[PUP] FW: Report From Onboard Jenny

[Truelove39 at aol.com]

Good and interesting info. There's not enough of it on this list. Please  
keep it coming, David!
 
Best,
 
John
"Seahorse"
 
 

> I explored the town a little more today, looking for the  local
restaurant that I want to try this afternoon, the pharmacy and the  smaller
grocery store.  I found all pretty easily.  The smaller  store actually looks
like it caters more to visitors than the other.  I  was able to buy a half
chicken, Tostidos Nachos, Lays Potato Chips, hot dogs,  and most importantly
Oreos!!!  Yea, I know, not a good diet.  But,  after weeks of healthy food,
you do get cravings!  They even have canned  anchovies.  So, I had dogs and
potato chips for lunch.  Yum.   Tonight I'll check out the restaurant.

I've been running  the watermaker a couple of hours every morning
before the water gets stirred  up and looks clean.  The harbor here is open
on two sides so gets plenty  of flow through.  The alternative is going into
the public dock and  loading water.  It might be feasable before or after
work hours, but not  during the day.  There just is too much tour boat
traffic.  So, I'm  trying to avoid that.

More boats came in today, one a Swiss  boat.  I'm thinking we need to
start a net soon.  THere are 5  cruising boats here now, but no one is
talking / socializing.  We'll  see.

I spend the mid morning and noon purusing the guide  books and charts
for going up to the Bahamas.  The first passage is 180  NM and an overnight
passage that we will need to do careful weather  planning.  After that, it
gets much easier except that we will have to  become expert Bank navigators.
There are several coral banks that we will  have to transit on daylight
passages where the depth is very marginal.   I'm talking 8 ft. with
occasional coral heads peaking up.  Scary, but  all part of the experience.
Boats do it every day.  So, we should be  able to master this.  The next
several passages are island hops in the  20 to 40 mile range.  Not bad.  Then
we face one 90 mile passage up  to Rum Cay that is fairly protected, but
again will require a nice weather  window.  

The locals say we should be here for Easter  festivities.  That is
April 12th, so we might begin north right after  that.  

We're supposed to get strong winds out of the  north tonight and
tomorrow and the boats just swung around to the  north.  So, it looks like
the front is coming in.

I've been looking for a well designed flopper stopper to stop our
rolling at  anchor.  I found the design I want, but it is made in Australia
and not  available in the US.  So, I sent an email out to two good boat yards
I  know to see if they would give me a price for making two of them.   They
are small sea anchors with a 2 ft diameter stainless steel hoop at the  open
end.  After using Jenny's drogue in Colombia, I am sure these will  work
well, in as little as 8 ft of water and be easy to store.  More  later.


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