Nothing is easy with Celebration

Cooper Town

March 27^th

We had a brunch on Celebration and invited Bill.  He seemed to enjoy my biscuits. After we tested the windlass we left Marsh Harbour about 12:30, headed for Guana Cay.

Guana Cay is home of Nipper’s.  Nipper’s is a three tier open air bar, with a beautiful view of the beach.  It also has a swimming pool on the lower tier, and of course music.  We also met some very interesting people at Nipper’s.  Now, it was really hot that day, and the guys really enjoyed the view.  Just saying…..       Because we had a late meal that day we shared a fried lobster sandwich.  Yes, lobster again.  For dinner we went down the road the Grabbers. Grabbers is famous for the view of sunset.   Nipper’s….Grabber’s where do they get these names?  The sunset was again beautiful.  Again we met some very interesting people at Grabbers, someone from Germany, England and Trinidad.

March 28

Left the docks the next morning headed for Powell Cay.  We sailed almost all the way. This is the same anchorage George and I anchored when we were coming in.   However, when we looked at the wind direction we decided to anchor across from Powell at Cooper Town.  Cooper Town is a small village that has been untouched by the tourist.  Greg asked one grandfatherly gentleman on a motorcycle, “where could we buy some lobsters?”  He also asked some guys sitting outside a bar.  Two of them picked up their cell phone and started to call people.  Before we knew it Greg was coming out of a house with a big bag full of lobsters.  Just about the same time, a pick up truck stop to offered us some as well.  Greg got about 30 lobsters for a little over a dollar a piece.  There were three boats in the same anchorage.  One was another Tayana.  In the middle of the night the anchor alarm went off.  We were dragging.  We had to pull up the anchor in the middle of a moonless night and move to the other anchorage that we were going to early that day.  It took about 30 minutes to get to the other anchorage across a body of water.  We could not see anything. The winds were blowing and it was also raining. Thank goodness the windlass worked!  Jimmy had also interred a waypoint in the GPS earlier that day.  We radioed Martini and told them we were dragging.  In just a few minutes Martini called and asked us to guide them in because they were also dragging.  No one got much sleep that night.

March 29^th

Pulled up anchor the next day and motored sailed to Allen Pensicola Cay.  We got in the dingy and explored the island. Jack had made a sign with the names Celebration and Martini written on it.  He also wrote the crew’s names.  There is a tree on the island called signature tree, in fact, many signature trees.  We placed our sign in just the right spot.  While we were on the other side of the island Greg, Jimmy and George fished.  I looked for sea glass without any luck, and Jack looked for some shade. 

March 30^th

We sailed all the way from Allen Pensicola to Great Sale Cay.  We got up to 7 knots with a double reefed main.  When we got to Great Sale cay we decided to anchor on a different side of the island again because the wind was coming from the wrong direction to anchor where we had planned.  The seas were too rough for a dingy ride for Martini to come for dinner.  Martini fixed spaghetti and so did Celebration.  The engine gave a skip as we were coming in and it worried us so we changed the fuel filter.  We had some trouble last June with the port tank but thought we had it all corrected.  We thought about switching tanks but we only had only 10 gallons in the starboard tank.  That is about 10 hours worth of fuel and it was about 10 hours to the next destination.

March 31

Weather report was not good for that day, but Greg’s, Jack’s and Jimmy’s wives were flying into Lucaya on April the 2rd.  We pulled anchor and I mean we pulled anchor. The windlass did not work again.  In the winds it took at least 30 minutes to pull anchor and get going.  George and Jimmy went forward to triple reef the main.  George look at Jimmy and both decided we should not go.  We were only going about 4 knots at that speed we would not get in until lateat night and at low tide.  The weather reports were talking about tornadoes and thunder storms.  We knew we were headed toward bad weather.  We called Martini and told them our plans.  They were too far gone to turn back.  They might not have enough gas to come back and go again the next day.  We told them to do what they had to do and go on. I was disappointed because I was out of contact with my family for four days.  I was worried about my brother and how he was doing.  He had recently been in the hospital.  We tried to call Jack but could not reach him by cell phone or by radio.  I felt cut off from the world.  I just had a sick felling something was not right.  I wanted to call my family and tell them I was OK. The spots we send our family is the location of where we are.  I was afraid they would worry if they saw we were in the middle of no where for a few days.  I wanted to get in touch with Jack to have him to call my family.   We had tried and tried to call him. That afternoon George’s cell phone, we all thought, that’s Jack!  But it was not Jack It was my daughter Jill.  She had called to tell me my brother was fine but he had been in the hospital again.  We could not reach anyone by cell phone but that call came from Thomasville Georgia……Now that was a God thing!  We tried to call Scott, Jill or Courtney to have them call Jack.  Then we tried to call Jack.  We could not make a call.  Jack was trying to call us I know. The call from Jill made me feel so relieved.  That after noon the winds stayed in the high 20’s.  That night we thought about how much fuel we had and our options.  During the night the front moved through.  We had thunder storms and rain. 

April 1^st

The next morning we could see the front was over us.  We thought it would move through.  We pulled up anchor and left.  The winds were high so we triple reefed the main but it still was rough.  The winds were hitting 30 knots and the waves were 5 to 6 feet.  We could make it but with the fuel problems and the rough seas we again decided to  turn  back.  This time we anchored on the other side of Great Sale.  The wind had changed. George had toyed with the idea of transporting some fuel from our port tank to the starboard tank. We now only had 8 hours of fuel due to the move this morning. We were sitting around waiting and thinking.  I voted for fuel transfer and Jimmy quickly agreed.  So the process started!  I used a ½ quart measure cup to mark a line on a bowl for a quart.  We had to use a UGA coffee cup to dip the fuel out of the tank and into the bowl.  As George dipped out and Jimmy poured in the other tank, I counted, with slash marks.  224 UGA coffee cups of fuel later we had transferred 14 gallons of fuel to the port tank.  We now can motor into west End.  We all slept well that night.

April 2

We woke to very calm waters.  The sunrise was of course beautiful.  We got the anchor up in record time.  We set sail for West End.  We saiedl some of the way but had to motor at least half the way.  I was excited to wash and to get the garbage off the boat.  We were disappointed that the wives would have to come from Lucaya to West End to meet us but at least we could see them today.   Jimmy was especially happy to be getting into West End. Jack called early afternoon and said the ladies had been taken care of.  He and Greg were still at West End waiting on us.  Coming into West End is very shallow, so we had to be very careful and plan our arrival at mid tide.  As we approached West End we could see big starfish on the bottom.  We got to West End just before the wives arrived by taxi.  All the guys were very happy to see their wives and I was happy to have some girls with me as well.

sunset at Grabbers