Some Equipment Essentials

 

Swing Set Laying In Elizabeth Harbour From Stocking Island, Across From Georgetown, Great Exuma

As we go steaming into the second quarter of our second year as full time liveaboard cruisers, I thought I’d forgo the philosophy of my last post and focus on the nuts and bolts of our liveaboard existence and pass judgement of some of the operating and equipment systems on Swing Set, and what I think are essential, or perhaps, not so essential, items that I think are good things to have on a boat if you embark on such an endeavor similar to ours.

  In no particular order, more likely as they come to mind:

  The Air-X wind generators are getting a thumbs up. Certainly if coastal cruising will be a large part of your cruising ground, where ocean breezes abound, a wind generator or two may be worth the money, I have decided finally that it is the case for us.

  I can tell a big difference in our Westerbeke diesel generator use when we get a string of calm days, like we had for two or three days in a row recently. Keeping air conditioner use out of the equation, if there is no wind, we need to run the diesel generator at least four hours per day to provide enough charging for the eleven batteries we have onboard. Our Norcold AC/DC refrigerator is the biggest draw on our power, but our big Mac desktop computer is a big current user that we didn’t consider. The T.V., and even house stereo, if you like watts, (big sound) will drain those batteries down too. I don’t want to get bogged down on power management in this blog, just suffice it to say that I’m a fan of auxiliary power generation, be it solar or wind.

  The watermaker gets a big thumbs up if you will be cruising in clean salt water. Not all areas along the Florida coast are places I’d make water, but if you stay in the U.S.A., we can probably find water easily, just be careful about getting water at condo complexes where there is nosy old folks who have nothing else to do but guard their precious water supply, whether you get permission from someone else or not.

  Our Katadyn Power Survivor 80 is a 12 volt unit and the 3.5 gallon per hour advertised output more than keeps up with our needs, at least if I keep the water leaks in the plumbing to a minimum.

  Our power windlass with 25 feet of chain and a 45 pound Delta anchor has been flawless, if I am careful about where I stick the hook. The little float I deploy at the anchor rode/chain splice keeps the rode off of the bottom where the sand and coral can wear on it. The half inch line is plenty strong, and will do fine if you don’t run over it.

  Extra, heavy anchors, we have two, along with plenty of line, is handy to have. We learned that lesson while waiting out Hurricane Isaac last year above the last lock and dam on the Tenn-Tom. Held us so well, one of the anchors didn’t want to leave. It’s still there.

  We haven’t felt a need for a lower helm station. We would always want shade for any helm station, though. We don’t run in the cold, and don’t intend to, but I have jackets and a coat around here somewhere if it gets chilly. I have a couple of space heaters too, to put at our feet if we need them, but again, if we are somewhere where it gets that cold, we are lost.

  Replacing our microwave oven with a convection microwave was the best thing for the galley, by far. We can bake and grill in it, making our Magna propane grill seem superfluous at times, but do know that any oven inside the boat will increase the heat inside. A propane grill outside for warm days is just the ticket.

  Back to power management again; an inverter is necessary. Not so much so you can run your AC equipment on the hook (you never have enough battery supply to run air conditioners or cooking devices off the batteries for very long), but an inverter lets you run AC powered devices while you are underway. Great for making coffee and breakfast underway on an early start. This alone is worth the money for an inverter and the battery bank required to run it.

  I wouldn’t have anything but AGM batteries. We have eleven batteries (Group 31’s, we don’t have room for 8D’s) and I don’t want the maintenance of checking fluids on all those batteries once a month, or more, with lead acid type batteries. Battery technology is improving all the time, and we’ll be on the lookout for better ones as they come along. They are our lifeline to living aboard on the hook.

  Building our parts room/office by gutting our second stateroom, was a huge success. We have a place for tools and spare parts galore. I have been able to fix and fabricate many items on the boat that break or need to be improved with just things I’ve had along with us. I know there are times when we have to order a part or two, but you can’t have everything along that you need, but if you can’t find the part, or the tools to replace it without tearing through seat bottoms and drawers, then you won’t enjoy fixing anything. As it is, the ease at which I can find my parts and tools make repairs tolerable.

  The office, and desk, complete with scanner and printer, full size desktop computer, and a drawer for hard files, make publishing this blog a treat, and it also streamlines the administration of our “household”. I may also add that with only two people, one stateroom is plenty. Guests need to find hotel rooms. This boat is already loaded to the hilt.

  Our Bora 12 volt fans are a life saver. We have four, and I’d like at least two more. We’ll get them when we get back in the States. We never have them on unless we are in the area where they are needed, but in our stateroom at night during the summer, we couldn’t endure the heat without them. The one focused on our dinette was broke for a while earlier this year, but started working again once we got to The Bahamas. Good thing, I would have had to find a replacement had it not began working again.

  The dinghy. Can’t do this without a good dinghy. One that has some speed to it, too. The davits to hold our dinghy have been an Achilles heel, of sorts, we are on our second repair. But I think I have the problems solved. We also replaced the galvanized cable and winches with something a little more suited to the salt environment, and I don’t know how many generations of improvement that my system of strapping down the dinghy while underway has entailed, but again, I think I have a good system in place finally. I don’t want to be out there in twelve foot seas to really test it though.

  We like our Kindles, and we like to read. If we didn’t like reading things would get plenty boring. Life is boring, even in paradise, so you can’t drink beer all day, or wax the boat or fight rust all the time, even though it would appear to some that we do both.

  We also like to cook, and we have lots of room for stores. We’d like freezer space to be greater, but I’d say we are doing just fine with what we have. Eating out at every meal will break the bank, so will going to bars every night. Again, it would seem that we spend plenty of time in bars, but we don’t really go out all that much, and when we do, we have a limit as to how much we spend. If you are rich and don’t need a budget, good for you, but this blog is more for us retired folks on a budget. The rich folks have a captain and a crew to take care of all this stuff, they don’t need to read my blog.

  Our boat has easy access to most everything. Our cockpit is even with the water, so getting in and out of the boat is easy after a swim, or just coming back with supplies in the dinghy. We have a big sliding salon door and can walk right into the boat without climbing, or stooping. There are very few stairs inside of the boat too, but enough to trip on if we aren’t careful, but we also have plenty of handholds throughout. The stairs to the bridge are wide and not too steep, again, handholds are sufficient. I think Sea Ray got it right when they designed the stairs to the bridge on our little boat.

  I had begun the think that a larger engine room would be on our “must have” list if we ever started shopping for another boat, but I have decided that with the ease of which our salon floor opens up to expose most areas in our engine room in which I need to access items for general maintenance, I think what we have is fine. I especially like it if we are at a dock and plugged in somewhere. I can run our air conditioning and have my  work area cool while I struggle and cuss at the stuff I am working on. (But not too much, you know, with the ease at which I can access my tools and all.)

  Dual Racor fuel filters on each engine, and an oil change pump. Can’t say enough about the virtues of each. Need ‘em.

  Our course, a way to get Internet is very high on our list, but if you’ve been reading our blog regularly, we still struggle with it, primarily here in The Bahamas, but we are still fine tuning our system in that regard.

  T.V.’s and DVD players are also nice, but we haven’t found the need for a satellite T.V. receiver. (Books, remember?)

  Fancy electronic gear at the helm is nice, but if you get an older boat and it has working electronics, use them until they fail. We use some of our original seventeen year old gear and it does fine. We never saw the need for AIS, but we might get it when we need to replace a radio. Autopilot is something we’ve been told we needed, but again, we limit our time at the helm and don’t think we need to spend the money on one. We have navigated our boat primarily with an iPad, loaded with Gamin Bluechart Mobile, since our departure months ago from St. Louis, MO. A small Garmin GPS unit is at the helm for backup. Perfect.

  Our lives wouldn’t be the same, and we might have not gotten this far, without our pet. In our case it’s a dog. A small dog, one that can do her business indoors and doesn’t need to be taken to the beach, or wherever, in the rain in the middle of the night. Some people only take their dogs to do their business once a day. This is cruel. I wonder how they could manage it. I couldn’t.

  Holly is our buddy. I said “our buddy”. She like both of us equally, and is a great “person” to talk to. Even greater because she doesn’t talk back. People would think we were bat-shit nuts the way we carry on with our little dog, and we don’t care. We don’t foist her on others, but we usually find a way to have her with us a majority of the time. Simply put, we’d give up this boat before we’d give her up.

  Not really lastly, because I’m sure I left some things out, but a good mate is the most important ingredient to have on a live aboard vessel. I see lots of men single handing it, but I think it must be lonely. Not sure I could do it. Rosie and I share responsibilities, each of us has our strong points. I usually declare that I’m doing all the thinking and navigating, and therefore have the most responsibility, but in addition to all the mundane chores that Rosie has to deal with, she also goes to great lengths to keep me happy. And that, my friends, is the hardest job of all.

Thinking About Friends and Family

  We meet lots of people on our travels, and sometimes we wonder if we can develop a friendship with them or not. We have met some of the same people multiple times along the way, but so far, we’ve just enjoyed their company, or not, while we were with them, and let it go at that, with no further expectations.

  Take the woman we met at the library yesterday, Karen. Karen volunteers at the library on Mondays. She and her husband Clive have lived in their home in Georgetown for 27 years. They came here when things were much simpler, and cheaper, before the big resorts came in and raised prices, and each little chicken shack restaurant raised them in kind, wanting to cash in on the quick buck, but making things difficult for the locals. Karen also blames the “outsiders” for the current crime problem. “Used to be you could leave your purse out on the porch all night and no one would bother it”, is what Karen says. I believe her. But everywhere we go, we get the same comments about “outsiders”. The thieves and criminals are always from “somewhere else”, like Jamaica, or Nassau.

  Karen and Clive now have their home for sale, (she would give us such a deal), but not because of the change in Georgetown society, but because they are getting up in years and need to be closer to better health care. But I’m getting off track, this is not my point.

  My point is that Rosie and I, having picked out several books to take back with us to the boat, sat and had a most enjoyable conversation with Karen. During our conversation, the subject of missing friends and family came up. Karen and Clive have offspring that live in Canada, where they are from, but are looking to move to Florida. It would seem that Karen and Clive have gotten past any misgivings about a need to be near their family in their older ages.

  We would be mere robots if we said we didn’t miss our friends and families, and we do miss them at times. But we also realize that this life we are leading is the only one we are going to get, and having discussed the whole matter going in, have decided to lead it the way we want to, not the way someone else wants us to.

  Sure, it is not as difficult for us because Rosie’s parents passed away several years ago, and although my father is still raising hell up there in St. Louis, he raised me to be independent, whether he knows it our not, (I think he knows now), and I think he has come to accept our decision to live our lives as we do, if not admire us for it. I hope so.

  We decided a long time ago not to have children, so that part of the equation is moot, but even so, if we did have children, our obligation to them ends, we believe, once they get to a certain age. Nothing more horrible than having some offspring still living in the basement when they are in their late twenties, or even later.

  Back to parents, though. I would hope that parents would let their children go and live their own lives as they see fit. Sure guidance is good if it’s needed, but where would we be if the mother of Christopher Columbus nagged him at every turn? Why, we’d be speaking a different language! Wait. He was Italian. Bad example.

  What about Charles Lindbergh, then? What if his parents fretted over every time he went up in some monoplane or another, afraid he would scrape a knee or crash to the earth in a fiery death? If he wasn’t allowed to become the pioneer he was, we wouldn’t have lindbergher cheese. I’d miss that.

  Let’s get back to friends. Our true friends are happy for us, and we hope we inspire them, and others to also follow their dreams. We learned many years ago that friendship can be fleeting. You think you may remain friends with a childhood mate, or a couple you meet along the road of life, and the childhood mate moves away, or the couple decide to get a divorce. Meanwhile, you think everything is going to move alone and everybody is going to be chums forever, but the other people aren’t thinking that way. The other people aren’t going to think of you when that job offer from out of town comes by, or marital troubles rear their ugly head, or your friends do the most inconsiderate thing and up and die on you. Family members are the worst for this!

  Shift gears again. Our potential new friend at the library, Karen. Let’s say we develop a friendship with Karen and her husband. Everything is great while the relationship is, well, what we would call “shallow”. We don’t know much about each other, the stories and jokes are still fresh, but as time goes by, familiarity comes into the picture. There is so much truth in the quote, “Familiarity breeds contempt”. Karen and Clive become comfortable with us enough to start bickering with each other in front of us. One or the other of them feel that they are close enough to us to start complaining about our behavior, and even worse, complaining about our behavior to others, thinking we may change who we are. Sounds like I’m speaking from experience.

  So, currently, we don’t go knocking on the hulls of neighboring vessels, wanting to develop any relationships. For one thing, people who go off to live on a boat aren’t the sort of people who like drop-in company. Not only that, we are at the point in our lives where we can afford to let things happen naturally, or not. We are actually happy with each others’ company and can go days or weeks without other human interaction. We are fortunate.

  We do thrive on the communications we receive from the people we have “left behind’, so to speak. Although, we didn’t leave anyone behind. Our friends are with us everyday. We also know that in reality, if we weren’t on Facebook, of publish this blog on a regular basis, people would forget about us. Just someone they knew along their road of life.

  But maybe, once in a while, maybe after they’ve just read a good book, one that makes a person think, they might give us a thought, and wonder how this all turned out for us.

  Honestly, I’d rather they were too busy following their own dreams to ever have time to consider ours.

Georgetown Bar & Restaurant Guide

We’re settling in to life here in Elizabeth Harbour. Although there are very few cruisers here at the moment, there are enough of them and other visitors to make things at least a little interesting.

  Hundreds of boats are here in the winter, we hear, because the weather is warm, but we have found adversely, that many of the home owners and regular cruisers come here in the summer too, because the temperatures are milder than in other parts of the southern U.S. We have been enjoying temperatures in the high 70’s at night, and the very low 80’s during the day. A nice combination.

  Yes, summer is hurricane season. We are reminded of that fact occasionally, the latest being Topical Depression Dorian, which is currently fizzling out, if not diminishing altogether. 

  Once we have to experience a hurricane first hand, we’ll undoubtedly have other opinions, but we are tending to share the opinions of other boater and home owners in this area; with proper preparation, people and property can exist in hurricane country. Much like people exist in tornado, landslide, flood, forest fire, and other natural disaster country. You can live in fear of the unknown all your life, or just deal with it as it comes.

  Georgetown has enough to offer for cruisers in the “off season” to keep them occupied. In the last week, we went to the market, the library, the BTC office. We took trash, got gas in the dinghy, and went to the hardware store twice. Heavy stuff, but adventures each and every one.

  For fun, we go to the beach at Chat ‘N’ Chill, and never fail to meet someone to talk to. We bought a small umbrella to clamp to the dinghy seat so Holly can get out of the sun. She sits perched under the umbrella on the dinghy seat and takes in the scenery like the queen that she is. There is usually plenty of women and girls coming by to comment on how cute she is. Rosie's string bikini is usually the attraction for the men. The staff there is starting to know us and treat us like regulars. We are getting status! 

  We also went to Peace & Plenty again on Thursday night and had a good time. The owner made it a point to come over and talk to us. His companion thought I was a rock star come to visit. An aging rock star nonetheless, but that’s better than being confused with a serial killer. He was also curious about the “attractive woman” who I was with. I told him she was the serial killer.

  We also went over to the Exuma Beach Club for happy hour one night, the night we went last time when Sands beers were two for $5. There was a different bartender there who was preoccupied with stocking his bar to say hello when we took a seat. Eventually he mumbled something about “what would we like?”, and I mentioned the Sands beer special on Tuesday night. He said that the special was only on Fridays and Sundays, which we knew for certain that we were there on a Tuesday last time, and mentioned that very thing. He asked a passing waitress if the beer special was on Tuesdays, and she thought for a moment, and then responded that it wasn’t. Never mind that we had testified in full confidence that we had been there on a Tuesday and it was a special on that Tuesday, but perhaps the policy had changed.

  A smart businessman would have an exucutive decision right on the spot and offered us the beers at two for $5, but he instead ignored us and went back to stocking his bar. I looked at Rosie and said, “Let’s go”. We left the bartender alone to finish his work, being no other patrons.

  We went next door to Splash, a casual place we had been wanting to check out anyway. A lethargic girl behind the huge circular bar sauntered over and asked what we wanted and I asked what the happy hour beer specials were. Without a word, she pointed to a sign over in the corner. I asked if they had Bud Light, and she pointed to a row of bottles. Not a people person, it seemed.

  I was beginning to consider leaving, when another woman with better business skills came over and started chatting us up in a friendly way. Because of her, and her alone, we stayed and had a bucket of beers and a large pizza. Meanwhile, the other girl sat morosely in a corner and waited on a handful of customers when she had to.

  We get this from time to time in The Bahamas, but for the most part, people are nice and appreciate us being here spending money.

  The wind had died down considerably, so we anchored just off the beach at Chat ‘N’ Chill. We were entertained just by sitting on our bow watching boaters come and go. Elvis, the boat taxi driver, waved to us like we were old friends every time he passed by, which was several times a day.

  Yesterday we took the dinghy over to the St. Francis Resort which sits at the back of a small bay next to Chat ‘N’ Chill. We had heard that lunch there is very affordable, and we were pleasantly pleased with the service and the food. If you’re interested, they have one of their South African catamarans sitting at the dock, a model currently for sale, or you can special order one. Ballpark price: “About a million”. Sadly, they only offer a 50 footer. We were thinking at least a 55.

  We do, or at least I do, look at other vessels and consider them as a replacement for Swing Set. Generally, this process involves observing the points about another vessel that I don’t find acceptable, and then realizing that our boat fits the bill just fine, or that replacing our current boat with another is just not worth the hassle. You can substitute “boat” with “woman”, or “mate”, and get the same result.

  Last night, after spending a nice afternoon over on the beach, we brought Swing Set back over to our comfortable anchorage under the monument, just off of Hamburger Beach. The remnants of Dorian are expected to pass through tomorrow, and we’ll have better protection from the easterlies here. After that, we aren’t sure what we’ll do.

  Lobster season starts later this week, and I’d sort of like to get back to some more remote islands to try my luck at catching some of those critters, but living is easy here so close to Georgetown, and we still have two months left on our cruising permit. We’ll both know it when it’s time to head out, for the moment we’ll just take it day by day.

  

Just Living Life

  We cooked our Almaco Jack last Friday night, deep fried in Andy's Seasoning, and served it up with macaroni and cheese and a side salad. The meat of the fish tasted like tuna, but had a lighter color. The few bones were easily picked out, and we had enough from the fish for two meals. I'd call it a success, but don't want to add up what it really cost to catch and eat the thing. Livin' off da fat of da land!
  My blog posts look different, and there isn't pictures. There is a good reason. Last month I used up our monthly data transfer allowance of 800 megabytes in less than five days. This prevented us from using our desktop computer for some very important personal business that we had to address with one of our insurance companies. I'm not going to let this happen again. I think our AT&T bill was higher than our last mortgage payment.
  When I exceed the 800 megabytes, another 150 megabytes are added instantly at a cost of $30. 150 megabytes does not go far. For instance, on my last blog that had several pictures, I exceeded my allowance five times in just a few minutes. What happens is that blogspot updates, and saves whatever you are writing automatically, so I had exceeded my allowance during the writing of that large post, and our AT&T bill shows five charges of $30 each within just a few minutes. So now I'm posting using the iPad with the BTC SIM card. BTC charges $30 per month. They claim you get one gig of data transfer for this charge, but we have determined that you get one month, no matter how much data you use. They have no way currently to administrate the data usage of an individual. They have a way to check, but they don't have the employees to turn that extra usage into a charge to the customer. Welcome to a third world country.
  It's late into our trip, but tomorrow we're going to visit the very nice BTC office here in Georgetown and purchase one of their cheapie phones for $20. With it, we can get 60 minutes of calls for only $20. This will be for local calls, but we'll be able to use this BTC phone to top up our data plan on the iPad from our phone, instead of visiting a BTC office every month. You have to put the SIM card from the iPad into a "broken" phone, which I am not going to do with our iPhone. Lots of folks buy a cheap phone in the States and put a BTC SIM card in it when they get to The Bahamas, but a SIM card is $15. May as well get the whole phone for $20.
  Let it be noted that I'm not asking for advice. I won't listen to any.
  There are fewer regular cruisers around the harbor these days, but tourists are still visiting the hotels and taking the vacation homes in the area for weeks at a time. The regular hotspots like Chat 'N' Chill are still drawing a good crowd, and the beach there is a great place to meet folks on any given afternoon. We took the dinghy over on Saturday and Sunday afternoons both, and set up beach chairs and even a small umbrella to make shade for Holly. Regular beach bums.
  This morning I had to use the Hookamax to dive for Holly's collar in 20 feet of water. Rosie knocked it into the ocean when we came back from the beach yesterday. No big deal, but Holly's rabies tag was on the collar, something I like for her to have. I couldn't find the collar, or the drill bit I lost overboard a couple of days ago.
  I only saw some very small fish, but that's probably a good thing. Tonight, after dinner, we were sitting on the bow watching the sunset when I saw a dorsal fin break the surface of the water. I knew it was a shark, but then I saw the tail fin come at least four feet out of the water and my jaw dropped. It was probably a nurse shark, but it looked huge to us.
  I told Rosie the next time she drops something off the back of the boat, she'll be the one going after it. I won't tell her if I drop anything again.

Back To Elizabeth Harbour And Georgetown

  Elizabeth Harbour was a welcome sight. As we motored into the inlet, my mind was filled with several things, like what kind of fish was it that we had in our cooler? How was I going to untangle the bird's next I created of my new fishing reel? And, why did I waste all of our ice and most of our vodka on a damn fish?
  Clavon was happy to see us at the Exuma Yacht Club. While we were fueling up, I showed him our fish after making him promise not to laugh. A couple other boat owners came over to take a look. No one knew what I had caught. Two guesses were that I had in our possession, a bonita, or some kind of jack, whatever that is.
  I asked Clavon if it was good for eating, and his answer of "Not sure, mon", didn't give me much hope for us in eventually enjoying a fish dinner for all our trouble.
  We took our old anchorage over under the monument off of Hamburger Beach. I consulted my book of game fish that I had purchased last October, not having had an occasion to look at it much since then, and found out that I had caught an Almaco Jack, one of the several types of jack fish. The guide reported that the fish was sporting to catch, to which I could attest, and that it was excellent to eat, if you cut away the dark red meat from the sides of the fish.
  When I got done skinning and hacking away at our fish with my filet knife, we still had enough left of it for a fine fish dinner. But it wasn't going to be Wednesday night, or the next night either.
  We had been cooking a nice sirloin steak in the crock pot during our trip back from Long Island and that was going to be our dinner. We had designs on going to Peace and Plenty for their barbecue on Thursday night, so Rosie put the cut up fish in a Ziplock bag, and we made plans to have fried fish and macaroni on Friday night. Cold cuts are the back up.
  On Thursday we took the dinghy into town for groceries and to visit the BTC office to have the SIM card in the iPad renewed. We also visited the Top To Bottom hardware store where I got a spool of fishing line and a small gaff to use for the next time I go fishing.
  On Thursday evening we took Holly with us over to Peace and Plenty for their barbecue. We shared a $15 rib plate and had enough for both of us to eat. We were helped along with two for $5 Sands beers. Good if served very cold. Like Miller Lite, but better.
  We met up with some cruisers who we had become acquainted with before we left for Long Island. The place was chock full of interesting patrons. We met folks from Austria, Argentina, and Australia. Had the "A's" covered.
  I had to deal with a local who tried to sneak off with a full beer of Rosie's when she left to go to the bathroom, but I was able to do so without resorting to violence. Now I'm a diplomat. All in all, we had a great time at the Peace and Plenty.
  Today I changed out the impeller on our raw water pump. It was hot, I was sweaty, but I completed the job in under two hours and only cut myself once. There were no leaks when I fired up the port side Cat to check my work.
  It's been raining most of the day and I've been working on these posts, but having a great deal of trouble with them saving properly, but I'm getting the job done.
  We have plans to fry fish for dinner and play some cards later. It's a good day.

Fish On! Yes, Really.

  On Wednesday morning we were lounging around having our second cup of coffee, discussing whether or not we wanted to spend another day in Calabash Bay. On one hand, we felt that there were still some folks at the resort that we wanted to inflict ourselves upon, but on the other hand, I wanted to change out our raw water impeller, and I thought that changing it in Georgetown was a good idea, in case something unusual came up.
  We both were in agreement that we wanted to get back to the resources available to us in Elizabeth Harbour, so Rosie began to get the bridge and cabin prepared for departure, and I hauled up the dinghy and secured it to the davits.
  I had routed a course that would keep us in protected waters along the banks of Long Island, until we could turn due west where the wind would be at our backs. I also put out our trolling gear. Not really expecting to catch any fish, but our "new" fishing rig was nearly nine months old and I hadn't caught a fish with it yet.
  We were slipping along in 70 feet of water at six and a half miles per hour when the reel started singing. I had a fish!
  Rosie took the helm and I began to reel in what felt like a whale. Once the fish broke the surface I could see that it was a barracuda. I told Rosie to keep us at a low idle, enough speed to keep us on course, but slow enough to for the fish to offer less resistance. I did also worry about the fish running up and fowling our props with the line. Where was I supposed to learn any of this?
  I got the barracuda alongside the boat and hauled it up for Rosie to see. The fish was about three feet long and the lure was hanging outside of it's mouth. The hook was barely in the tip of the barracuda's snout. The fish gave a flip and was gone!
  I stared at the tooth scarred lure for a minute, in deep despair, but soon gathered myself up and let the line and lure back out for another go.
  Not just a few minutes later we had another bite. Rosie took the helm again and I started pulling in another fish. The one was fighting harder, and once it broke the water, I expected to see a huge marlin or something, but what I had wasn't big, but it was putting up a fight. I could see that it wasn't another barracuda.
  I got the fish alongside the boat and this time I had Rosie grab the book hook to use as a gaff. Rose also had the phone and took a picture. (Remember when we took pictures with a camera?) I had no idea what to do with this fish. I couldn't get the gaff in its gills, it was flipping around too much and I was afraid I'd lose this one too. I remembered a trick I had read about, so I told Rosie to get the vodka.
  I had read where you can pour whiskey into a fish's mouth and they will calm down. We didn't have whiskey, but we had vodka. The fish was holding still to get any vodka in its mouth, but I eventually got enough in there to calm down the fish. I wanted to take a swig myself.
  I got the book hook into the gills, the fish was big enough the the bulky boat hook fit. Rosie had brought the cooler down from the bridge and I put the fish in it and covered it with the little ice we had in the freezer. I still didn't know what kind of fish we had, but I knew that it filled the small cooler from end to end, and that it was big enough to feed both of us.
  Now I was stricken with the fishing bug. I put the line back out and in thirty minutes I had another barracuda. Now, I have to admit, I hadn't spent much time getting to know our new Penn reel, and it has more knobs and dials on it than my first transistor radio. Well, I flipped the wrong thing and line spun out of the reel and created a bird's nest. I somehow got my left index finger tangled in the line and then the line nearly cut the tip of my finger off.
  There I was bleeding and finally reeling in my fish, but clearly the wind had been let out of my sails. I brought this smaller barracuda in, not knowing what to do with it, but decided to let it go. I got near enough to its teeth to use my pliers and get the hook out of its mouth.
  I didn't know it at the time, but the size of the 'cuda was great for eating, but I was happy to have just the one mystery fish and all of my digits intact. My fishing was done for the day.

Calabash Bay

  We anchored in the exact spot we had been in before leaving for Rum Cay, close enough to Cape Santa Maria Resort to keep an eye on the boat, but far enough out of the way of their two fishing boats that travel to and from the beach resort several times per day. We were also as far north into the bay that we could be to avoid any swells from the ocean. With the prevailing easterly winds, the anchorage is a really calm spot.
  We took the dinghy over to the beach and found the couple from Springfield, Missouri, just taking off on a beach hike. Dana and Brady had wondered where we had gone off to, so we invited them to come out to the boat for a beer and we'd tell them. They had been wondering if they could see the boat, so they piled in the dinghy and we went out and spent the rest of the afternoon getting to know each other. They each nursed one beer each. I wasn't sure if they were being polite, and didn't want to drink all of our beer, or they just weren't beer drinkers.  As the afternoon wore on, we discovered many things that we didn't have in common. Not long after Dana mentioned their pastor twice in about five minutes, I figured it was time to take them back to the safety of their resort, even if we agreed with Dana's taste in skimpy bikinis.
  We did meet them in the bar later for happy hour. The bar/restaurant at Cape Santa Maria Resort is very nice, and they have affordable happy hour specials and a very affordable bar menu. Dana and Brady left to honor their dinner reservations, and we made ourselves at home at the bar, meeting the staff and some other vacationers while sampling some chicken wings and a very good pizza. The $12 Bud Light buckets were icing on the cake. We stopped at two.
  It was rainy the next day so I spent time checking coolant in both engines and cleaned the sea strainers. Even though high temperatures usually mean it's time for an impeller replacement, I always check these two things first because it's easy to do. I like easy.
  There was a break in the clouds be 3 P.M., which coincidentally was the start of happy hour at the resort. The special between 3 and 5 P.M. is not only the $12 buckets, but they serve complimentary conch fritters then. Andy, our bartender, brought us out four large fritters each which were a nice addition to the Bud Light buckets. We only had two.
  By the time the few folks with dinner reservations began to file into the restaurant, we left our famiilar spot at the bar and joined Holly back aboard Swing Set for a delicious dinner of grilled pork chops and yellow rice, and then topped off our evening with a couple games of gin rummy.