The End of the Abacos – For Now!

(This is the first of 4 posts I need to do before our 24 hrs of paid WiFi ends this afternoon, so don't miss any.)

May 12 – 15, 2012


After we left Hope Town we motored just a few miles south to an area called White Sound where we planned to spend a couple of nights out in the fresh air and be able to swim in the clean water.  We generally avoid swimming in any of the harbors.  You can imagine what goes overboard from the boats and what runs off from the land.  Besides, the harbor waters are so cloudy, you can't see anything anyway.

This is a good time to talk about how the refrigerator and freezer are working since we had trouble with them early on.  The freezer is running like a champ.  No real complaints, other than from Eddie, who says his ice cream isn't hard enough.  Do you know how many cruisers even get to carry ice cream aboard, much less worry about how hard it is?!!  While I'm on the frozen treats topic, both the guys have complained that I bought Fat Boy Jr. ice  cream sandwich bars instead of the “man” size.  The Jrs. come 9 to a package, and the others only come 6.  So, I decided we would have them periodically for just a little ice cream “fix”, but that's not OK with the guys.  Too bad.  I did see a 48 oz. container of Breyers for $10.50 at one of the Bahamian markets, so maybe they should pool their funds and go pig out behind a palm tree somewhere.

Cold air in, warm air out

The refrigerator is requiring some babying to say the least.  We felt that we have always lost too much cold air out and let too much warm, humid air in whenever we opened the door.  So, before we left we put flexible plastic flaps over the front of the shelves as seen in the photo.  You can see the left, hinged side of the unit and the flaps connected to the shelves with quick ties.  I think it is making a difference and is probably worth the hassle it takes to have to lift up the plastic flaps when you want to look for something in the refrigerator.  We usually just lay the flap on our heads so we can use two hands to move stuff around.

The humidity is really making the unit frost up, and we have already defrosted twice.  However, we are getting good at it, and it only takes about 15 minutes.  We have also noticed that the unit is very sensitive to having warm items put in it, even though you would think their size would be insignificant compared to the size of the refer.  To help with that issue, we have started pre-cooling things in the freezer.  We caught on early about the necessity of setting a timer after we forgot things in the freezer and had them freeze.

Both Wayne and I have talked to the “experts” at the main manufacturing facility, who assure us that similar systems are used extensively in tropical climates with great success.  I don't doubt that either considering how long the company has been in the business and its reputation.  However, we still don't think our unit is working like it should and will have to glean more information from the “experts” when we return and have reliable phone access.

Speaking more about the cold – the water is still too cold for us, even with our heavy wetsuits in shallow water.  However, Jacquelyn and Lloyd still ply those frigid waters in search of treasures.  Unfortunately, I don't take a camera, so can't share pics of what we see in the water, not that there has been that much anyway since we haven't had good weather to get in the water in the first place.

We did have an unusual fish encounter when we were snorkeling along the shoreline.  We swam up into a cove where the water was only about 2' deep, bordered by an extensively hollowed out rocky shoreline.  Eddie had spotted a float up in the rocks and wanted to go get it.  When he was tottering up on the rocks I looked ahead into one of the holes and saw a 15” ocean trigger fish crammed head up in one of the rocks.  Apparently, we had frightened it as we swam toward the shore and it tried to get away, but wound up in the dead end hole and couldn't get out.  We pulled it out and let it go.

We had some better luck treasure hunting at our next stop, Lynyard Cay.  We didn't arrive there until late on the 14th.  First thing in the morning the next day, Wayne comes in to tell me that Ursa's pee mat had fallen off its hooks when he threw it overboard to soak and was on the bottom.  So, my first “treasure” of the area was having to jump in and go retrieve the pee mat before Eddie was even out of bed.  Talk about getting a good wake up swim for the day!

Cabana dog

Eddie and I went ashore to scour the south end of the cay for what we see as “treasure” and Captain Wayne many times calls junk.  Although, he has been very good so far about not complaining about the things we are hauling back to the boat.  Since the sun actually came out for a while, we built a shelter for Ursa so we could leave her in the shade while we scouted around.  I looked back one time and saw sand flying high in the air when she was excavating for a cooler spot.  The next day her poops were full of sand!

We managed to find quite a bit of sea glass and driftwood pieces, even a few shells.  The outgoing tide had left behind a couple of interesting creatures, reflective of their collectors.

Left to right- Carol and Eddie

When I mentioned this revelation to Eddie, he asked why I get to say those things.  I simply replied, “because I am the writer of the blog”.

It's always pretty when the sun shines

You can see our dinghy, on the beach.  Fortunately, we found a sandy spot, because the tide was rising and with the wind pushing it on shore, we couldn't keep it out in the water.  Eddie and I started our beach combing outing with a big argument about where to park the dinghy in the first place, but at least we finally reached an agreement.  Sunny days like this have been few (not the arguments though!), so we are hoping that we will find more of them as we leave the Abacos behind and cross the open ocean to the big island of Eleuthera.