Stay Over Days in Emerald Bay

—Blogpost written by Bob

Mar 2 thru Mar 5

In this blogpost, we make another road trip from Emerald Bay Marina to the southernmost part of the island and we find more exciting things along the way.

Monday, March 2

The wind abated somewhat by the morning and it had changed direction to be more southerly.  We have much better protection from southerly wind.  The sky was full of clouds, like yesterday, and they were moving in the direction of the wind.  The sun had a difficult time finding a large enough opening between clouds to peek through.  At 7 AM we had a light rain shower--one of the very few we've had here in the Exumas during daylight hours.  It only lasted 15 or 20 minutes.  After the clouds passed by the sun came out full force and it looked like every other beautiful day since we've been here.

Emerald Bay Marina after
the clouds cleared up.

I decided to make pasta salad this morning--not for lunch today but rather another day.  I decided to make it with a red wine vinegar and olive oil dressing--not mayonnaise.

Not having red wine vinegar onboard for the intended dressing recipe, I concocted a new dressing, gourmet rice wine vinegar mixed 50/50 with olive oil, along with some spices like parsley, dill weed, and ground pepper—it turned out pretty good. (I’m pretty sure that there was a dash of cayenne, one of my favorite ingredients in almost everything, in there too.)

Using cooked rainbow rotini pasta, a pint of cut-in-half grape tomatoes, a navel orange cut into 1/2” cubes, two diced apples, half a sliced green pepper, cheddar cheese cut in tiny pieces, and some chopped celery, the pasta salad came together nicely. When completely mixed, I put it in the fridge for cooling.

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Later in the day during Happy Hour we came up with what we call the "water-maker moves" which involves alternatively extending your arms to the sound of the water maker.  (I don't think it will catch on as a dance craze anytime soon but it was funny in the moment.)

I don't think that I even got off the boat today...

Tuesday, March 3

Today we prepared for tomorrow’s road trip, getting our grocery list up to date and making lists of places we want to visit. Our Wednesday road trips have become a weekly highlight for me. I don’t do “sit around and wait” very well and that seems to have been what we’ve been doing between road trips.

One of the things I wanted to pick up tomorrow is a length of rubber hose to make more chafe guards—specifically, the chafe guards on our anchor bridle which are showing signs of wear. In preparation for installing the new chafe guards I wanted to clean all the salt off the bridle. The best way I thought to do this was to take the anchor bridle into the shower with me. (It worked pretty well!)

Our anchor bridle consists of 1/2” diameter 3-strand
nylon rope, a rugged stainless steel chain hook,
and two chafe guards. The old canvas
chafe guards (shown above) were
badly worn in spots. (The 
white residue on the 
rope was salt.)

The chain hook shown above was manufactured by Winchard (available from West Marine) and includes a spring loaded pin that keeps the hook from falling off the chain when there is no tension on the bridle--it worked great during the wind storm we experienced back in Staniel Cay.

As I was removing the old chafe guards, I noticed that one of the three rope strands was pretty well worn through where it contacted the stanchion base of the bow pulpit.  As a result I have to replace the line with new line.  (Another item on the agenda for tomorrow--I'm going to upgrade the line from 1/2" to 5/8" at the same time.)

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Our boat neighbors on s/v Morning Dew headed out this morning after a 2-week stay in the marina.  I was sure that we would catch up with them again somewhere on the way back to the U.S.

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Another little project I did today was to repurpose some canvas straps that were used to hold down our bimini into retainers for the main halyard.  The old way of fastening the main halyard when not in use was to simply wrap it around the handrails as shown below:

My old way of fastening the main halyard 
was to simply wrap it around
the handrails.

New way of attaching main halyard
using polyester strap.

I managed to "top up" our BTC cell phone today without any glitches whatsoever!  We finished up our day at the Sandy Toes beach bar.

The barbecued meats are very
popular at Sandy Toes.

The view of the beach from Grand Isle
Resort's Sandy Toes beach bar.

Wednesday, March 4

This morning, I was very glad to hear the results of yesterday’s democratic primary wins for Joe Biden and how the party is coalescing around him. This news made my day! Maybe even my week. (Even though I consider myself progressive, I don’t think that Bernie Sanders nor Elizabeth Warren is right for all of America.)

We picked up our rental car at 9 AM sharp. We drove south on Queen’s Highway, stopping first at the NAPA store (which has a lot of marine supplies) to check if they had 5/8” diameter nylon rope and 3/4” diameter rubber hose for the new anchor bridle I need to make.  I struck out here.

The front of the NAPA store just north of
George Town along Queen's Highway. 

Our next stop was "Top II Bottom" where we did find 5/8" diameter nylon line and 3/4" diameter (vinyl) hose for the new anchor bridle.  From there we went Exuma Markets where we got most of our groceries. Then we stopped at Island Prime Meats and Grocery where our big haul of the day was Bigelow's Decaffeinated English Teatime--I can't even find this at home (and it was less costly than back in the U.S. where it was produced)!

This is my favorite tea and I can't even find
the decaffeinated variety at home!
(and it was reasonably priced!)

After grocery shopping we went out to lunch at Lighthouse Cafe and Ice Cream Parlour, a few miles north of the marina--this has become our favorite restaurant on Great Exuma.  The views from our table were extraordinary while the breeze was like air conditioning.

The view from our table
looking southeast.

We vowed that if Trump wins another term as President
that we will buy the beautiful house next door to this
restaurant and move here permanently.

We found out over lunch that most of the homes in the area of the restaurant have been owned by the same families for generations--they are seldom sold. 

We drove down to Little Exuma again to see some things we didn't see previously and to buy some more rum cake from Mom's Bakery.  More photos from today's road trip will be in tomorrow's blogpost.

The air conditioner in our rental car didn't work today and it was hot outside (in the low 80's).  When we got back to the marina, we were completely spent.  We took showers, had a Happy Hour drink, some rum cake, and called it a night.

Thursday, March 5

The wind was very light in the morning.  I was concerned about "no-see-ums" coming to visit and taking some of our blood--this happens when the wind is very light.  The sun was shining brightly and there was no movement on the water.  We still have our onboard A/C on from last night.

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Continuing with some of our highlights from yesterday's road trip, we crossed the single-lane bridge between Great Exuma and Little Exuma.  (I'm sure this must be impassable during strong tropical storms!)

The single-lane bridge between Great Exuma
and Little Exuma is only about 6 to 7 feet 
above the water level.

We stopped by the side of Queen's Highway on Little Exuma to capture some images of the some little tree stumps on Little Bush Salt Pond. 

The Little Bush Salt Pond is the beige area off to
the right side of Queen's Highway (gray line)
on the right side of this image.

As I walked into what seemed like a dry area in my flip flops I quickly got overwhelmed in wet mud up to my ankles.  I shot a couple pictures and got back out of there quickly!  One of my pics follows:

Small tree stumps litter the shoreline 
of the Little Bush Salt Port on
Little Exuma Island.

We drove another 7 miles or so to Santanna's Bar and Grill where Mom's Bakery is located.  We each had a Kalik, the local beer, and leisurely watched the waves roll into the beach.

Two sailboats are way in the distance on this
photo--they motored south as we
sat watching the waves.

We noticed that about every fifth wave was clear
blue--the rest contained sand in the wave.

Maggie tried to capture a photo of a nurse
shark that was patrolling the beach.

The bar area at Santanna's has triangular
pieces of colorful cloth suspended so 
that they provide shade 
over the tables.

My goal for the day was making a new anchor bridle.  I started by removing the Winchard-brand chain hook from the old bridle--I simply cut the old rope.  Then I thread the new 5/8" diameter (white) 3-strand nylon line through the hook to the half way point and tied a bowline knot for restraint.  I measured to the point where the chafe guards would be positioned (20 feet from the chain hook) and installed a big whipping to act as a stopper for the chafe guards.  Then I installed the chafe guards (which went rather easily because the rope was new and still slippery) and another big whipping to retain the chafe guards.  It was noon when I was completely done whipping the ends of the line with green thread.

Our new anchor bridle using larger
(5/8" diameter) 3-strand
nylon line.

At noon, the outside temperature was 80 degrees F (and felt like 85 degrees F with the humidity).  There was a 12-knot breeze from the south southeast.  In looking at the wind forecast on our WINDY app, it looked like we will be departing the marina next Thursday (3/12) when nice 12-knot winds from the east were in the forecast.

Stay tuned for our continuing adventure on Great Exuma...


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