March 28 Berry Islands update

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Saturday March 27
They say life moves slower in the Bahamas.  I think that must be true, because neither one of us is having any problem relaxing the day away.  We can spend long stretches just watching the turquoise water sparkle as it drifts by the boat. We watch for our friend the big sea turtle who appears daily. The clouds roll in and out, but so far we have not had even one rainy day on this trip.  

We have taken to sitting on the steps at the stern of our boat most late afternoons when the sun is still hot but no longer directly overhead, dangling our feet in the water to cool off. Most times we'll jump in and swim a bit before dinner.  

Part of the daily routine is one of us will mix up a small batch of bread dough in the morning, and it sits on the counter rising until it gets baked in the afternoon.  Yesterday was potato bread, today we had a walnut oatmeal loaf.  Some things are the same whether we're at home or traveling- we like to bake and cook! We decided to make Indian food for dinner tonight.  Curries are comfort food in our family. 

Everything about long trips on a boat is about conserving resources- power, water, propane for cooking, fuel for the engines & generator.  We brought along our Instant Pot to save on propane, but we only use it on sunny days when the solar panels are efficiently recharging the batteries.  We installed a desalination unit so we can make our own fresh water.  We sail as much as we can to conserve fuel. It's a constant juggle. One interesting thing on the fuel: our main engines each burn 0.3gal of gasoline per hour. Our dinghy burns 1 gal per hour. It's more efficient to move the boat rather than take the dinghy (as long as the water.depth will accomodate it and there's a good place to anchor).  That is not intuitively obvious!

Sunday March 28
Today we moved Second Star about 1 ½ miles north to try out a new anchorage.   The little bay we tucked in to is not visible from even a short distance down the coast.  We choose this place for the shelter provided from south, east, and north wind, all of which we could see in the coming days.  We marked several places using gps waypoints that have the combination of sufficient depth and a nice sand patch to drop the anchor into with the thought we could move quickly to these places as the wind and swell turns. For now we are in close to shore well protected from the southeast breeze.


Surrounding our spot here are several reefs and rocks that we hope to swim on in the coming days.  From the deck  this afternoon we watched a display from the many turtles, rays, and sharks working the ride.  Nearby is a shallow bay surrounded by mangroves that is very inviting.  The blue hole described in a prior post is a short dinghy ride away.
The plan is to explore here a few days then get ready for the Big Nasty storm forecast to arrive overnight Thursday and continue for three days.  When this storm first appeared in the long range forecast it was horrid.  We made a plan to return to the marina for this one.  Subsequent forecasts show top winds moderating a bit.  A bit more easing of the forecast winds makes staying out at anchor more viable.  We will have to wait and see.  There are several more forecast updates before we need to make a decision, and history has shown the doom & gloom in Sunday's forecast becomes just some good sized winds by Thursday.

We had a lovely afternoon snack today- lime Italian ice that we had made & put into the freezer two days ago. It felt very decadent to have such a cold treat sitting watching for sharks to swim by!  I think we will try to keep some in the freezer more often.





Comments

Kathy B said…
Hey there. Enjoying the updates. We anchored kind of in between your southern and northern anchorages. I have pictures of Jim swimming in the Blue Hole. It’s fun revisiting the area with you. Keep on having a great time. We are home and it’s warm/hot one day, cool the next. Typical spring,
March 30, 2021 at 6:27 PM
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