Feb 26th "Dimanche Gras" This is Dimanche Gras. Not Mardi Gras. As if Fat Tuesday wasn’t enough, a Fat Sunday is called for. We’re all in line, each one of us in our positions. We begin by facing one way down the road towards the boulevard headed towards “centre ville.” Then he decides to turn around the other way. Only, after repositioning ourselves, I hear the distant tattoo of another approaching group. They appear at the end of the street, their sound now emitting directly from the blood red capes they are wearing. They slowly approach us and stop ri [View Full Entry]

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Gwada... [View Full Entry]

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As he entered the departure lounge, I thought the tall lanky man with the guitar case was a friend of mine. At least, he was as familiar as an acquaintance. Perhaps, it was his attire of khakis, loafers, a jeans dress shirt and a BoSox cap that fit an archetype so close to simpleton traveling types. Through his Ben Franklin spectacles and under the bill of his cap, I recognized him. I caught myself slightly smiling at him as he scanned the room and placed his guitar case on the ground. Two boys and two women followed him in, adding to [View Full Entry]

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Jan 23 Simply put, the three of us weren’t getting along or enjoying ourselves. I had offered to leave the boat, but reconsidered when M decided to do the same. After a week of stalling in Nassau, she reneged. That was this Monday morning. My travel instincts kicked into gear. There was no way I was going to continue for now under these circumstances. Determination swelled within me and my mind prioritized the necessary steps to be taken before leaving. 1) Find out when the mail boats are leaving for George Town. I walk down to Potter’s Cay, the wharf rat [View Full Entry]

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Nassau Harbour We’ve come to the hub of the Bahamas: Nassau Harbour. It’s not a circular harbour in the traditional sense, but rather a strait or slender channel 200 yards wide. It’s bordered to the south by New Providence Island and the historic city itself, and to the north by Paradise Island. Marinas line either side of the channel, which are connected by two toll bridges with 80 feet of clearance. We decided to do what’s for free: anchor in the middle. It’s an oddly quiet and calm place to anchor, which must be why a dozen or so sailboats surround [View Full Entry]

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I'll attempt a synopsis of the week that followed: Jan 6 I awoke to a calm anchorage. Coming up on deck, I noticed a sea turtle floating past in the distance. I had coffee and breakfast, and discussed with the others what possible, leisurely itinerary we could take over the next few days. These plans would be nixed. Not even an hour later, we noticed the waves increasing and darker clouds looming. Captain then shouted, "We're dragging anchor!!" Stress, yells, the burn of the motor, the heaving bow as it heads out of the inlet, thrusting up and plunging down (with [View Full Entry]

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January 5 After two weeks of mishaps, we set out from Bradford Marina with relief, sensing that the place was beginning to grow on us against our will. We planned to leave at 7, but didn't pull in the lines from the dock until 8:20. Our destination was the seldom visited chain called the Berry Islands. It was a direct course south to southeast which was to probably take all day. Upon leaving the derelict cruise ships and rusty cargo containers behind, we discovered that the wind was at our backs. We unfurled the mainsail and genoa (a sail at the [View Full Entry]

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Now that Nautilus was up on stilts, repair work could begin on the rudder, and among the crew. The foam underneath the fiberglass shell buffered the impact from the metal skeleton of the actual rudder. The fiberglass only had to be replaced. Of course, removing the boat meant that several other projects could be started, including scrubbing the algae and grime off the hull, grinding the barnacles off the propellor, buffing the sides and fixing the depth guage once and for all. (The GPS has depth-finding capabilities, too.) We would be up in the air for at least several days. As [View Full Entry]

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The injured Nautilus neared the smokestacks on the horizon that characterize Freeport. The barges came into view, littering the bay outside the harbour entrance, dwarfing our vessel with their massive multi-ton sterns and unimaginably heavy load of cargo and storage containers. I reeled in the fishing line, hoping to avoid catching any fish from the discharge of these metallic monsters. We radioed into the marina and were told how to reach the dock. We filed in between the rock jetties and gawked at the giant blue cranes lined up like ten outstretched Eiffel Towers, dropping rusty stora [View Full Entry]

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Running aground is a great way to meet the locals. My alarm beeped at 6:00. I snoozed for ten. Then, I woke everyone else up. We pulled out after a prolonged breakfast, closer to 7:30 than the 7:00 we had planned. Doing so required a 180 degree maneuver, all the while clearing the other boats in the dock. We had discussed the operation the night before and , given the low amount of wind on this morning, decided that we should swing the stern around with the bow still at the dock, and then throttle away. Sounds easy. Somehow in [View Full Entry]

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