Day 269
April 5,
2016
No Travel
The alarm went off at 6:25, and Clark got up to listen to his
6:30 weather report on the shortwave radio. This morning’s listen served as a
test of the new antenna system Clark pulled together from the parts he
purchased in Nassau at “Radio Shack”. Last night while I worked on my blog, he
worked on his antenna project.
He put connectors on the ends of two wires – one to allow
him to plug his antenna into his radio and the other for ground capability. When
completed, the wire ran from his desk in the salon, out the starboard side
window, and up the side of the boat ending at the tallest point on our radar
mast that he allowed a means to attach the wire to the mast. He added a string
that provides a raising and lowering capability so he can lower his antenna
without lowering the mast. He hoped that by adding height to the radio’s antenna
and grounding it that the reception would be sufficiently better to allow him
to hear the weather broadcasts.
Clark was well satisfied with the fruits of his labor. He
could actually hear the broadcast sufficiently well to follow along and get
useful information. The wire running from the salon added a bonus feature. He
could listen to today’s broadcast lying on the couch wearing his pajamas.
Success! It is certainly not the most attractive solution, but it meets his
needs quite well.
I, of course, woke up since it was my phone that has the
alarm clock app on it. I rolled over and mostly went back to sleep. Of and on I
could hear talking on the radio in the background, but Clark had the volume low
enough that it did not intrude significantly on my ability to sleep. After his
report concluded, Clark came back to bed.
Honestly, I tried to wake up and drag myself out of bed several
times this morning. I just could not do
it. The boat started significantly rocking side-to-side about 6:00 this
morning. It basically turned my bed into a cradle and it was “Rock a Bye Baby”
all morning long. Every time I thought about getting up the boat just rocked me
back to sleep. No wonder cradles were invented!
Talk about a lazy morning! After finally dragging myself out
of bed at 9:30, I ate breakfast (I think Clark ate his during his weather report)
and then I sat and read my novel until lunch. While I was doing that, Clark
took his iPad up top and read his downloaded copy of today’s Wall Street
Journal. At some point he came down and asked me to repair the window in the
front panel of the full enclosure – the most important one in front of the
pilot seat.
I noticed when I was cleaning the salt off that panel in
Nassau that the seam was coming out along a portion of the zipper. We have trouble with the Eisen glass (plastic)
getting caught in the zipper, and it takes some effort on occasion to open the
panel. Perhaps it was due to age or perhaps due to “abuse” but some stitches
ripped out.
Today Clark said the glass (plastic) got stuck in the
zipper, and he didn’t want to cause any more damage to the panel, i.e. he
decided to leave it stuck and come get me. He said there was no rush.
Eventually I took a break from my reading to do my one assigned chore for the
day (sew the seam) and then went back to the arduous task of completing my
latest novel.
After lunch Clark offered options of a dinghy ride to
explore the area or perhaps a swim off the back of the boat or both. I dressed
in my swimsuit and packed miscellaneous things like towels, sunscreen, and
water in a backpack to take with us. It turned out to be a wasted effort as we
did not get too far in the direction we really wanted to explore. We couldn’t because
it was low tide.
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| View of Sea Moss and anchorage from Dinghy |
As we puttered around the area, we used the rigged-up depth
finder Clark has on our dinghy to see what depths the waters were around the
boat. Oddly enough everywhere we went the water depth read 10 feet. That seemed
possible in some places but highly unlikely in some of the areas we passed over.
At one point Clark, in total disbelief of the numbers he read, took the boat
paddle, stuck it in the water, and hit sand. “That’s no 10 feet!”, he exclaimed
as he maneuvered the boat to aim for deeper water.
After a closer look at the depth finder, Clark saw that it
was in simulation mode. No wonder everything was 10 feet down. When we left on
our trip, Clark handed me the end of a wire and said, “Plug that in for me.” I
did. What he didn’t tell me was that the other end of the wire also needed to
be plugged in. The end result being that the depth finder had no transducer and
consequently could get no depth readings. Once the other end of the wire got
connected, we saw we had 1 to 2 feet of water – not even enough for the
outboard motor on the dinghy to be in the full down position.
Although it would have been nice to explore the beach we
could see from the dinghy, we couldn’t get to the nice part. Clark took off his
shoes in preparation to go wading and pull the dinghy up to the part we could
reach, but I balked at the idea of getting out of the dinghy to explore what
looked like rocks, muddy sand, weeds, and probably a lot of bugs. He put his
foot back in the boat and pushed us off to go explore elsewhere.
When we first pushed off from Sea Moss, we had scoped out the depth of one area where Clark saw a
coral head. Since we figured out he had bad data from that reading of the depth
finder, we went back for a second look and found actual depths of 3, 4, and 5
feet in that area. Good thing we didn’t anchor on top of that area! At least I
now know what I’m looking for when he tells me to look for “heads” in the water.
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| Coral Head Lying in Wait for an Unsuspecting Propeller |
Since we couldn’t get to the beach or the dock where we
could go ashore to walk to the far side of Rose Island, we decided we might as
well call it quits on the dinghy and go for a swim off the back of Sea Moss. When Clark stood up to remove
the outboard from the dinghy to stow it on-board the big boat, he marveled at
the fact that he could see the outboard propellers under water. He can’t do
that in New Jersey. He insisted I take a picture.
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| Outboard Motor Props Visible Through the Clear Blue Waters |
Since the rainstorms yesterday, however, we now have cooler
temperatures and a northerly wind. I usually only go swimming in the ocean when
I am unbearably hot. It took some convincing to get myself into the water. Ultimately I did go in and took my snorkeling
gear in with me. Clark said the bottom was pretty, but it was only sand and
weeds down there.
I saw not one fish or any other living creature for the
entire time I snorkeled which was certainly at least an hour. Well, that's not exactly accurate. I could, for the first time ever, see Clark working on cleaning the bottom of the boat. Even though I was well over on the far side of Sea Moss, I could see his legs in the water quite clearly - amazing, really! Later, however, when Clark asked me
what I could see, I told him all I saw were the bits of algae floating by
that he was scraping off the bottom of the boat.
I am not proficient at snorkeling. It is not a sport that I
have had much opportunity to enjoy in the past. I have a lot of trouble
clearing water from the snorkel. As long as the water stays out I am fine, but
as soon as some gets in, it’s all over. I try to purge the water from the
snorkel, but afterwards I still hear the water gurgling in the mast and I have
insufficient air left in me to blow it out again. I think I need to watch a YouTube
video or something to get some pointers.
When I finally decided I had had enough fun for one
afternoon, I climbed onto the back of Sea
Moss and a chilly wind hit me. I
couldn’t get a towel wrapped around myself fast enough. I wanted to go get
cleaned up and dressed but didn’t like the idea of leaving Clark out in the
water alone while I disappeared into the boat. Fortunately, he had had his fill
of boat cleaning and climbed out shortly after I did. By the time we had all
our “toys” put away including the dinghy, my stomach and the clock said it was
time to start dinner.
After dinner Clark remembered to run out and grab the daily
sunset picture. No “peeking through the cloud cover” tonight.
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| Sunset on a Relatively Clear Night at Rose Island Anchorage in the Bahamas |
As I look out the sliding door at the stern of our boat, I
can see the lights of Nassau and Atlantis in the distance. Many boats populated
the anchorage during the day today. Most of them left. A few remain in the
anchorage. Of the ones still here, I can see only their anchor lights. If not for
these signs of life, both nearby and slightly further afar, this anchorage
would be quite spooky. In the opposite direction to Nassau, after sunset, I see
only total darkness and cannot make out even the shoreline of the nearby
island. Last night was worse as it was overcast without a star in the sky. Tonight
at least when I look up, I see some stars to alleviate the total darkness.
We had calm seas all afternoon. As I sit here typing in my
blog entry, the winds have picked up, and we are rocking side-to-side once
again. Perhaps Mother Nature is trying to lull me to sleep once more. She may
be succeeding.
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