M/Y Mary Ann

We’re away at last! Today we ran about six hours across the Florida Straits from Port Everglades in 1-2’ seas. All the waiting is now compressed in our memory and it seems as though we never left the boat at all. The vessel seems to be in good order, as it should, although already we have a water leaking into a lower storage area and into Isabel’s stateroom, hopefully something to do with a long lay-up and shrunken washers and gaskets; reasonably normal boat stuff.

Had a pleasant evening at Chubb Kay Club, a marina on Chubb Key. Not much of a place really, just a coral uprising from the sea with 50 or so residents and a fleet of sport fishing boats to entertain tourists who come here to fish the “Tongue of the Ocean”, a feature of ultra deep water that steps off the Grand Bahama Bank to depths in the thousands of feet. They say that the US Navy does submarine testing here and the chart shows more than 10,000 feet of water. Deep enough even for us!

Well, we can all relax now. We’re in deep water in Exuma Sound, 2400 feet to be precise. Last night we were in Samson Cay Marina where the sounder read two feet at the entry. That’s two feet of water under the keel! It’s better than last summer on the Intra Coastal Waterway where I was pretty well convinced that the gauge was stuck on zero, but still, two feet isn’t all that much. We’re now heading for Georgetown which I believe is on Great Exuma Island, where we will drop George off and pick up Sonny and Carol Verstegen.

Our run down here from Samson Key was quiet and calm, about 70 miles, most of which was in Exuma Sound . Exuma Sound is a bit of a misnomer as only a couple of small islets separate it from the great Atlantic, but today everything was peace and harmony. You will be interested to learn that the guidebook describes the entrance to Elizabeth Harbor here in Georgetown where we are moored as “… a dangerous entrance in anything but adequate light conditions when hazards can be seen distinctly”. There is a lot of 2-3’ deep water here and the deep spots are 7-8’.

In the morning Captain Tim Johnson flew into the Grand Exuma airport bearing two breakers for our shore power connection. When he flew back to Fort Lauderdale he had accompanying him our Bahamas guide, Captain George Hunt. We are on our own again.
Carol and Sonny Verstegen moved from the Peace and Plenty Beach Inn and Club to their stateroom on the Mary Ann. They were soon unpacked and we much appreciated that the luggage they brought their belongings in was soft and could easily be stored away.

We have arrived at Georgetown, “the Capital of the Exumas and the center of commerce”. I read in the Cruising Guide that the town has a population of 800. I hope I run into the Mayor while we are here because someone needs to tell him that he needs to get a crew together to repair and improve the wharf. The first thing I noticed when we came into the moorage that we had reserved was that the plank dock was in need of more planks. The next thing I noticed was that the space that we had been awarded on the dock was not going to be quite adequate.

Our departure has been delayed. A cold front with NWLY winds of 30-35 knots and seas rising to eight feet did not promise a smooth ride. No matter. All is calm here in Elizabeth Harbor. Our delay gave us further opportunity to explore the island of Great Exuma and we did . . . both on foot and on our shore boat.

It is now 1100 hours. We are sitting at anchor on the southwest end of Grand Turk off the government pier where the ships dock. We have aboard with us a new friend and acquaintance. He has been with us since 0800 and he is, of course, a mechanic. But more about that later. First a catch up on the doings of the Mary Ann during this last three days.

We’re doing pretty well, so far. The storage area and vee bunk leaks have been stopped by inserting wine bottle corks into the chain locker drain holes and a pesky leak in the watermaker fresh water rinse filter connection has been corrected. Aubrey figured out that when I changed the filter element I reinstalled it with two gaskets instead of one and for that reason it could not be adequately tightened. Even in America more is not always better, it seems.

An all night 28 hour run from Grand Turk put us in Mona Passage between the islands of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic) and Puerto Rico by mid afternoon yesterday, looking for a place to anchor out of the prevailing SE winds that had been belting us in the teeth for the entire voyage, throwing spray everywhere and generally annoying Isabel that the boat was again getting covered with salt after her nice wash job.