s/v Rainy Days

Marsh Harbour

Feb 13 & Feb 14

--Blogpost written by Bob

We spent yesterday afternoon at Mermaid Reef--it is easy for us to get to by dinghy. It is probably two or three miles away from our anchorage in the harbor.

This is a doctorfish, a member of the surgeon fish
family. They are a flesh colored fish and
the vertical lines are light purple.

Tuesday, February 13

Cumulus clouds obscured the sunrise this morning but they were only in the eastern portion of the sky—the remainder of the sky was relatively free of clouds. The forecast is for a beautiful sunny and warm day today. The clouds quickly dispersed leaving bright sunshine in their wake. We plan to spend more time snorkeling at Mermaid Reef today.

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A Morgan Out Island 51 ketch from New Zealand
at anchor next to us in Marsh Harbour.

Just to our south, there is a large Morgan Out Island (maybe 51 feet long) center cockpit ketch from New Zealand. This boat was crewed by two people, looks like a father and son team. Morgan Out Island 51’s are roomy cruising boats manufactured between 1974 and 1981. They carried 265 gallons of fresh water and 300 gallons of diesel fuel and were typically equipped with 85 HP Perkins diesel engines. Their mast height of 62 feet make ICW travels practical, an important aspect for east coast cruisers. Their roominess and relatively low cost in today’s market (< $100k - 150k; I found one online for $70k) make them excellent liveaboard cruiser’s. (I remember looking at one a very long time ago. A light-colored vinyl covering was used over most of the interior—this feature emphasized the roominess of the boat. There wasn’t much internal teak as I recall but that’s not necessarily a bad thing since it requires maintenance.) This boat traveled a very long way (half way around the world) to cruise the Abacos!

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We decided to go out for breakfast this morning at the Golden Grouper, where the locals eat. Afterward, we went to Maxwells Supermarket for provisions.

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Lately, we have been introduced to the artwork of a local painter named Marjolein Scott. One of our favorite images of hers is The Muse. Another favorite of mine is "Amara" because of the simplicity and brilliant color.

"The Muse" by Marjolein Scott.

"Amara" by Marjolein Scott

Marjolein's business is called Barefoot Contessa's Tropical Silk Painting and you can reach her website at this link. We are not affiliated with Marjolein, just an admirer of her art...

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Before we headed out to Mermaid Reef today, we topped off the portable gasoline tank in the dinghy. This involved removing the tank from the dinghy and carrying it onto the port deck of s/v Rainy Days for filling from one of our two eco-friendly gas jugs. After fumbling around a few minutes with the eco-friendly nozzle, we simply removed it and used a funnel, spilling a ;little gasoline on deck as we went along. Afterward, we viewed a YouTube video on the proper way to use the nozzle.

When the arrow on green plastic collar is roughly aligned
to the open lock position, the nozzle has to be pushed
into the gas jug to allow gas to flow. If you let up on
the pressure at any time, the collar will auto
-matically return to the locked position.

It looked simple enough after the fact, but difficult to figure out at the time. We totally missed the fact that pressure has to be applied that pushes the nozzle into the gas jug—this pressure opens a valve that allows gasoline to flow through the nozzle. I’m sure a lot of others have done the same thing. Wouldn't it be nice if the instructions were right on the nozzle?

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We had to wait for the cloud cover to clear up before heading back to Mermaid Reef. The sun finally appeared about 2 PM and we headed to the reef. We stayed about an hour before leaving to come back to the boat. We took along a package of frozen peas that we purchased just to feed the fish--they loved them! After feeding them it was easy to get photographs because they just lingered around waiting for more food.

Two blue parrotfish peering right into my camera lens.
They were actually too close for the wide
angle lens to focus on them.

Sargent majors swimming toward the sky.

Another doctorfish getting up close and personal.

All told, I took over 140 underwater photographs with my GoPro. With its wide angle lens, I really had to get as close as possible to the fish. Feeding them frozen peas helped a lot.

When we got back to the boat, we went right into Dive Abaco by dinghy because we wanted to sign up for a snorkeling trip on Thursday.

Wednesday, February 14

I slept on the starboard settee last night because it was cooler and I had more space for my feet. The breeze coming through both overhead hatches acts like a air conditioner in the main salon. I actually had to use a light blanket to stay warm very early in the morning.

As I woke up this morning, this air plant hanging above me on
the interior handrail was my first sight. We bought it in
Beaufort SC at a farmer's market and it has
adapted quite well to boat life.

Today is Valentine’s Day! It’s 7 AM and the sun is just coming up over the Conch Inn & Marina. The silhouettes of the palms trees are a pleasing sight in the early morning. There is a nice cool, but light, breeze out of the east. The small ripples on the water’s surface caress the hull of the dinghy making a hollow gurgling noise.

The sun shower is still hanging in the cockpit and our
swimming suits are still hanging on
the starboard lifelines drying.

There are 31 boats currently anchored in Marsh Harbour, all but a few are sailboats. Five of the sailboats are catamarans. It is very peaceful this time of the morning.

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We’ve had a tough time deciding where (and when) to go next. It seems like the “when” is Friday morning. High tide is 8:30 AM. We want to be on Green Turtle Cay on February 24 (10 days from now) for an art show—it’s between now and then that we must decide on. Since we can’t decide on one place we will probably go to a few different places: Hope Town on Elbow Cay, Corn Bay on Man-O-War Cay, and a third, yet to be determined place. We will end up back here in Marsh Harbour again for provisioning before going to Green Turtle.

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Several times we’ve had to throw out meat from our refrigerator (usually chicken or pork, because it smelled bad. One of those times was this morning—we had to throw out pork chops. We agreed to start marking the date of purchase on the plastic bags containing meat with a magic marker. Hopefully, this will help us prevent spoilage. (It would be different if we had a freezer and maybe we should look into a spillover freezer compartment this summer.)