Bahamas- August 2005 Jane and Noel Bailey

Our friends from Hamilton, Jane and Noel Bailey decided to join us in Florida for a few weeks. We decided to head for the Bahamas and enjoy the flat calm waters and the beautiful sunshine. We had a wonderful time cruising around. We always found it interesting when we left Fort Lauderdale, as we had never come across drawbridges and internal waterways before. When we left to go out to the sea, we took around about an hour and we had to go through three drawbridges on the way.



It was great to know that when you called bridges up on the VHF that they would stop the traffic and pedestrians and just open up for you. There was only one bridge that did not open on demand. It was the 17th St Causeway which had six lanes of traffic each way.
The cruise out to the Bahamas was approximately 54 nautical miles and normally took us about seven to eight hours. It was the hurricane season and we always had to keep that in the back of our minds. We had never seen anything like the Bahamas before, that turquoise water and very very clear. You would drop your anchor and it would be 12 feet deep. The only trouble was it was like dropping an anchor on the tar seal road, just nothing for it to dig into. The trick was to put everything out, all your chain.





After clearing customs and immigration, we headed out to Concrete Ship Bay. It was there that we came across the wreck of the 'Soprano'. The ship was originally built for Henry Ford as an entertainment vessel and then sold on to do freight work. It was some time then, that it went on to the Bahama Bank in a hurricane, never to move again. We had a fantastic snorkell there and the fish life was great.
After 10 days it was time to head back to the concrete jungle, known as Fort Lauderdale.



As I said it was the hurricane season and sure enough hurricane Katrina came along not long after we arrived back in Fort Lauderdale. We had met some other cruises, Tip and JoLyn Coleman who were on a Lagoon catamaran next to us on the Marina. The wind blew at hurricane force in one direction and then and the lull as the eye of the storm went across us. In the lull we retightened ropes, traded fenders and compared notes about the first half of the storm. Ten minutes later the wind got up in the other direction until the full blast was on us again. While we had no damage it was a great learning experience for us. It gave us the experience and know-how to prepare for another one another day. The photo is of JoLyn loaning us some extra fenders that were surplus to them. Note the coconut tree in the background- all the fronds are hanging out the back. It was also interesting to learn that the staff on the Marina did not get involved with moving fenders and tightening mooring lines, as they were scared of being sued.

Cool Bananas

My wife Laurel and I had moved on to our yacht 'Cool Bananas' that we had recently purchased in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was way more than I had dreamed of 10 years earlier. It had taken me two years to track down and purchase the cruising yacht that I thought would be beyond our reach.

We purchased 'Cool Bananas' in the middle of 2005 and our son Jason and I flew to Fort Lauderdale to do the purchase. Everything went smoothly and David Bird, the CEO of Admiral yachts, South Africa,was a pleasure to deal with.
When we first arrived in Fort Lauderdale we were very fortunate to have met two people from Houston on their yacht 'Starship'. Roy and Stephanie were a great help to us, running us around and always offering to help. At the beginning I wasn't keen to drive on the right-hand side of the road.

Jason was keen to watch the launch of a space shuttle, so we headed up to Cape Canaveral in the yacht, where we had a birds eye view from the 10 mile limit. The launch was over in 11 seconds. We had booked into Cocoa Beach yacht club for a month. Cocoa Beach yacht club was quite social and we met a couple who are living on the yacht next-door, Daryl and Ronnie Birch. We had a few Sunday afternoons with drinks with them and their friends. This photo is typical of a Sunday afternoon.




During the month we had quite a severe lightning strike. You know the one, enough to do a lot of damage but not enough to claim insurance.shortly after Jason and I sailed back to Fort Lauderdale and found a marina berth in Loggerhead marina. I saw the lightning strike as an opportunity to get to know the boats electrics, as my background as an electrician all of a sudden came to the fore. Ray Marine were fantastic to deal with and within six weeks or so everything was up and running again. (This photo is of Jason repairing lights on the mast)

Six weeks later Jason flew back to New Zealand and Laurel arrived..........