Chub Cay, Bahamas
Woke up to the first gloomy day we’ve had in a few weeks — we've been SO lucky with the weather. Today it's super windy and even chilly enough to wear a sweatshirt.
Kicked off the day with a live 60-minute workout with my buddy Fonda all the way in Wilmington NC. Pretty cool that I can take this exercise class with me on this trip! Today I realized I could share my laptop screen with our smart TV so I could see the class and the workout a lot better.
It's a pretty tight space for a workout, but I feel lucky to be able to do one at all!
Ron needed to run the generator this morning to charge up the batteries, so I took advantage of the opportunity by cooking an omelette. Delicious!! Usually it’s a luxury for us to use the stovetop because it requires using the generator which burns fuel. I’ve been trying to use the microwave or toaster oven to accomplish most meals, both of which run off of the house batteries and can‘t be operated at the same time because it’s too much of a drain on the batteries. You have to get pretty creative (with dinner especially) so that everything is ready at the same time. And trust me, we don't usually have the "makings" for such a fancy schmancy omelette. I was using up things I found in the fridge, and expect that in the next several days we'll be back to our pretty unremarkable norm of peanut butter toast and cereal.
The three of us made a game plan to go to the Chub Cay Marina fuel dock to fill up our water tanks. We’d gotten permission from them yesterday, so we prepared to pull up our anchors. This was a little trickier than usual since Ron had put out two anchors due to the windy conditions. One was the anchor already attached to the bow of the boat that’s easy to lower and raise with the windlass; the other was an anchor he’d tied to a cleat that had to be handled manually. As I’d said the other day, the Bahamian Moor means one anchor is set so that it’s in front of the bow as usual, and the other anchor is set so that it’s pulling in the opposite direction, even though it is tied up off of the bow, if that makes sense. Ron and I talked about the best way to untie or pull up each anchor, and in what order so that the stress of the boat’s weight didn’t fall on one anchor too quickly or too dramatically. The other scenario we were trying to avoid was getting the two anchors entangled, which seemed to be a pretty likely possibility.
We decided that we’d tie a floating black fender to the anchor he had originally tied to the cleat, and then UNtie that anchor and allow the boat to drift away from it naturally. The floating fender would then allow us to find the anchor later. This worked pretty well, and KORKZcrew remained stable with one anchor in place while Ron and Skeet went to retrieve the other one with the dinghy.
You can see me untying the anchor line with the fender attached to it. Ron and Skeet then took the dinghy to retrieve the extra anchor, I retied the fender to the bow, and then raised the remaining anchor using foot pedals on the bow. Those foot pedals operate the windlass, which is simply a mechanized method for raising an anchor, and it is simply . . . wonderful. It makes our lives so easy. (You can also see me removing our "laundry line" aka bungee cord. 😂😳) Once the remaining anchor was raised, we could make our way into Chub Cay Marina, with Skeet leading the way.
Skeet led us into Chub Cay Marina in the dinghy, with the rest of the us following closely behind. It was fairly easy to negotiate parking at the dock, but the wind was so strong that it held KORKZcrew just enough off of the dock to make it awkward. There was a nice dockhand who was a huge help getting us tied up, which can be tricky with a heavy boat in strong wind and current, especially when both are pulling in the opposite direction. I got off the boat to help in the process, and once we were finished tying up, it was difficult to get back on board because the midship and stern of the boat were angled too far from the dock. I ended up having to scale the bow of the boat using the rub rail, which is pretty steep and not made for boarding, but all I could think was thank goodness for Fonda’s class or I’d otherwise be …. stuck on Chub Cay?! How awful! 🤔
While we were filling up our water tanks, we noticed a yacht the size of something you’d see featured on the show Below Deck (that reference is for you, George — I’m pretty sure the man never misses an episode). They pulled up parallel to us, so at first we thought they were trying to park at the fuel dock behind us. We soon realized they were maneuvering this enormous 154' boat to back it into a narrow slip just across the way. It was pretty fascinating to watch, and I tried to stay out of view so I didn’t look like the goofy gawker that I actually was. It’s kind of hard to tell from the pictures, but the captain and crew had to fit between two equally gigantic boats, with very little room for error. Yikes. I’ve included a pic of Skeet and Steve in the dinghy to give you a sense of its scale. (Just a guess, but kind of thinking these peeps don't hang their laundry outside to dry on a bungee cord. 🤷♀️)
With our water tanks topped off, we anchored back out in the harbor, and are ready to head for Nassau in the morning! Night night, Chub Cay!
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