Allen's Cay and Highborne Cay, Exumas 12/19-12/21

We have made it to paradise!  The past couple of days have been beautiful and we are so happy to be here. This is what we had in mind! The ride to the exumas went smooth and the water was so calm and glassy. It was also much more shallow, so the water was a beautiful turquoise color.
We got to Allen's Cay late afternoon and found a great anchorage tucked between three small islands- Allen's Cay, Leaf Cay, and SW Allen's cay.

These little islands are popular and known for the iguanas. There are tons that come running out to you when you bring your dinghy up to the beach. Apparently, everyone feeds them, so they come running out to meet you. It was pretty funny. There were tons of them.

12/20 We got up and the kids did school while Paul got himself hoisted up to the top of the mast (yes, Jack and I are really strong) to check on the antenna which is not working so well for our long range radio. The antenna is still not working, but Paul took some really cool pictures while he was up there.

After our school and work projects, we went to visit the iguanas. Then we took the dinghy to some reefs to snorkel and do the hooka diving. It was really pretty and we saw lots of coral and cool fish.

 

 

In the afternoon, we decided to take the boat over to Highborne Cay. We loved our spot at Allen's, but several more boats came into the anchorage and it was getting a little crowded. So we came to Highborne and that only took about 45 minutes. We anchored in a nice spot at the northwest end that is a little quieter. We then swam over to the beach here and walked around. It is very peaceful and beautiful here and we are feeling so grateful to be here.

12/21 After school work and cleaning we all went for a little swim for some exercise. It was getting pretty windy and the waves were getting bigger, so we couldn't go dinghy to the good snorkeling spots. We decided to move down to the southern part of highborne where it is more protected from the wind and bigger waves. Glad we did this. Just after we anchored this afternoon, the wind got really strong and it has been raining a little. It will probably be very windy and a little rainy for the next day or so. We might be doing some much needed inside boat cleaning projects tomorrow. We will see how the weather goes.

Nassau, Bahamas, 12/18

I don't know when I will be able to get a connection that will let me load pictures, so for now I guess this will just be like my journal and I will keep trying and add them in when I can.

We left Chub Cay early (4 am) on 12/18 so we would have time for some fun in Nassau. The sail went well and we got there around 11 am. We went through more super deep water like the gulf stream- the soundings said over 9000 ft. That is just crazy.
When we got to Nassau, we decided to splurge just a little for one day and stayed at the Atlantis Marina which let us use the Atlantis resort facilities -the aquarium and water park on Paradise Island. We thought that could kind of be a Christmas gift for the kids since we aren't really doing gifts this year. This year we have drawn names and are making homemade gifts for each other. Should be interesting. We are all having fun trying to come up with ideas for these gifts.

Atlantis is a beautiful resort and we loved the aquarium.  They had huge manta rays. The water park was fun too and it was nice to get off the boat and just play and relax.
That evening we took our last chance for a little while to do laundry and to take hot showers and that was nice.

We could have stayed in Nassau a few days because it is a big bustling city, but we decided to head out to the Exumas the next morning because some high winds and possible storms are heading here and this looked like the best day to cross over that last 30 miles. We took the chance to get some more groceries before we left too. Ouch, food is expensive here. But it will be much more expensive and we will have few options in the exumas. We have stocked up the boat pretty good though. We are eating mainly rice, pasta, soups, and cheap stuff, and then get limited amounts of milk, fruits/veggies, because they are pricy here. Milk was $4 for a half gallon here.  Too steep for us. Eggs were cheap though, so we bought a ton. It's ok, though, it is worth it to be out here having this experience. Next stop is the exumas and we are really excited!

Bird Cay and Chub Cay, Dec 16-17

I am having trouble getting any pictures to upload. I have a good internet connection, but for some reason it's not working. I will try again soon.

The latest: We were at West end for 2 days because of the generator issue but that is fixed now. yea! We seriously have had something break at least every day and I am not exaggerating.  Anyway, we left West End, Grand Bahama on Saturday morning and headed out. We were planning to go to Great Harbour Cay but our plan changed a few times in the course of our sail. We had great wind and were sailing fast, so we decided to keep going further southeast to Elethura. After a few hours the wind suddenly changed and we were going super slow because it was coming at us and was strong (12-16 knots) and didn't work for sailing. So we changed plans again and headed more south for a different route. We crossed the Northwest Providence channel south and went through the northwest channel. When we were going south, we were able to catch the winds great and sailed at 8-10 knots/hour.  That is fast for us. We sailed like that several hours -into the night making good time and were excited to be getting down closer to our southern destinations. After turning east through the channel we had to go much slower however, so we didn't get to anchor until we got to Bird Cay at about 5 am.  The sailing had gone well much of the time, but there were some stressful times and we were pretty exhausted.  This past week and a half of intense day and night sailing and multiple boat issues has been very challenging.  Everyday I feel totally out of my comfort zone and it has been hard.

Sunday morning we were ready for a much needed break. It turned out pretty nice. It was overcast and rainy occasionally but still a nice day. After we had our little family church meeting, we dinghied over to the little island of bird cay and walked around and explored it. It was pretty. Then the gang found some conch and we got excited about trying that out for dinner.  Paul and the kids put on the snorkel gear and had fun finding starfish and more conch.  We made fried chicken and fried conch for dinner and everyone even tried it. It was really fun. Paul, Jack, and I fixed the baton cap on the sail that had sheared off during the previous night's sail and we were feeling happy that nothing had broken yet on Sunday when suddenly one of our ceiling light fixtures just fell to the floor and shattered. No surprise sadly.

 

 

Monday morning we decided to go for a short ride to Chub Cay to check it out. It is really beautiful here. We anchored in front of a pretty beach and had a beautiful sunny day. This was a day that we needed! We snorkeled tons, jumped into the water from the boat, went in the dinghy to check out the island a little and were able to relax.  We saw starfish, stingrays, crabs, and some fish. The kids found lots of sand dollars and were so happy today. Our minds and spirits are feeling rejuvinated. It was nice to get some physical exercise swimming too because that hasn't been easy on the boat lately. We have some great cross fit exercises to do on the boat (thanks Will) but it is kind of hard to do them when we are out sailing- too rocking and rolling. They will work great for anchoring though. Anyway, it was a really much needed, lovely day!

 

Now the plan -if we don't change it multiple times- is to head to Nassau tomorrow. It is about 30 miles away so that will take us 5-7 hours depending on our luck with the wind.
I will try to get the pics to upload again from Nassau. I don't know what the deal is here.

SURPRISE !! We are in the Bahamas!

No, I am not kidding! We really are here.  Yes, a bit of a change of plans occurred after I last posted. OK, Here's how it happened.  We woke up Wednesday morning and checked the weather. We were again feeling discouraged about how we would be fighting strong south winds yet again and debating between the ICW and ocean to do it. Then Paul said -we could just go out to the Bahamas- the winds are right for that. So we thought and talked about it. To leave for the Bahamas from the Lake Worth inlet (which is where we were) we would go straight across to the Abacos (the northern Bahama islands). We had previously decided to go further down Florida to cross at Biscayne Bay because our destination was the Exumas-a different part of the Bahamas. We had mainly decided this because we have been told that though the Abacos are beautiful, it is quite a bit colder there so we were choosing the Exumas because they would be warmer to swim in and such. But as we were checking the extended forecast, we were bummed that not only would we be fighting winds still to get to Biscayne Bay; but also, once we got there, the winds were supposed to change and turn North which is not good at all for the gulf crossing.  So we were probably going to get stuck in Biscayne for several days before we could cross the gulfstream into the Bahamas. So, since the wind and waves forecast looked good to cross Wed and would not be good again for several days, we grabbed fuel, filled our water tanks, and took off.  That is very spontaneous for us!  We got a bit of a late start since this was a sudden decision, so it meant we would arrive after dark. But we are getting good at anchoring in the dark I suppose (still don't love doing it that way though).
So we headed out.  The first hour was very rough with waves MUCH bigger than forecasted - from 6-10 feet-I am not exaggerating, instead of 2-3 feet. We hoped it was just at the inlet because some inlets are rough with the different currents hitting each other, but it was really rough.  We decided to keep going for a little while and see if it got better and an hour or two later it did improve a little so we kept going.  It gradually improved over the next few hours, but it was a fairly wild 9 hours to be honest. The waves were probably 3-6 ft most of the day. We got here (The west end of Grand Bahama Island) around 7 pm and anchored and we were so relieved to be done with it.  Now we will still work our way down to the exumas over the next several days and won't have to wait around in Florida.
The gulf stream was pretty cool.  The water looks so dark blue and gets super deep.  It was weird to watch the depth soundings on the chart plotter go from 50 ft to 200 ft, to 1000 ft to over 2500 ft in some points. Crazy.  Now we are here and we can always remember we made it to the Bahamas on 12-12-12.

Late in the day of the crossing, we passed a Carnival cruise ship. That was a little entertaining.
 

 

Now we are excited to be somewhere new. Paul went and cleared us with customs Thursday morning and then we decided to go to the marina nearby for a day to recover from the past 5 days and to take showers, do laundry, etc. We plan to anchor almost all of the time (because it is free and we will run out of money really fast if we go to marinas a lot) but it was heavenly to have a little break and the nice facilities for a day. We do have showers on the boat, but we have not been taking full showers because we need to conserve water as our supply is limited. 

 

 

Once we got schoolwork and laundry and cleaning done, the kids wanted to go play in the water. There is a nice little beach right at the marina. It was very breezy and even rainy off and on but that didn't stop them. They were so excited to get in the ocean.  They found a few fun creatures right off. That was cool.

**This should be a picture of me pulling my hair out in frustration but I didn't take a picture of that.  :)

Our not so good luck today is that our generator broke.  Of course as soon as we leave the country and don't have easy access to parts and such.  There is some new issue -whether big or small-almost daily with this boat.  We know that lots of people have mentioned that owning a boat means always having a project or something to fix, and they were not kidding.  We really have a love/hate relationship going on with this boat. So I don't know if we will stay here and get the part shipped here, or if we are going to sail to a bigger town and deal with it there.  Good thing we don't have any set plan or place we have to be, because plans seem to change daily.
I will try to get the pictures to load and add them soon. I have been trying for 2 days now though, so I am giving up for now.

A LONG, LONG traveling week

 

What a week it has been! We arrived back at the boat around midnight on Tuesday, Dec 4. We were very pleasantly surprised to find the boat in really good condition after it had sat for 5-6 weeks.  We spent the next  few days buying tons of food and provisions, organizing, cleaning and just getting the boat ready.  We found a little time to decorate for Christmas too.  How cute is our little Christmas tree!  It was a goodbye gift from the nicest people at the St. Augustine Marina -Jim and Jan. It is just the right size for our boat. 

 

 

Then there are our Christmas lights. The cute little tree lit up in the galley, and then the party lights we already had up work well for Christmas time.  Aren't we festive?

 

We decided we were ready to go and get on with this plan on Saturday, Dec. 8.  We left at 2 pm and headed out to the ocean and went south.  The plan: to work our way down the Florida coast to get to the right spot to leave for the Bahamas.  We have to cross the gulf stream and since it has a strong north current, you have to start south when going to the Bahamas.  It will take at least 3-5 days to get down to Biscayne Bay which is where we want to be to head for the gulf crossing.  We decided that we would go out in the ocean so we could go day and night and try to just get the long trip over with.  We now have our new record of 60 hours straight we spent out on the ocean. At night, we did night watches in 3 -3 hour shifts; Paul and I would trade off and each have one of the kids rotate the watches with us so we always had 2 people up and watching.  It went well and the kids have been a lot of help. The weather has not been helping us make very good time, however, we have had a south wind much of the time which has slowed us down. By Monday morning, the wind was really strong and we were going straight into it, and it was getting old!  We tried tacking at angles but still didn't make much progress.  Then, by Monday afternoon, the waves got a lot bigger so we were really rocking around, and we had some lightning and a bit of rain. Yes, our favorite. We decided that it might be a good idea to come into the next inlet, and anchor a night and see if the intracoastal waterway (ICW) might be a better option.  The next inlet was pretty far, and with our slow progress, we didn't get to Ft. Pierce and anchor until 2 am (Tues. morning). Luckily, the anchor went in easy and we got some good sleep and some relief from the major swaying.  That was nice.  Tuesday, the forecast was still for some strong south winds and some occas. thunderstorms, so we stayed on the ICW all day today.  That was a good move we think. It has good and bad points.  It was a nice break from the swaying because it is very calm, and we made better time too, but it is a pain at times to  have to keep such a close watch on the shallower waters and to have to wait for draw bridges to open for us often.  We made it to North Palm beach this evening and are anchored here.  It doesn't really work to go down the ICW when it is dark. But now I am glad we decided to anchor and not to go out on the ocean tonight, because soon after we anchored here, it started pouring and it has been pouring and tons of lightning the past couple of hours.  I am very glad I am here and not going through this storm out in the ocean right now.
Anyway, it has been a pretty exhausting few days.  We keep just trying to think about how nice it will be when we get to the Bahamas, and I am trying to learn to be patient.  I can't control the weather and some of the other boat issues we encounter, so we are just plugging along.  Some of this stuff is very challenging but I know it is good for me.  Learning to do new things is good for me right? Like trying to anchor in the dark (done it twice now), trying to navigate in the dark or in stormy weather, making dinner while the boat is totally swaying like crazy- wish I had a picture of that, it was probably petty entertaining to watch, etc. Anyway, we know that this adventure is a lot of hard work, and just hope we can learn and grow as we go through it. :)

 

OK, so I will end with the positive.  Yes, there are some real challenges to this, but there are some amazingly cool things too.  Like this. Sunday afternoon, we had calm seas and sunshine and were loving it and then, the coolest thing happened. We see dolphins really often, but usually they don't come super close to us but we had 4 dolphins come right up to us and swim with our boat for a few minutes- right at the bow. It was the VERY coolest thing! I even got it videoed but it is not loading with our slow internet connection right now.  Hopefully I can add it in later. I'm just feeling lucky to get any internet connection I can right now out in this anchorage in the middle of a storm, but it is a little slow. Anyway, today, we saw lots of dolphins on the ICW too and they came close too.  That was fun.

 

So we have another day or so until we get to Biscayne Bay -depending on the weather. We will see how it goes. Then we will watch for the right weather for the big crossing.

A busy month home

I can't believe it has been a whole month.  We have been much busier than I thought we'd be and the month home has flown by.  Now we are counting down and getting ready to get back to the boat.  This past week I have been getting excited about getting back to our boat life though I will miss everyone so much.
So what did we do while we were in Utah?  Good question.  I think I will make a list, because lists make me feel like I am so productive. Here goes:
*Dehydrated about 4 bushels of apples (or maybe 3 bushels and a peck)
*Went to a movie for the first time in four months
*Sewed curtains for the boat (hope they fit)
*Helped remodel my parent's bathroom (painted walls, painted cabinets, new flooring, new fixtures, new molding, etc )
*Helped Emily to arrange and take 4 finals for her online high school (all A's-she rocks!)
*A huge sprinkler re-do project at our Heber home - long story regarding changed property lines that I won't go into because it makes me grumpy to think about.
*Went to a BYU football game (we've missed those) and hosted our favorite Martin family from Las Vegas for a weekend.
*Went to the shooting range.
*Went on motorcycle rides (Will was kind enough to let us borrow his Harley)
*Went on four wheeler rides with the kids
*Went to the Temple three times
*Got Jack ready for a mission -HUGE ( Dr. appts, Dentist appts, wisdom teeth out, mission prep classes, paperwork, Bishop and Stk. Pres. interviews) It is all done!
*Visited Temple Square to see the Christmas lights
*Played with friends and family
*Thanksgiving with both our families
*Cooked and baked most of the stuff we were missing on the boat
*Got to play in the snow
*Lost my tan (after about the first week back to Utah-pretty pathetic)

Here are a few pictures of some of our activities of this past month:

We had a big snow storm in early November and the gang had fun playing in it with our limited supply of snow gear.  Cold!

 

Jack was really a trooper for the wisdom teeth fun. He didn't complain and did everything I told him to. He was such a good patient.

 

He is going to be a great missionary. We are getting excited for him.

 

Thanksgiving day was a lot of fun.  We started the day in Nephi with a family football game that morning, had a family talent show (per Jaci's awesome idea) and did some karaoke together.  And of course had an amazing meal thanks to Grandma and Wendy.

 

 Then we headed up to Midway to see my family to have dessert-yummy pies and for the kids to make their annual gingerbread houses with their cousins.

 

 

 

A visit to Temple Square with the Rasband gang

 

 

 We had some really awesome weather while we were here.  Other than a couple of days of snow early in the month, it was so nice and not to cold. We were thankful for that, because, after living in Florida, we had become babies about being cold. This was taken just a few days ago.  Who would have thought the weather would be good enough in late November to take off the shirts?  This is Noah and his buddy Daniel (our niece Jessica's son)  They had a ball throwing their shirts for some kind of game.

 

More good weather fun.  The kids had a big battle in Grammy's backyard and it was quite the set up with the playground and tree house as bases and shields, sticks, and the works.  They had a ton of fun.

 

 

Now we are counting down. One more day in Utah and then it is back to the boat.  The plan now is to scrub and clean the boat, buy supplies, and watch for some good sailing weather and set out.  Wish us luck.