Sailboats, Sailing, and modern Adventures on the Waters
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I have owned 4 boats in the last 30 years. I should start at the beginning but I’m not. As I began thinking about how I am going to talk about my sailing experiences I realized that pictures would be the best way of making it interesting. I began going through pictures and scrapbooks and I became painfully aware that I have not finished the grieving process from losing my spouse last year. I found myself in tears as I looked through the pictures of my family from years past and the fact that those times are irretrievable – I can never go back. Perhaps someday I can look back on these pictures with more happiness than grief, and perhaps just going through the process of posting my adventures here I can in some way therapeutically work through my emotions in the process – something that I have never been good at or shared with anyone but my closest friends and family. So rather than begin at the end or the beginning, I will start with the middle. The reason being that the pictures of my Bahama adventure in 2004 was without family. Only a couple of friends went with me, as my family were all too busy with other things.
My good friend Dave and his buddy Jens (who I became good friends with during this trip) accompanied me. We ventured out of Norfolk Virginia from the Monroe marina in late April 2004. The weather was perfect and my 1988 Pearson 33 seemed to fly. The standing rigging hummed and vibrated in the wind and it seemed like we were going 70 mph instead of just 12 knots. I have never owned a new boat in my life. I think its a waste of money frankly when there are so many good old boats that have been meticulously cared for by loving owners their whole lives and can be procured for a fraction of the cost of a new boat.
We originally were planning to go to Bermuda but between Dave persuading me otherwise and the prevailing wind we decided on the Bahamas. In hindsight this was a mistake in that this is a long haul with nothing to see. However, I had just performed some upgrades and was eager to see how the boat handled. After the first day though I knew everything was righteous and we settled into a routine of watches, games of chess, a beer or two and some good conversation. The company and the boat always makes the trip and if I had to do this trip now I would fly into West Palm Beach Florida and rent a boat.
So my Pearson was no Bristol or Island Packet, but it didn’t matter because in my mind after getting to know her, she was the finest boat on the planet and I have still never owned a boat before or after that I loved more than that one.
After three days we entered the outer cays of Little Abaco Island. It’s very obvious why pirates preferred this area because if you look at any chart you will see the thousands of shallows, shoals, coral reefs, sand bars, and tiny island strips. I am certain that there is treasure buried somewhere on those bits of rocky, sandy, scrubby shreds of land. I had the chart plotter on and was very nervous much of the time as I carefully watched our path ahead. The water was often very clear and the colors wonderful. There are times MK when I believe you must have been there, because the colors of the water in the game sometimes put me right back there in my mind. Your water is dramatically different than what I experienced in GOF2.
We only had two days to spend before we needed to head back to VA so we mainly explored the beaches, inlets, and cays on the southeast side and southern coast of the Grand Bahama Island – which I must add are fairly crowded with both boats and people even in April. Gold Rock Beach was quite beautiful and the water an unearthly silver-green color. The short hike we took from there into Lucayan National Park was well worth the time. On the second night we put into the marina at Smith’s Point and had a few drinks in Freeport.
I would like to go back again, but would probably go another time of year. The trip went off without a hitch and there was not a single problem (which is pretty rare actually when sailing). These pictures are not that good and scanned into my computer and manipulated into JPEGS using Paint. They don’t do the place justice but perhaps they will give you a little taste. The best I could dig up at the moment, but I will unearth more much better ones in the future.
MK I don’t see how to upload the images here. The img function wants a link. Do I need to upload them somewhere else to get them to post here?
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by modernknight1