Tag Archive | Port Lucaya

Going Home

Nov3

Home is where the anchor drops.
— Old mariners’ saying

Going home, going home, I am going home
Quiet-like, some still day I’m just going home.
Morning star lights the way, restless dream all done. 
Shadows gone, break of day, real life just begun. 
— William Arms Fisher, “Going Home“


“Going Home” was the first song I learned to play on the flute. My father came home early from work every Wednesday to give me flute lessons, starting when I was 10 years old. He had bought a small notebook with blank pages for musical notation and sketched the notes in for songs like “Polly Wolly Doodle,” “Jingle Bells,” — and “Going Home.” (The music was composed by Antonin Dvorak for his New World Symphony, a favorite of my father’s.)

As a child growing up in a nomadic military family, the concept of home was somewhat confusing. From our perspective, home was something temporary. It is the same for Phil and me, now that we live on a moving vessel; it changes from season to season, port to port. Catmandu is our home; we have no other.

The last time we wrote in this blog, we were in Spanish Wells, Bahamas. The anchorage had emptied out, and it felt like the season was over. Our 90-day permit was up and we were going home.

Going Home, Part One

Our last sunset in Spanish Wells, with only one other boat in the anchorage.

We allowed ten days to make our way back to the U.S., even though we could do it in four or five. We’ve learned to expect weather delays and mechanical mishaps.

Here is our route from Spanish Wells to Fort Lauderdale.

The first leg was a short hop to Royal Island Harbor, four nautical miles to the west. This would set us up for the long crossing to the Berry Islands. We anchored and went swimming, but shortly after climbing the swim ladder, we saw a large creature under the dinghy.

“What was that?” I asked, thinking it was Jaws ready to snack on my bare foot.

“A remora, I think,” Phil said.

“The things that attach to sharks? We were swimming with that?”

“It might have been attached to our dinghy,” he said. I shivered. Ugh. (The ever-clingy remora.)

The fearsome remora.

The anchorage was deserted. We were the only ones there overnight, and left at sunrise the next day. We motored through Egg Island Cut and out into the blue yonder, heading west in a 10-kt south wind.

Phil at sunrise, Royal Island Harbour
Phil at sunrise, preparing to leave Royal Island Harbor.

The long passage to Great Harbour runs through the NE Providence Channel and was pretty rough. We were able to put up full sails on a beam reach and saw speeds over 6.5 knots throughout the morning.

Catmandu under full sail. Berry Islands, Bahamas.
Catmandu under full sail, headed to the Berry Islands.

It was a long, 11 1/2-hour day, but the wind and waves calmed to nothing in the afternoon. By the time we reached the anchorage, it was still and the water was glassy. There were cruise ships at Little Stirrup Key (“Coco Cay“), as usual, but only one other sailboat in the anchorage. We enjoyed a bright sunset and a calm night. The next day was a planned rest day.

sunset and Phil on Catmandu, Royal Island Harbour
Phil at sunset, with the structures of Coco Cay in the background.

In the morning, we took the dinghy for an exploratory cruise. We tried to land on a couple of beaches but the surf was much too strong. When the electric motor gave out, Phil had to row us back to the boat.

Dinghy ride at Great Harbour Island, Berry Islands, Bahamas.
On a rest day in the Berry Islands, we explored the coast by dinghy.

We went swimming in the clear water after the long dinghy excursion, and again, something scary lurked under the boat. Phil snorkeled to check the hull and the prop, trying to find out why our speed is so slow. I hung onto the swim ladder and the dinghy while he disappeared under Catmandu.

“There is a giant fish under there,” Phil said, as he re-emerged from the water.

“And you didn’t tell me! I went swimming with that?” (I have a healthy fear of sea creatures.)

“Well, after the remora, I thought I’d just ignore this one.” It was a terrible tarpon, probably about four feet long. (Phil says 3 feet.) I’ve heard they like to snack on toes, but I have no proof of that.

This is a tarpon. Not our tarpon, we didn’t get a picture of that.

We headed out at sunrise the next day under full sail in a light west wind and made it to Grand Bahama Island, where we once again found a slip at Grand Bahama Yacht Club near Port Lucaya. We had a small problem: the calendar. We needed to depart from Bimini by May 28, and it was Labor Day Weekend. When Phil called ahead for a slip in Bimini, there were none available. Motor yachts from Miami were there for the long weekend, and we were “stuck” at Port Lucaya.

Port Lucaya, Grand Bahama Island
We enjoyed Port Lucaya both as visitors and as “locals”. Locals are called “Conchy Joes.”

The “Grandma Mama Yacht Club” is our favorite place to stop in the Freeport area, with its sparkling clean pool, Pisces restaurant, and daily shuttle service to a large grocery store (not to mention the nearby liquor store). We had to wait here for the marinas to clear out in Bimini, but we did not mind one bit. We dinghied around the canals, visited the Lucaya Marketplace for tiki bars and restaurants, and watched the weather window for passage to the U.S. As we had only a couple of days left on our permit, we finally secured one night at Blue Water Marina and planned to set out for Bimini.

At 0600, we were ready to go, but Mother Nature had her own plan. We waited out a lightning and thunder squall before pulling in to Bell Channel in stronger winds and higher seas than predicted. We reefed the jib and motor-sailed in 15 to 20-knot winds and choppy 3-foot seas. It was a wild ride! We saw 8.5 knots on the downside of a wave, very fast for our boat.

At around 1 p.m., we passed Great Isaac Lighthouse and the wind calmed a little. Our balky wind instrument finally gave up the ghost, and we sailed on without it. For the last hour, we motored along Radio Beach and then entered Bimini Harbor with very little boat traffic. We tied up at the marina and noted how empty it was. Two rays and a nurse shark passed under the boat in the gin-clear water.

Catmandu, at the nearly-deserted Blue Water Marina at the end of May.

We had one day left on our cruising permit. Winds were high, and without a wind instrument, we wanted to wait for better crossing weather. Would we get in trouble for staying one more night? Luckily, the following morning was bright and clear and we set out for home at 6:45 a.m. The autopilot tried to send us in circles, so we had to hand-steer into the Gulf Stream and compensate for the northward push.

Just to make our homecoming more interesting, the wind and waves entering Port Everglades were wild. We tried to reel in the jib, but in pulling the furling line, I managed to get the sail tangled up and stuck partially furled. It made a deafening flapping noise all the way into the port and Phil had to go forward to work on untangling the mess. We made three bridges and pulled into a slip on an old familiar dock at Loggerhead Marina in Hollywood, Florida, U.S.A. One could say we were “home.”

Phil and Kay, at home in a South Florida tiki bar.

The Sailboat that Couldn’t Sail

May1

Dreaming is happiness. Waiting is life.
— Victor Hugo


If we learn to enjoy waiting, we don’t have to wait to enjoy.
— Kazuaki Tanahashi

Our easterly route from Ginn Sur Mer followed the southern coast of Grand Bahama Island, which looked nearly deserted until we got closer to Freeport. The marine traffic picked up as we neared the harbor entrance, with a few huge cargo ships and tankers. Something was burning in Freeport, sending up clouds of heavy smoke. There were terminals out in the water for the tankers to offload oil and gas. It all seemed ugly and industrial to me after the deserted natural beauty of Ginn Sur Mer.

Kay at the front gate of the Grandma Yacht Club.
We entered Bell Channel, shown on the right, and took a slip at Grand Bahama Yacht Club. The Lucaya Marketplace is to the left of the yacht club, and some of the canals we explored are to the right.

After hearing other boaters calling for the “Grandma Mama Yacht Club,” we finally got our slip assignment and pulled easily into the C dock at Grand Bahama Yacht Club. This would end up being our favorite marina on this trip, even though we were stuck here waiting for boat parts (we still could not raise our mainsail) and a weather window. It’s not bad being stuck close to town with a pool, a pool bar and a restaurant, in a slip near the bathrooms and laundry. 

The marina buildings were well maintained and featured the architectural style seen here, with open verandas, arched entryways, and white picket fences. Phil is sitting on the steps.

We were docked next to a large catamaran called Isle of Misfits, with artwork depicting the Misfit Toys from the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer cartoon-movie. After tidying the lines and fenders, we headed to the pool bar for a celebratory beer, unaware that it didn’t open until 4. As we sat waiting for a bartender to arrive, two men sat down next to us at the bar.

Our neighbors’ boat was decorated with characters from the Isle of Misfit Toys. (Photo courtesy of their Facebook group.)

“Are you our new neighbors?” one asked. “We are the Misfits.” We introduced ourselves and gave them a boat card. We chatted about our boat names, mentioning that we were waiting for sail parts that might arrive in Freeport any day now. Just before they left, one said to me, “I just realized that you are misfits, too. Remember the boat that couldn’t float? You are the sailboat that couldn’t sail.”

(For a great laugh when you need one, please read Ben Bowman’s ranking of the Misfit Toys.)

Phil befriended a blue-eyed stranger at the pool bar. She is the figurehead at the bow of the boat-shaped bar at Pisces Restaurant.

Life at Grandma Yacht Club

We settled into marina life, filling our days with cleaning chores, laundry, and a couple of trips to the large grocery store (Solomons) in a courtesy van. The marina offers rides every weekday at noon. I also had to have blood drawn for my oncologist in Fort Lauderdale, and Phil found an in-network lab we could walk to. (To be honest, I really couldn’t. I was out of breath and in pain by the time we finished the mile and a half in the hot sun. We took a taxi back.) Meanwhile, we waited for our package. Phil called, emailed, and visited FedEx and Customs. The first visit to the FedEx office cost $80 for the taxi. He found the city bus after that ($1.50).

On laundry day, we went to the office for quarters, and Phil wanted to take a picture of the marina sign. He brought along a burgee (flag) he’d saved from his first visit here on his neighbor’s sailboat 19 years ago. As we were posing, we asked a dock hand to take our picture – and he stared hard at the flag we were holding.

“Where did you get that?” he asked.

“Right here, 19 years ago,” said Phil.

“I think I gave that to you,” he said with a grin. “I’m Fabian. I’ve been here 23 years. I recognize that old flag.”

Fabian took this picture of us with our “VIP” burgee. Phil had gotten it the first time he docked here, 19 years ago on a friend’s boat.

We were VIPs after that, and people at the pool told us they heard the story from Fabian. We flew that flag, our VIP flag, for the rest of our visit.

The pool was amazingly clean and pretty cold. We spent a few afternoons here.

We loved the swimming pool and visited often. It was cold, but clean with a waterfall and bridge at one end and lanes for laps. We struck up conversations with other boaters there, and learned a little about Port Lucaya, the ferry service, and a place to dock the dinghy near the bars and restaurants at the market square. We also encountered a woman walking a large black pig like a dog. “Oh, that’s Chris,” Phil was told. “Short for Chris P. Bacon.”

Meet Chris P. Bacon, a pet pig that roamed the marina. He is obviously not one of the pigs who can swim.

Back in the Dinghy Again

We explored Port Lucaya and the nearby waterways by dinghy every chance we got.

Of course, our favorite pastime while we waited for sail parts was dinghy rides. We were advised by various cruising guides not to anchor within sight of the marina. We went into the canals to find alternate anchoring spots, but every one of the possible sites had a no anchoring sign.

Although there were possible anchorages in the canals, they all had “no anchoring” signs erected by the marina.

Along the way, we found derelict boats, derelict houses, wrecked docks, and a few construction sites. One large marina adjacent to Port Lucaya Marketplace is completely wrecked, even worse than it was when we visited by land several years ago. No one seems to be interested in repairing it.

In spite of its perfect location at Port Lucaya Marketplace, this marina has been closed for years.

On one excursion, we came across this boat, and Phil said, “Now there’s a boat I could afford!”

Phil nearly adopted this derelict. I warned him not to get too close.

Phil called it a tramp steamer. For some reason, it reminded me of a scene in a movie that I couldn’t quite remember.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if there were monkeys,” I said.

We both laughed because I realized that must have sounded like a random thought to Phil, not knowing what I was trying to remember: a movie with monkeys taking over a similar boat. (If you know what I was thinking of, please identify the movie in the comments.)

Phil thought this was a boat he could afford.

We took the dinghy to the Port Lucaya Marketplace several times, parking it near the ferry landing by Sabor’s Restaurant. We walked around the shops, restaurants and bars, buying very little. At Happy Hour, we sometimes found ourselves at Rum Runner, where the music was loud and often featured American country.

Kay enjoying an adult beverage at Rum Runners. We were practically regulars.

We talked with other patrons at the bar: a pair of flight attendants from Texas; a “Conchy Joe” who explained that his nickname was what they called White Bahamians; and other travelers who sipped the tall, icy concoctions made by the busy Bahamian bartenders.

Phil and I spent a couple of beers at Bones, a neighborhood bar with a dinghy dock.
Fair Play was another happy hour spot at the Lucaya Marketplace. This background looks painted, but it is real.

Three weeks slipped away, and we were still waiting for the sliders that would fix our mainsail. Phil will tell that part of the tale, but as he did everything he could to unite us with our package, we enjoyed the amenities and camaraderie of Grandma Mama Yacht Club. Until the day before we left, Catmandu continued to be the embodiment of a misfit toy: the sailboat that couldn’t sail.