Category: living aboard

Day to day activities, challenges and new things learned living aboard a boat

February 22, 2014

Diving the Sapona Wreck and Crossing the Bahama Banks

2.10.14 We left Brown’s and went back to the Sapona wreck at Turtle Rock. This time the anchor dug in good. Peter dove the anchor, then came back to help me get the watermaker fired up. It took a bit of deciphering but we finally figured out how to unpickle it from when the previous owners stored it last. It’s slow but it works! 6 gallons an hour is actually pretty good in terms of watermakers. There is a tiny tinge of saltiness in it but nothing a little ice won’t cover up :) Now we are totally self sufficient!

Peter couldn’t wait to jump in! This man is a fish :)

The guys played around with the Air Line hookah system for a little bit right off the boat. It works pretty well to just leave the engine on the aft deck and run the hoses off the back. That way they don’t have to mess with lifting it up and over the lifelines down into the water. There wasn’t a whole lot to see under the boat but it was fun to play around with it. They did a quick inspection of the bottom of the boat too. One of these days we need to clean the bottom now that we are in clear and warm enough water. Another thing to add to the list…

After awhile, they decided it was time to go look at something really cool and swam over to the wreck with their masks and snorkels. It was a little intimidating for me and Leah so we stayed at the boat for now.

If you haven’t read the page on our website that explains why we chose the name “Where The Coconuts Grow,” be sure to check it out and click the link ‘here‘.

We are finally in a place where we meet all the requirements of what we call the 80/80/80 Rule:

80° Air Temp

80° Water Temp:

80′ Water Visibility:

And we see coconuts floating by all the time ;)

The next day (Tuesday 2.11.14) we all took the dinghy over to the wreck to look for lobster and so Leah and I could look around a little. It was amazing! There was a nurse shark hiding inside the wreck and lots of small fish and coral were fun to look at too. Even though it was just a nurse shark, I wasn’t too interested in getting close to it. Peter and Josh are like fish so diving down to nab those tasty little buggers was no problem for them. Still difficult nonetheless, but we ended up with four lobsters and two conch.

After dinner we pulled up the anchor, began the stowing process and left around 7pm to begin our crossing to the Berry Islands. The Bahama Banks are no joke either. There are some crazy deep areas and it was a good 70nm stretch. To our dismay, the winds were much stronger than we anticipated, giving us an average of 20 knots on the nose. This was yet again another long passage motoring into the wind. This time Peter, Josh and I did fine without taking any seasickness meds. Leah took some just in case. It was a very rolly ride. Trying to use the heads was like being on a roller coaster!!

Half way into the trip we noticed a lot of sea water rolling back behind our port side lockers in the galley. We were heeled over pretty good and dipping the bow into the water a lot so it was really tough to find out where it was coming from. We emptied out all the lockers, sopped up the water and finally determined nothing else was leaking.

We still don’t know what it was, but we have a few ideas. Either it was leftover water that ended up in our anchor locker as we took water over the bow, or it was from one of the seacocks backflowing into the boat as we crashed down from the waves. The aft head had spilled sea water over from the bowl. It hadn’t been locked shut properly and there was just too much pressure to keep the bowl from filling up. The most likely culprit is the leaking anti-siphon hose that is connected to the generator. At least its all clean and dry now!

Wednesday 2.12.14 around 6:30pm we made it into Great Harbour Marina. It was dark but we had storm clouds on our tail and we got there as fast as we could motorsailing and tacking like crazy. The marina is super protected and tucked away. Docking was easy and the still water was incredibly peaceful. It was so nice to just be still. The showers were hot, the wifi reached the boat (although spotty and super slow) and there was a restaurant nearby to fill our bellies after a long crossing.

February 14, 2014

Good Fishing and Pretty Beaches at North Rock, Bimini

Friday 2.7.14 Peter wanted to jet up to North Rock to anchor and do a little diving. It was recommended to us to go there, but it wasn’t a real protected anchorage either. The best part of the whole trip up there was hooking two big snapper!!

Josh reeled in the first one and they let me bring in the second one :) My arms are still like jelly!! It was hysterical for me to be standing on the back of a moving boat trying to fight a fish.

We also hooked a barracuda, but cut those sharp teeth loose right away.

Leah brought in the next one but it was another barracuda.

New fashion statement? :)

We took a quick trip to beach to let the dogs go potty on land and made it back to the boat as it was getting dark.

Josh and Leah made dinner and it was my turn to shower off. I asked Peter if there was enough water left so he opened up the floor board to check the level on the aft water tank. OH CRAP! The bladder bag was more than half way empty and there was a bunch of water outside the bag but inside the aluminum box that the bladder sits in. At some point the original aluminum/fiberglass tank was cut open and replaced with a bladder. We emptied the bladder to save what was left of the fresh water and transferred it into our 5 gallon jerry jugs. We poured those back into the forward water tank. This is getting added to the list of things to do when we get back to the marina.

We slept good knowing the anchor was holding well. The next thing we know it starts raining. Peter and I jump out of bed and race to close all the port lights, hatches and isinglass up top. It dumped for about 10-15 minutes and then stopped. A few hours later in the middle of the night we repeated the process. During the second scramble Peter noticed the dinghy had come untied!!! OH CRAP again! Luckily he had tied a second line on as a safety line. It was much smaller but held it enough to keep it from floating out to sea.

The next day, Saturday 2.8.14, Peter, Leah and I took the dogs over to the beach to swim and look for shells. The color of the water was amazing!!!

Betsy was SOO happy to run free on the beach!

Gunner had to stay on a leash. I tried to let him free but he just wanted to go sniff around in the brush up above the beach. He’s always looking for trouble.

Gunner sure was a happy boy though. He had so much fun.

Betsy and Gunner got to swim for a while with their daddy. Betsy decided she was done swimming and started to climb up on top of Gunner! He is like a small horse, but I’m sure he wasn’t too happy to swim with a little monkey on his back ;)

When we got back to the boat, the guys got our Air Line hookah dive system and put it in the dinghy to head over next to North Rock to check out the sea life. I stayed with the boat and the dogs while Leah went with the guys on picture duty. They ended up having engine trouble with the outboard again and learned a very important lesson: Always bring the ditch bag!! We put a lot of effort into making a complete ditch bag with all the first aid and survival gear we would need in the event of an emergency away from the boat. I’ll be doing a future post on all the items we have in there soon. We put it all in a dry bag and have it sitting in the cockpit, but for some reason, they just didn’t bring it with them this time. We won’t make that mistake again!

Betsy and I looked over at them with the binoculars and noticed they were floating much farther away than I thought they would have gone. (Picture is courtesy of Leah from another day but this is exactly what we were doing this time too). It was a bit too far to tell if they intended to be that far or not. A few minutes later it appeared they were okay.

Luckily they got the outboard working well enough to get back safely, but they gave up on diving this day. To top it all off, they lost one of our blue floating “Dog Leashes for Beaches” from our sponsor, SoftLines (blog post coming soon). I guess it drifted away and with the engine trouble they didn’t want to go chase after it. At least we got to play with them both atleast one time. They also lost the anchor for the dinghy out there. Time for a lesson on knot tying??? I think so!!!

Stay tuned for the next adventure, or should I say… big problem… on the way back from North Rock :(

February 13, 2014

A few pics from our stay at Browns Marina

When we arrived at Brown’s Marina in Bimini Thursday 2.6.14 at dusk, we hooked up to shore power after Bob and Ellen so kindly let us borrow their 50 amp connector. Our power hookup at our slip wasn’t working so we had to wait until the next morning to let the marina know we needed to use power from another slip. No biggie. We didn’t bother filling up water or fuel here but we charged up our batteries and laptops and phones. We had nice hot showers on shore and found a few cockroaches in the bathrooms behind the door. We made sure none caught a ride back to the boat in our shower bags.

The guy in the slip next to us had underwater lights and he would turn them on at night. It was crazy to see how many huge fish were underneath the boat all the time. We saw monster tarpon, tiger sharks, nurse sharks, starfish, needle fish, manta rays, eagle rays… a ton of sea creatures!!

The next day (Friday 2.7.14) we finally got to see how beautiful it was here in Bimini.

There was a nice sandy manmade beach area next to the docks.

The dockmasters told us about the 8′ bull sharks that come feed when the fishermen clean their fish twice a day. Scary! Peter managed to snag a photo. It doesn’t look like it here but it was huge!

I got to meet LeeAnn Toth (another fellow WWS member)! She was just a few slips down at Brown’s. Erica & Jordan from the blog, Seadoodle, were just one dock over at Weech’s. Erica is also a member of WWS. How cool is that?? Four of us (including Ellen and myself) all in one tiny place! And from what I hear, there were several other waves of fellow WWSers that came through just before us.

Conch is all over the place here. The shells litter the whole area. It’s hard to clean but actually tastes pretty good!

Customs was a breeze for Peter. He walked over to Customs and Immigration in the morning and paid our fees for the cruising permit. Since our boat is over 35′ the cost is $300. They did ask about the dogs and it was just as everyone told me it would be. All they wanted to see was the Bahamas Permit we had applied for before leaving Florida. They didn’t ask to see the International Heath Certificates at all. Good thing because we weren’t able to get one of the vaccines that they require. The vaccine for Coronavirus is just not available anymore in most places in the US although it’s a requirement for entry into the Bahamas. Our vet placed a big note on our documentation explaining this so it was even better that they didn’t care to see any other documents except for the ones they issued themselves. When Peter got back to the boat we took down the quarantine flag. We’re official now!!

January 30, 2014

How we store dog food: SoftStore 30 bags from Gamma2

Part of our provisioning for shoving off the dock is finding a safe place to store dog food. We searched high and low for air tight/water tight/bug tight containers. We searched even harder for containers that would fit in the odd-shaped storage areas we have on our boat.

The most important part to me was something that wouldn’t serve as a smorgus board for bugs. I’m absolutely terrified of getting an infestation after reading several warnings in other cruiser blog posts about making sure every crumb is accounted for.

I found a company online that has several of the best solutions for storing dry pet food, Gamma2. They also happen to be based out of Carlsbad, San Diego! We love to support local businesses from our home town :)

We were so excited when Gamma2 agreed to sponsor our adventures by supplying us with four (4) SoftStore 30 bags and one (1) Vittles Vault Plus 15 rigid container!! The SoftStore bags are exactly what I was envisioning when we searched for a storage solution. They can mold into any area where a rigid container might not fit. These bags are lined with a food-grade plastic and the lids have the patented Gamma Seal design to make them totally air tight.

With two large dogs on board we have to store a lot more dog food than we’d like and it takes up quite a bit of room. One of our first challenges once we leave shore will be getting the dogs accustomed to a varying diet. They’re currently on Kirkland Signature brand food from Costco but we know that once we leave we won’t have very many options for selection. Neither of their tummies do well when we switch their food but we’re just going to have to deal with that. Somebody will be on duty at the poop deck for sure! We decided to add in more table scraps and the dogs will be getting a steady fish diet soon. We’ll supplement with dog food and hope that they get used to eating different brands all the time.

For now, we are carrying two 40lb bags worth of dog food and have fit it all into the 4 SoftStores. They hold 30-35 lbs (8.0 Gallons) if stuffed full, but we like to leave a little room on top so the bag is more malleable. That way we can save our precious storage space and the bags fit into all the odd size nooks and crannies of the two cabinets we have chosen for them.

It’s much easier to fill the SoftStore bags with two people, but it wouldn’t be too difficult for just one person.

We turned around to position Betsy for a cute picture on the dock and Gunner seized the moment when he knew we weren’t looking!! If we weren’t there, he would have kept eating until he threw up. It’s actually kind of a good thing that we don’t free-feed the dogs, so that way we don’t have to worry about bugs feeding on the dog food at night. We like to clean their bowls out after doing the nightly dishes to help keep them clean.

Betsy hesitated at the open bag of food. She knew it looked like trouble :)

The rigid container that Gamma2 gave us is great for storing any kind of dry goods. You could put pet food in there, rice, grain, emergency supplies, cat litter, TP rolls, trash… anything that you don’t want affected by humidity, water or bugs.

Here’s a close up of what the Gamma Seal lids look like:

I opted to put all my baking goods in ours. I have our stock of brown sugar, powdered sugar, white sugar, flour, coconut flakes, and pecans in the Vittles Vault, and sealed them in ziplocks just for extra measure to avoid spills when using them.

We are lucky enough to have a ginormous pantry and the Vittles Vault fits nicely on one of the shelves that I had already designated for baking/breakfast. Coincidence?

The SoftStore 30’s are going under the settee where we can access them with little trouble twice a day.

There are two compartments that open up and we can fit two SoftStore bags in each one.

To fit them way back underneath we needed to leave the lid partially unscrewed to get some air in there. If you press all the air out, it’s harder to adjust the bag. Once we got them in there, we screwed the lids down all the way.

The front-most compartment is where the filters are for our water maker and this is where it was a little more tricky to find containers that will fit while still utilizing the entire area.

To access the food, we lift up part of the wood board covering the compartment with one hand, unscrew the Gamma Seal lid with the other hand, and then grab a full scoop of food. SOO easy!!! I had been really nervous about how difficult it might to be to store the dog food inside the boat AND be able to access it without a hassle. Turns out its one of the easiest things we do everyday.

You can find Gamma2 products in local pet stores or online. If you buy through our Amazon Affiliate link (also shown on the right side of the page on our website) we make a small percentage of the sale but you can probably find them cheaper on other websites. We are grateful that Gamma2 sponsored our adventures and we are excited to tell everyone about how cool their products are!! Living on a boat is challenging and having pets aboard requires even more creative solutions. Now that we have them, we simply CANNOT imagine storing our dog food any other way. If we didn’t have our SoftStore bags, we wouldn’t be able to stow away the dog food anywhere else and it would still be sitting in the original bag on the couch next to us every day. Oh, and we’d probably have cockroaches too!!

Thank you Gamma2 for helping us get to Where The Coconuts Grow as we travel in search of surf, sun, sand and serenity!!!

IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING… We are PROUD to share these awesome products and services with our readers. There are so many different solutions out there for everything we could possibly need, but these are the solutions that work for us.

This post may contain information about a product sponsorship. We gladly accept discounts or samples when a company feels generous enough to support our cause. In return we support the manufacturer or local service by sharing their links and writing about our experience with them. We only seek out sponsorship and affiliate programs from products and services we actually WANT to use and likewise only accept offers for products or services that we WILL use. We are not paid for any reviews we write or feedback we provide. We simply like to spread the word and share great experiences we have had that could also bring joy to others.

**If you’re in the market for any of our favorite products, please consider using one of our Amazon Affiliate product links. Just access Amazon by clicking through from the banner on the right side of our website first and any subsequent products you search for during that same internet session will help us out when you complete your purchase. It’s no additional cost to you and puts a small percentage in our cruising kitty. We appreciate your support!

January 30, 2014

Leak Prevention

Part of the routine maintenance we like to keep up on is making sure the gaskets around our ports are lubricated. The rubber seal can dry out and crack if they aren’t maintained. If there isn’t a good seal, water can leak in when it rains or when we wash down the boat.

Step 1: Scoop out a chunk of Vaseline

Step 2: Smear all that gooeyooey-ness around the seals until they have a nice coating.

Step 3: Clean up any excess vaseline around the ports

Step 4: Wipe off your hands! Yuk! (I suppose I could have used a rag, but I wanted to make sure it was covered evenly)

Step 5: Celebrate when it rains and water isn’t leaking all over your bed anymore!!

(On a side note, one of the known issues with Whitby’s is the angle of the two aft ports above the bed. They are angled so that water collects in the corners and has no way to drain out. We either have to wait for the sun to try it out, or wipe it out. It’s not a big deal.)