Tag Archive | S/V Catmandu

Four Weeks in Spanish Wells

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things
that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
— Mark Twain

We pulled up the anchor in Royal Island Harbour and motored the last five miles east to Russell Island, which is considered to be a part of the Settlement of Spanish Wells. Of the three Explorer Chartbooks that cover the 700 islands of the Bahamas, Spanish Wells is covered by the “Far Bahamas” chartbook. We were now in the “Far Bahamas.”

The anchorage near the inlet to Spanish Wells was a little crowded, so we dropped the hook behind the other anchored boats about a quarter mile from shore, maybe a mile from the town.

*Here we are, anchored a little distance from shore and far from other boats. The island in the background is Meeks Patch.*

After a few hours of rest, we lowered the dinghy and took ourselves to a beachside cafe called the Sandbar. We pulled the dinghy onto the beach and anchored it in case of a rising tide. Then we climbed up to the restaurant and took a seat at the bar where we could watch the dinghy being pushed around by the surf.

*We have a little anchor we can use to keep Catnip from floating away while we enjoy sundowners at The Sandbar.*

*Our very first afternoon in Spanish Wells: a celebration of arrival at The Sandbar.*

For the next few weeks, we made our own water, gathered electric power from the sun and listened to the quiet hum of the power station near our anchorage. We did our laundry by hand, ran the generator on cloudy days and explored the quaint town of Spanish Wells. It was the destination we had dreamed of, and we had made it.

*We were anchored where you see “Mama’s Kate NU 2 U*,” *near the power plant in the upper left of this cartoon map.*

Seven Things We Did in Spanish Wells

1. Move to an uninhabited island to hide from wild winds

Two days later, we were looking at wind predictions on Predict Wind and questioning our position. The prevailing wind direction is easterly, and we were nearly unprotected from that direction. The high winds were expected to last for four days, with the worst coming on Saturday. It was the Thursday before Easter; time to move, already.

*To get better shelter from high winds, we moved to Meeks Patch from the Russell Island anchorage.* *On the left is Royal Island, where we anchored prior to our arrival in Spanish Wells.*

Phil studied the charts and found a good anchorage with eastern protection just two miles away. The island was called Meeks Patch, and we could see from the cockpit that other ships were headed in that direction. It’s a deserted island except for a colony of pigs and a lone entrepreneur who charges visitors $10 to meet them. He didn’t live there; just brought tourists.

*Approaching the pig colony on Meeks Patch. The little hut is the only building on the island.*

We pulled up the anchor around noon and dropped it next to the deserted island at 1:15. There were a dozen boats here, hiding from the wind, but there was plenty of room. We had a sheltered spot as the winds started to swell and roar through the next few days. We held tight to our Delta anchor and did not drag an inch. During the lulls, we got in the dinghy and explored. We didn’t get back to Spanish Wells until after Easter. Everything was closed on Good Friday, Sunday and Monday. (Easter Monday? Who knew!)

2. Visit the swimming pigs

As the winds subsided, we dinghied to shore after hours when no humans were there to take our money. We saw six or seven large sleepy pigs lying around in the sand, and lots of cute little piglets.

*We counted 24 little piglets, all very sleepy and none of them were swimming. There were ducks and chickens there, too.*

“Look,” Phil said. “It’s an actual pig pile!” Little ones were sleeping all over each other, like puppies. We also saw ducks and chickens.

“There’s a whole barbecue here for meat lovers,” I joked. We are vegetarians, so no temptation for us.

3. Walk on a deserted beach

*The wild side of Meeks Patch, where we walked on deserted beaches.*

We explored Meeks Patch on Easter Sunday, taking the dinghy to several beaches where we were utterly alone. The water was shallow and clear, and very warm. We dragged the dinghy onto sand with not a single footprint and felt like explorers. It’s not that unusual to find deserted beaches here, and we enjoyed leaving a trail of prints in virgin sand.

*Deserted beaches are the norm in the islands around Spanish Wells*. *You can see our dinghy on the top right, and our footprints in the foreground.*

4. Ride the tide into a perfect beach

After the winds calmed down, we headed back to our Russell Island anchorage, picking the same spot we had left just four days earlier. It was about a mile to the main channel into town, and a mile to the Sandbar, where we often went for happy hour. It was time to explore Spanish Wells, just a short dinghy ride to the east.

One of our first discoveries was an incredibly beautiful beach where the tide changes rushed in and out, turning dry sand into shallow pools of clear water. The incoming tide is so strong, people make human rafts and lift their feet up, letting the current wash them into the channel.

Taking advice from Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, we let the water come and carry us away.

We visited this beach twice, and Phil snorkeled through the incoming tidal current. I packed a picnic and we made a day of it. This beach is adjacent to a park and features a beach swing, which is pretty hard to get into at low tide. I tried.

5. Visit every single restaurant

As far as we could tell, there are just four (or maybe five) restaurants in Spanish Wells, and we hit them all. The fifth is the Eagle’s Landing, which we thought was a private club, so we didn’t try it. We visited the Sandbar by dinghy, Wrecker’s at the Spanish Wells Yacht Haven, the Shipyard at the eastern end of the town, and Budda’s Snack Shack in the middle of the island. Near Budda’s is Papa Scoops, a local ice cream shop serving homemade flavors like Cheesecake and Oreo Cookie, but it’s only open two hours in the evening and only makes two flavors a day.

All of the restaurants are accessible by dinghy, but the Shipyard dock is in very shallow water so we could only get the dinghy in at high tide. The only dolphins we saw in the Bahamas in the three months we were there were in the main harbor on our way to Wrecker’s. They were small and brownish colored and swam right in front of our dinghy.

*Papa’s Scoops serves homemade ice cream in just two daily flavors (changing all the time) and is only open from 7-9 in the evening. It’s a short walk from Budda’s Snack Shack.*

*We were happiest at Wrecker’s, the restaurant at Spanish Wells Yacht Haven. We visited often and even made friends here, a fun couple (Tom and Susan) from Maine.*

*Here is a signpost at the Shipyard, the restaurant on the eastern tip of St. Charles Cay. The outside deck provides a sweeping view of the surrounding beach and harbor.* *The upper deck features live music.*

6. Rent a golf cart and explore

*This is the preferred mode for travel around Spanish Wells. It’s such a small island, there’s no need for a full size car.*

Spanish Wells is walkable if you don’t mind a mile or two. From the harbor, where we entered the town on our dinghy, you can reach a grocery store, snack shop, two marine stores, two restaurants and a liquor store all within a mile. On the other, farther side of the island are the larger grocery store, the post office, gift shops and a hardware store. We wanted to explore the whole place so we rented a golf cart. There are more golf carts in Spanish Wells than cars. Note: they drive on the left, so we had to be very careful, especially when turning right.

*Another incredible beach lies at the northern edge of St. Charles Cay, but parts of the beach are private and hard to access. We found this view at the end of a side street.*

The plan was to drive the full perimeter road and discover what we might have missed in our dinghy runs into town. Along the way, we found a gift shop with picture post cards and sent some to family — once we found the tiny post office. The one large grocery store is a pretty long walk from the dinghy docks, so we visited by golf cart.

We crossed the cute bridge by our favorite beach and discovered another beautiful beach around the corner. We followed some winding roads up into the bluff above our anchorage and took a picture of our boat at anchor (the picture is the first one in this blog, above). There are some incredible homes with amazing ocean views up there on the hillside. After getting a little bit lost, we found our way back to town and stopped for lunch at Budda’s.

There are no big resorts or hotels here, and no cruise ships visit due to surrounding shallow waters. But the neighborhoods are quaint, colorful, and well maintained. On our golf cart excursion, we saw many B&B cottages with flower gardens and welcoming porches. We also saw goats and chickens in some yards.

7. Meet the people

The first people to arrive from Europe were a group of Puritans escaping England to practice their religion freely. After a stop in Bermuda, they sailed on to Eleuthera and wrecked their ship on the Devil’s Backbone, surviving by sheltering in a cave. The year was 1647. The Eleutheran adventurers as they are called, ate fish and found fresh water in the wells dug by Spanish treasure hunters, giving the town its name. The Spaniards had used the island as a last water stop before crossing the Atlantic.

Because it was so remote from other inhabitants of the Bahamas, the people who settled here developed their own native accent, which you can still hear when the locals talk. It’s hard to describe, but it sounds a bit like an Irish lilt. Today, fewer than 2,000 reside here full time, and it is the only majority white district in the Bahamas.

The people here say hello when you pass on the street. The bartenders and servers are friendly and proud of their community. The cashier at Pinder’s Market spoke with the native accent and told us she was born and raised on the island. We recognized the accent in the speech of servers at Budda’s and the bartender at the Shipyard. A stranger on the beach told us about her life on the island, all in the British/Irish lilt of Spanish Wells. It’s a small, close-knit group of families who are proud to belong here.

It’s Time to Go Home

Phil threatens to turn himself in at the Bahamas Immigration office and slap his U.S. passport on the desk, screaming “I defect!”¹ but I’m not sure that’s the way to extend our stay. We had 90 days to be in the Bahamas, and our time is nearly up. Besides the permissions expiring, there is also the problem of getting my medications for Type 1 diabetes and cancer, and a round of medical scans scheduled for the first weeks of June back in Florida. We could have had a one year permit for twice the money, but I would still have to go back for medical reasons.

We are slow cruisers, and maybe we didn’t see every tourist spot in the surrounding islands. But we got to know this place, and its people. We lived off the grid for over a month, relaxing on the boat most afternoons, or riding in for happy hour. It was a month; but we could have stayed longer. Maybe the next time we’re here, Phil really will defect and we’ll settle down in one of those little cottages with the wide open porches. If we ever go missing, look for us here first.

Very arcane reference to Robin Williams in “Moscow on the Hudson.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_on_the_Hudson ↩︎

How Do We ….

May12

I shared this insight with some other boat owners, and they all agreed that,
definitely, putting your boat into the water is asking for trouble.
— Dave Barry

We have been living on Catmandu while anchored in the Bahamas for almost a month now, spending much of our time in Spanish Wells. Life on the anchor is different than life at a slip, i.e. “dock,” at a marina. At a marina slip, we have electricity and water hookups that we can just attach to the back of the boat. Laundromats and grocery stores are a short walk away. On anchor, we have to do a lot of things on our own.

Do Laundry

Did you know that the town of Spanish Wells, Bahamas, has NO laundromats? We knew that before we arrived. Some larger sailboats with more electric capacity have clothes washers built in. Our boat, Catmandu, simply does not have space for it. We could probably run a washer with our Honda 2200 generator, but we choose to do our laundry with arm power. This is our washing machine, a hand-cranked manual device called Wonder Wash. We saw it on one of our favorite Youtube sailing channels. It holds about 6 pounds of laundry, or about half of a normal load. We put in the clothes, four tablespoons of detergent, and 8 quarts of warm or cold water, and start cranking. (As Phil says, “Every day is arm day on a boat.”)

After turning for a few minutes, we rinse, drain, and repeat. Then the wet wash goes on the lifelines and dries in the sun and breeze. We have just enough clothespins to hang one load. For large towels and bedding, we have to find a laundromat on land, and most marinas have coin-operated machines for cruisers. Hard core cruisers would otherwise use a plunger and five-gallon bucket. No thank you!

Make Electricity

We have three ways to generate electricity for living on our boat. Some of the electricity has to be direct current, and some has to be alternating current. For strictly AC current needs like charging our laptop computers or the electric outboard motor batteries, we have a small 200 watt inverter that plugs into the cigarette lighter outlet at the navigation station.

1. Solar Panels

Catmandu has two 200 watt rigid solar panels mounted on the dinghy davits at the back of the boat. The solar panels generate up to 400 watts of DC electricity that is controlled by a multi-stage charge controller and feeds electricity directly into our house battery bank. Our charge controller is Bluetooth enabled so we can monitor the battery state of charge and other statistics using an app on our smartphones. It is very geeky, so Phil likes it a lot. We can angle the panels somewhat to chase the sun, as seen below.

*Solar panels mounted on the back of the boat.*

2. Generator

Our Honda EU 2200i inverter / generator runs on gasoline and produces up to 2200 watts of AC power. We need to use the generator to make fresh water, but we also use it to charge our batteries on cloudy days and charge up our laptop computers. To charge the batteries, we attach a 30 amp shore power cord to the generator and the back of the boat and turn on our built-in battery charger. When used this way, the household AC outlets on the boat are also live and we can plug in other things. The generator can also power our air conditioner when we are at anchor. Our Honda is also Bluetooth enabled and comes with a smart phone app that shows us how much power it is presently generating and alerts us when it is time to perform periodic maintenance. It is oh so geeky.

3. Alternator

This year, we upgraded the alternator attached to our diesel engine to a 100 amp, high-output Balmar alternator with a multi-stage external regulator. Like any alternator, it makes DC electricity and charges the boat’s batteries. Is it also Bluetooth enabled? No! But we could add a $230 electrical monitor to add Bluetooth, and we have not done so. That would be too geeky.

Make Drinking Water

Catmandu’s fresh water tanks hold a total of about 90 gallons, but we can run through that in about four days of regular use when not trying to conserve water. To make drinking water. we run our portable Rainman water maker. The Rainman “desalinator” works off the principle of reverse osmosis (“RO”) to pump seawater through filter cartridges having pores that are so small that salt molecules and contaminants cannot pass through them. A first component has a pre-filter cartridge and a high pressure pump. A second component is in a case that holds two large reverse osmosis filters, a pressure gauge, and a flow gauge. Eight hundred PSI is required to force the seawater through the RO filters. Our model runs off AC power and makes about 40 gallons per hour. When at anchor, we just plug the water maker into our Honda generator and run it twice a week.

Every day is arm day on the boat!
— Phil Decker

Some marinas in the Bahamas charge up to 80 cents per gallon for fresh water! Filling Catmandu’s water tanks would cost $72, and we would have to do that twice per week. Instead, when we are at a slip in one of those marinas, we run the water maker off of shore power instead of the Honda generator. It takes a cup or two of gasoline to run the generator for a couple of hours. When not in use, the water maker components are stored in the aft lockers in the cockpit.

*Pre-filter and high pressure pump unit.*

Make Hot Water

There are two ways we can make hot water for taking showers onboard when at anchor. Usually, we run the Honda generator. We control the electric water heater with a switch on the instrument panel. It takes about a half hour to completely heat our six gallon hot water tank. The second way is to run the diesel engine. The diesel has a clever loop in the cooling circuit that goes under the floor to the hot water tank under the galley sink. There is a heat exchanger inside our water heater tank so the engine coolant does not mix with the fresh water. It is very nice to be able to take a hot shower after a long day of sailing.

Avoid Seasickness

Kay has an issue with motion sickness and gets nauseated and dizzy in rough sea conditions. It runs in the family, and some members of her bio-family have much worse cases. Please do not tell people who suffer from this condition that it is “all in your head,” or “just look at the horizon, it will go away.” It is not psychosomatic and requires treatment if one wants to live on a sailboat.

Kay uses a relief band ($129) for mild sea conditions, and a combination of Dramamine (meclizine) and relief band for more active seas. One valuable tip: Take the Dramamine the night before travel. You’ll sleep well, and the medicine is effective for 24 hours. Otherwise, the medicine will force a nap within 3 hours or so (even the non-drowsy formula).

The relief band is an electronic device worn on the wrist that provides an electronic pulse. Or, as the website explains: “Relief Band utilizes the principles of neuromodulation to relieve nausea. The device emits gentle electrical pulses that stimulate the median nerve, which in turn sends signals to the brain. These signals help to restore normal gastric rhythm and reduce the sensation of nausea.”

The website indicates that it has an 85% success rate, so it doesn’t work for everyone. To Kay, it is a lifesaver.

Bake Bread and Pizza

Phil got the knack for making bread from working at a pizza joint in college. Now he makes French bread and pizza crust from scratch, and bakes them in our propane oven onboard.

*Phil with a loaf of French bread. I wish I could send out a whiff of what this smells like.*

Get on the Internet

There are two internet / telephone providers in the Bahamas: BTC and Aliv. We tried both, and Aliv is much better. We bought a block of 125 GB of data only, and Aliv provided a new mobile hotspot for only $9 more. The Verizon mobile hotspot we use in the US cost over $200, so the Aliv deal was great. We make phone calls, send and receive e-mail, browse the internet, and participate in Zoom calls easily when we are in cell tower range of any Bahamas island. The mobile hotspot works off a USB cable and uses very little electricity. We keep it on 24/7.

When offshore, we have the Iridium Go! satellite communication system that we can use for e-mail, text messages, receiving weather data, and voice calls. It is battery operated and charges with a USB cable. It uses very little electricity. However, Iridium Go! is very slow and cannot be used to browse the internet. It is primarily for offshore and emergency use.

Q: Why not just use Starlink? It is very fast and has high bandwidth even when offshore. A: It is more expensive, and uses a great deal more power. For example, the Starlink Mini uses 25 – 40 watts of AC power continuously. More popular Starlink units run at 100 watts. That is simply too much power to keep the unit on all the time, and we have no need to be able to stream Netflix from the middle of the ocean.

What will we do when we are too old for all this?

Phil has a dream. What aging sailors need is a place to live out their lives on their sailboats, motor yachts or trawlers. His dream is to develop an assisted living marina.

Presenting The Grandma Yacht Club

The dock pedestals will have pull cords, in case you’ve fallen and can’t get up.

The slips will have chair assists to get you on or off your boat, like you would see at a public swimming pool.

The docks will have edges to keep the wheelchairs from going into the water.

There will be a tiki bar for happy hour, and of course, weekly Bingo.

Under the Boom

Chronicles of S/V Catmandu (and Catnip, too)