough about that, now on to our Atlantis adventure.  

It truly was all the girls had hoped for!  The super friendly marina staff treated us to golf cart rides to and from the resort anytime we needed them.  

Sky made a friend on our first day there that she spent every moment with and they kept us updated on any ride or area we hadn't experienced yet.  

The entire facility is huge so if you visit Atlantis definetly plan on walking but the grounds are beautiful and their is a new pool around every corner.  Surprisingly I had one of my favorite meals there, an amazing chicken curry wrap so not just your average waterpark fare.  

We had so much fun having fun with our girls!  

We met our neighboring boats at the Marina and even got parked in by a mega-yacht for 2 days!  

    The photo doesn't even do the size justice only capturing less than half of La Pellegrina.

We loved spending time with our new friends from Canada all day at the water park and it spilled over into evenings of ice cream, hanging aboard Abby and a true Bahimian Junkanoo with costumes and instruments and lots of dancing :)

Paige said it was the best birthday ever.  

The girls didn't want to leave!  But Andrew and I are ready to leave the bustle of the large city and head to the Exumas this week for some quiet and seclusion.

Things learned this week:

Money doesn't buy you happiness.  We were by far the smallest boat in the Atlantis Basin and may have felt a little white trash :) but in speaking with the captain of one of the huge yachts who has been captaining for 15 years he said most of the families he works with fight all the time and spend their days yelling at each other and hating being confined onboard together.  So I will gladly take my little boat and my wonderful family and the amazing adventures we have together.  But if you plan on coming to Nassau you’ll need to have at least some money because it is one of the most expensive places we have traveled to.  But the people and places are beautiful so well worth the visit.  

We will be checking out the Exumas this week so stick around to see what we are up to.

12. Too Much Fun in the Exumas

10. Bahamas, Baby!

The excitement and anticipation of the crossing to Bimini made it easy to wake early.  We weighed anchor and pulled away from No Name Harbor and had a glorious sunrise to help welcome the day.

    Stiltsville

The conditions could not have been more perfect.  There was little wind as we began which made it feel more like a lake than ocean.  The water became a deep blue unlike any we had sailed in before and had a notable temperature change as we entered the Gulf Stream.  

    Lunchtime onboard

     Boat life!

We were greeted by countless Portuguese man of war.  Not something you would ever want to swim with but they were beautiful as they floated over the water.  I thought they looked like little rainbows but Paige said they had mohawks :)

    The picture doesn't do it justice, the ridge is iridescent and the base is a dark royal blue. 

As the Miami skyline faded into the distance, the excitement was palpable!  The sun was shining, the girls played on deck, dowsed each other with buckets of water to stay cool, and kept a look out for marine life.  A scream went up when Andrew spotted the recognizable spout of a whale in the distance. We were lucky enough to watch two North Atlantic Right Whales making their way south and they put on quite a show for us with the grand finale of fluke waves from both of them as they dove away.  

     North Atlantic Right Whales

We thought the day couldn’t get any better until Paige spotted land in the distance!  Both girls stood on the bow and watched as the water changed from the deep ocean blue to the clear turquoise of a swimming pool.  Even though the depths stayed over 10’ in the entry channel to Bimini, you could see directly to the bottom.  The shouts from the girls got louder and more excited as they spotted schools of fish, starfish, stingrays and sharks.  We did it, we made it, we actually left and now we were in Bimini.  It was crazy!

     Bimini

     New neighbors

We docked at Bimini Blue Water Marina and Andrew went to check us in at customs while the girls and I stayed aboard under the quarantine flag.

    Quarantine

We were supposed to be tidying up and getting settled in but it was so hard to not want to chat it up with all the new neighbors that came by to greet us, watch all the different fish swim by and squeal everytime the local 8’ bull shark came by for a visit.  The locals were very friendly and welcoming and some of our new dock mates split a freshly caught wahoo among all of us neighbors.  What a way to end the day!

    We’re having fish tonight!

Even though Bimini was beautiful, we decided to keep moving while the weather was good.  So we headed out the next morning.  We made a pit stop at our first snorkeling adventure, Sapona.  The Sapona was a concrete ship made for World War I that never made it to battle.  It was privately owned as a casino boat in the 1920s and sunk in a hurricane in 1926.  In World War II it was used for target practice.  We tied our dinghy up through a few of the remaining bullet holes.  It was kind of creepy to be in the water beside it but we saw some great marine life!

    Sapona

Our crossing of the Great Bahama Banks was surreal.  It felt very "Life of Pi" watching schools of flying fish dance across the water.  There was no other soul as far as the eye could see and at times it was even difficult to tell where the water ended and the sky began.  

    Great Bahama Bank

We took advantage of the calm ride to clean Abby’s decks and have a dance party aboard :)

    Girls working hard and having fun.

The next few days mesh together like a blur, that seems to happen when you spend days at anchor without stepping on land :) We watched movies, did school, took naps, and did a few small projects as Andrew diligently watched the anchor alarm making sure we did not drift.  

    Sunset over Chub Cay

Saturday night was a long night as the blow the day before seemed to loosen our holding and we slowly but continually drifted closer to shore.  We were up 2 different times resetting the anchor before finally giving in and getting under way around 5:30am.  

    My very own Sleeping Beauty.

Even with the lack of sleep we had high spirits aboard as today was the day we were heading into Nassau!  We had a beautiful sail across the tongue of the ocean with rolling seas of 6-8’.  The girls love when we have good waves!  We’ve gotten better about securing things below so there wasn't near the mess when we made it to Nassau Harbor.  

Paige was so excited when she spotted Atlantis in the distance.  We are getting the lay of the land today as we will be here for about a week waiting on the weather to calm down.  We will be spending the next 3 days at Atlantis enjoying Paige's 13th B-day present.  And the rest of the time re-provisioning -how can we already be out of stuff?!  And trying some of the local fare as we have heard most of the small islands that make up the Exumas don’t have restaraunts, etc.  Sounds like this girl is going to be putting in the galley hours!

    Sky's interpretation of all we saw on our crossing to Bimini :)

Things learned aboard this week:

I get crabby when I'm hot!  I pride myself on being a pretty pleasant person at all times but the truth is my family has to see my true colors.  I thought our few days at anchor were going to be rewarded with a marina with pool (even though Atlantis is only a day away) and I might as well have thrown a tantrum when I found out it was having repairs done :( Hopefully I'm making it sound worse than it was, I usually just stay below and get things tidied up while I'm feeling fowl so I don't affect everyone else's happy hearts :) But being face with your own short-comings on a daily basis is humbling.  Luckily, my family loves no matter what.

The girls are troopers.  Other than getting on each other's nerves occasionally, we don't hear a peep from them about "are we there yet?, can we swim yet?, I have to eat what?, you want me to scrub what?".  They are embracing this life full on.  They make us proud!

Don't want to rub our good fortune in your face while you are experiencing winter but we are enjoying a beautiful high 60s with a stiff breeze at the local Starbucks in Nassau using up their free wifi to update you ;)

Hope you enjoy!

11. TMI About My Dinghy (and Atlantis, too)

9. Welcome to Miami!

Well, after almost 4 weeks at Cooley's Landing we finally wrapped up enough of the projects to move south!  It felt like we were busy every minute of every day this last week.  Our days were spent finishing up projects aboard and stowing items that had yet to find a home.  

We were excited to find the salon floor for the first time in the 2 months aboard.  

Only to lose it again to all the provisions.  

Once the project of cataloging and stowing was completed, we once again lost the floor to our most important item aboard according to the captain :)

We helped our friends aboard Tipitina, who are without a motor, turn their boat with 2 dinghies and lots of long rope.  

It got a little crazy because the New River is very narrow, has a strong current and as I mentioned before, has LOTS of river traffic.  Nothing like letting loose a 15 ton monster in the river and trying to tame it with 2- 15 horse motors.  But the team worked well together and, once we were all turning her the same way, she nested back in her home slip.  

Now they are prepped and ready for the arrival of their new engine.  

We had an exciting visitor aboard Abby!  Our dock iguana jumped on board to take a tour and thought he might be cozy behind our captain's quarters' wall panels.  I strongly disagreed so Andrew removed him.

We had a great morning of goodbyes with Matt, Bonnie & puppies.  

And then tended to the last order of business, selling my Armada, Maudie.  It was sad to see her go because she was my dream car that we saved a long time to buy cash but also signified our last tie to land.  

    Bye Maudie :(

As she drove off, we pulled away from our slip at Cooley’s and motored out the New River.  

    Panorama of our Ft Laud anchorage before leaving the channel.

The morning motor sail to Key Biscayne was beautiful!  While the sails were down, the girls sat on the dinghy to bounce over the waves like riding a bucking bronco.  

Their giggles and screams were music to our ears.  

We spent our last day running around for the fun stuff.  

    No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne, FL

We had our last lunch at Chick Fil A, anyone who knows us, knows how important that is :)

We found some great deals on some used regulators at a local dive shop, Divers’ Paradise.  The owner was super helpful in making sure we had everything we needed to be safe while away and even recommended a shop that would help get our hooka rig completed.  For those unfamiliar, a hooka is an air tank onboard with a long hose (100’) and regulator so you are free to dive the length of the hose without having to carry your gear.  We will use this set up when cleaning the bottom of the boat, diving on the anchor to make sure it is set properly and to help the girls learn and become comfortable with diving before their certification.  We didn't expect to get these items covered before heading out so - SCORE!  

And had lots of fun hangin’ at Whiskey Joe’s, playing games and enjoying some burgers and Andrew’s last draft beer.  

And just like that our last day in the states closed.  

    Paige's last step on American soil.

It is kind of surreal, to look forward and work toward something for so long and then the sunrises just like all the other days prior but you feel that this is the day everything changes!

    Sunrise over No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne.  3/2/2016

Thing learned aboard this week:

Timing is everything.  I think it is human nature to want something when you want it.  I’ve been ready to leave for months but the patience is paying off.  I’m still learning to wait :) 

Whether waiting for a perfect weather window to make a passage safely and comfortably or learning to handle a misunderstanding among family, timing is everything!  

I'm hurriedly trying to post this blog before loosing signal as we cross to the Bahamas, so barring anything crazy happening, next week's update will be about our first international check-in, how our crossing went and how our first few days in Bimini go.  Can't wait to share.

10. Bahamas, Baby!