Landing on my feet

Once again my life has changed course. As if the past few months I haven't agonized enough about the decision to leave the fire department and in doing so, my entire life behind. Now I have been faced with another life altering choice. More on that in a bit.

The Caribbean is bad ass, plain and simple. I have been here a couple times before but there is nothing quite like sailing through the unbelievably beautiful water here. We left Georgetown and the Great Exuma islands behind on Friday morning after the fuel ship was finished. We motored out through the chain of islands and cays (pronounced keys, duh) and we were out in blue water by about ten in the morning. We didn't have much wind so we ended up motoring to Rum Cay which was about 50 miles away. We were trying to make it before dark because there is a large shallow reef that basically guards the entrance to the docks there and it is marked with small buoys that may or may not be in the right spot because storms move them and the lights used for navigation in and around the island may or may not work, gotta love it. All the charts I'm using pretty much say to ignore any lights as they are useless and even if they actually work they are typically functioning improperly. So we made it there around 6. Right at dark. Perfect. I gotta say that I was pretty stoked when we cruised up smoothly to the dock and tied up. The dock master said he was impressed and some English dude came over from his boat and told me that the entrance through the reef was textbook. I shrugged, said thanks and went about tying the boat up. I didn't bother telling any of them that I was ready to shit my pants and that it was one of the most nerve racking things I have ever done on the water. It was like a freaking minefield. Literally changing course back and forth to get through the shallow channel with a boat that is 45' long and 25' wide. Oh yeah, and the water is only 7' deep. Unreal. Rum Cay is nice. Very chill place. They have a small residential area, 2 bars, 1 store and a couple of places to eat. I got some decent pics of it and will post them as soon as I can. We put the dinghy in the water during the day and pulled the brand new 20 hp Yamaha outboard out. We motored around the bay just staring in awe at the beauty of the reef. Up near the old rickety pier there was an F-150 truck being loaded with cement bags that had been dropped off by a supply boat at some time. We watched as they finished loading, started driving up the pier and bam, the rear right wheel of the truck went right through the pier. The driver got out, laughed and started slowly unloading bags. I cruised up and asked if he needed help and he said "Only if ya got a beer mon!" .

Back on the boat, we left around 5 that afternoon. The plan was to run all night and get to Mayaguana, the last island in the Bahamian chain. We thought we needed to check out with customs and this was the last place to do it. We arrived there the next day around 3 pm but Brian was itching to get south to Provo. I found in one of the books for cruising that it isn't required to check out of the Bahamas so we blew right past Mayaguana bound for Provo. I sailed the boat from about 4 until 9 and had a blast. This boat hauls ass. I had her reaching speeds of up to 9.5 knots at certain points throughout the night, was so much fun. It was a great sail and much faster than I thought so around 9 I hove to about 20 miles off the island, caught a couple hours sleep and got up around 3 am to set a course for Provo. Providenciales is the most populated island here in the Turks and Caicos Island chain. It is known as Provo, it's 14 miles long and 6 miles across at it's widest point. There are about 18,000 people here. We got here yesterday morning and again, a two mile long reef protects the shallow islet that leads to the marina Brian wanted to stay in. After 30 minutes of negotiating that nightmare we reached the entrance to the small waterway that snakes back into Turtle Cove Marina. There is a freaking reef on the right side exactly at the entrance. Such a pain. Once I finally got the boat backed into the "slip" (basically four large wood posts sticking up out of the water with a small dock tied to it), I think I finally stopped holding my breath. These reefs would be intimidating in my own boat much less a 400,000 dollar catamaran that doesn't belong to you. We had a couple of really good meals here, checked in with customs and I hung out late last night with some of the locals at a place called the Tiki Hut. We ended up going across the street to a casino called, I kid you not, The Players Club. It was way too fun. Today, Brian rented a car and we did a little cruising. Only took about an hour and a half and we had driven the whole island. The drive was great though because on all sides you can see the turqouise blue waters. The plan is to stay here til Thursday then cross the Caicos Banks and head to the Salt Cay island. From there we are putting out to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. He wants to fly to Cuba for a day or two and then we will be back in the DR. On a sidenote, when we left Rum Cay Brian wanted to leave the dinghy with the brand new motor, tied to the back of the boat and just tow it to Mayaguana, 130 miles away. I have never been a fan of towing dinghies for long distances and I asked if he was sure. He said he towed it from Belize to Panama so I just shut up and sailed the boat. He took watch about 3 am and sometime between then and 6 am he looked back at the dinghy and noticed, hmmm, that's funny, where the F is the motor. The freaking brand new 3000 dollar outboard that had maybe an hour of use from us in Rum Cay is now somewhere at the bottom of the ocean passage between Mayaguana and Rum Cay. It just simply fell off the transom of the dinghy. He laughed. I couldn't believe it, I would have been suicidal. He just said oh well and laughed. This dude is hilarious.

On a personal note, I am doing well. I think my nerves have finally calmed down enough that I am actually sleeping and eating well again. I look forward to seeing everyone at the end of the month. As for my news. Brian wants me to be the full time Captain on this boat. We have been talking since I arrived in the Bahamas and in a nutshell here is the plan. I am going to fly and help the crew get Fearless to the South Pacific. Once I'm there, I will fly back, probably to Puerto Rico and meet back up with Brian on Rum Boogie. From there, we will sail the Virgin Islands and end up in Cartagena to have a bunch of work done on the boat. I will stay with the boat. Brian will go stateside. When it's finished I will sail the boat to Panama and we are going to start a business together doing charters. The plan is Panama in the winter, Costa Rica in the summer. Everything is still in the beginning stage of course but it looks good. This is crazy. I have known this guy for 5 days and I will be living on his boat in Panama. How the hell do I end up in situations like this? It was funny. Right before I left I had several conversations with good friends about the decision I was making. The fear of the unknown and the prospect of having no income is not a pleasant thought. All the people who I talked with said the same thing. They all said that I'm the type of guy that no matter where I end up landing on my feet. I guess I'll walk this path for a while and see what happens. But that means a lot of you get to come down and visit the Caribbean and play pirate with me for a week or so. I figure if we make this work for the next few years I can buy him out and then start my own circumnavigation with this boat. Wow, so much to do I need to clone myself. I have no idea how I'm gonna get all this done and still find time to climb Everest with Jeff. Screw it, I'll get it done, I always do.

This link is a site about the islands we are on. http://www.wherewhenhow.com/Excursions/Sailing.html