Staniel Cay, Bahamas, 29 march 2006
5:th letter, Abaco to Nassau, and advice taking advice.
Life is wonderful! Gunk holing between the scenic islands surrounded by turquoise water. With lots of snorkelling, diving, spear fishing and sailing we made our way through the Abaco islands. We are quite lonely as we cruise along the northern Abaco. And we got quite excited and surprised when we heard that there was a "huge" concert of 400 people on the neighbour island (great guana cay) the coming day! Barefoot man, the biggest singer in the Bahamas was going to play his calypso songs...well we didn't have any great expectations of the music but it would be nice to meet some people. And he was barefooted, and the text of the songs similar to Swedish "dansband" and a lot of dancing drinking mid-age folks. We enjoyed the show!
The coming day we picked up our two friends Toby and Fredrik at Treasue Cay. Toby is with us for 2 months and Fredrik for 10 days. We made some more cruising before we stopped at the last point before going to Nassau (which is approximately a 95 nm trip), Little harbour which were famous for their burgers. As we sat in the pub eating our burgers, watching all the other older couples and retired folks we whished for some people of our own age. In the same moment, five girls walked into the pub, spring breakers from the US. Thanks for a great time to all of you, it was niiice to have meet you, and yes, we do have popcorn in Sweden :]
The coming day would bring a lot of new experience to all of us. Heading for Nassau early in the morning, with hangover and almost no sleep since yesterdays party, we had about 15 hours of sailing in front of us. The wind was perfect, though it had been quite strong for some days and the Atlantic ocean was up to 3 metes of bumpy waves. We learned two things from this trip, don't sail with a hangover and don't ever eat plain corn beef with spaghetti. We all through up a couple of times during this trip, and Fredrik Fyhr was named the winner of the most laud male through up noise.
Nassau, the capital of Bahamas is our longest stop so far. We stayed there for 10 days and we can't really figure out why, but at least we got our radar mounted there. A local welder made the mount for us and Fredrik in the boat mans chair pop riveted it to the mast. We also went out o couple of nights. Nassau is like going to Greece when it comes to party for the young Americans on spring break. We didn’t really fit, but it was good fun talking and watching the young folks on spring break. Someone told us that we looked like Swedish rock stars, but when we sang "Hej tometegubbar slå i glasen" they were not as convinced anymore. We also made a two tank dive and some snorkelling outside Nassau and of course it was nice.
Advice taking advice
When talking to boat folks you always get a lot of advice whether you asked for it or not. It's about almost all different kind of things and it surprising how people can have so different opinions about things. The most fun and crazy ones are listed below:
"You are not gonna make it"
Talking to some newly met friends on the pub in West Palm Beach
"You got to have a gun"
Same people wanted to sell us their glock 45 handgun for protection against pirates
"You must bring 125 gallons of extra diesel"
They were also worried about our fuel situation, though we can drive for 5 days with the original tank we have
"You can throw that epirb away"
We asked about how to register our brand new epirb, and the registration came out really simple.
"If you can't see any birds around a boat, they are not fishermen but PIRATES, shoot them"
A nice gentleman gave us 2 pairs of huge flare rockets for protection against pirates
"You want this Mango because it's sweet"
In a grocery store a man came up to us telling us which mango we wanted. We want them hard so we can carry them longer on the boat
"Drop your anchor right there"
In a narrow passage with a strong current and 40 knots of wind we got that advice
"You can't anchor at Allans key"
We had a perfect anchor there, despite one whole night of gale winds and thunder strokes. It was one of the most beautiful places we have been to
"Always bring 500 dollars on the boat"
At the Bahamian customs when we forgot to bring any money to Bahamas for the clearance fee
"Girls - Don't ever bring a Bahamian 300 ponder to your boat, they will follow you to Sweden"
A gentleman at Indiantown marina named Jim gave us this fun advice about taking on Bahamian girls onboard the boat
"Stay out of trouble"
Jims everyday advice to us
/Jonas