Deserted boats and Cruisers

The winds were howling all night and there was a prediction of 40 knots today, but I don’t know that they every reached but maybe 20-25. It’s hard to gage in the mooring area – it’s quite surrounded with banks on one side, mangroves on another, the town on one side, you can’t really see what’s going on. I was watching the tide change off the back of the boat via a little mangrove tree. The chart plotter said that low tide on Royal Island was at 7:15am but it looks like here that it’s more like 8:15-8:30am. That’s when the roots to the little tree were fully exposed in sand and out of the water. I’d mentioned to Wayne that in order to leave on a rising tide for the next several days we’d have to leave in the late morning to early afternoon if Azaya was going to get out. This meant anchoring over at Royal Island today to leave tomorrow. There are several low spots coming into Spanish Wells that are 1.8m and 1.7 m (we’re 1.8 for all practical purposes and Azaya is 2.0m). I don’t think Wayne particularly wanted to leave in these winds and Azaya said that after chatting with Jean and Tom (they live here half the year and have a book exchange) they were confident that there’d be no problem getting out of here in the morning, so there’s no need to move to Royal today. I’d never looked at the chart information that says the charts are geared to the lowest low at spring tides. Theoretically we’re good to 1.1 meters according to their calculations. I think I’d be more comfortable leaving our depth to 1.8 meters but we’d probably be okay on a rising tide so we'll stay put here tonight.

I had a yen for breakfast so decided that bacon, eggs and fried potatoes were in order. It’s been a while since I’d made this and was glad to have the morning to do that. After that, this turned out to be a picture morning. Georgia E came by this morning with his I-Pad and then Azaya came by. We downloaded pictures from Azaya’s camera, then uploaded pictures to their thumb drive and camera along with the boat card mock-up for them to print. Then we uploaded pictures from my computer to Stu’s I-Pad.

After trading pictures, we went to shore to finish getting diesel, make a garbage run, trade books at the book exchange and see if anyone had any fresh lobster to sell (this is the lobster capital after all). There weren’t really any fishing boats in, and all we found was frozen lobster. The only notable boat that was at dock was the large steel schooner that had been washed up on the rocks a few days ago. What a shame. I’m sure the boat was a beauty in its prime. I yelled over to the guys as we tied our dinghy up “Hey, I see you found our boat?” They said, “for the right price she’s yours”. I asked “how much”? And the salvage operator said $12,000. Wow. She still floated and could probably be refurbished or - the parts salvaged would bring in more than that. To bad we don’t have the time or inclination… According to the people that had salvaged it, the captain that was transporting it to the Caribbean, for the owner, had some rudder problems in high winds, abandoned it, and never returned to reclaim it so it washed up on the rocks here. He didn’t want to pay the retrieval fee so it sat on the rocks until the boat works on Spanish Wells went to retrieve it as salvage. Hmmm… wonder if it was the same captain of the sports fisher in Florida; this boat was registered in Florida. Anyhow after some discussion of how they were going to salvage parts and deep six her I found out that when they went to retrieve the boat, the pirates of the Caribbean were already stripping her of electronics, and whatever else they could grab. I’d have gone for all the deck prisms and sails, myself . She was a beauty.

We ended up over at Jean and Tom Goldson’s house (they run a book exchange for cruisers) for happy hour. Azaya had met them a couple days ago and had told us about them, so we accompanied Mary Clare and Axel there this evening. What a delightful couple. They bought a fixer upper house here and stay here in the winter and take their trawler back up north during the summer months. I have to remember next year if we return to bring some young adult and kid books back for them. They can use them here on the island. It was interesting to hear how they came here, fixed up the house and hear their perspective on the island. It’s evident that Jean & Tom love Spanish Wells and I can see why. Its inhabitants love this little island and they take great pride in it. The people are honest and hard working. They love the living that they make from the sea.