Knock Knock...

Who's there, you ask??? The West Indian Woodpecker that is back and driving us crazy! He is making a mess of the siding and we can no longer reach to patch it. In fact the last patch, he sits on top of. He (or she) ignores the nesting box Dave made a couple of years ago, or sits on it and pecks at the siding.

There is no insulation in the walls of the apartment so once he is through the siding, there is only a mere sheet of paneling before he gets into the house. We've tried to spray water at him, but he likes it.."yay, a shower!"  I love the red on the back his head though.

Gotta run, he's out there again and I have to chase him away...

That's the "who me?" look I get when I go out and wave my hands at him, trying to scare him.

Careened

The tiny beach under the lighthouse was a perfect place to clean Dandy, inside and out. Unfortunately the tide was working against him, making it challenging as it kept rising and trying to float the boat.

A job well done though in trying circumstances!

Wild Waves

There has been a huge ocean swell affecting the Bahamas the past several days, causing all the cuts to the Sea of Abaco to have rages in them. It has been quite dynamic with 16 foot seas hitting the reef, sending up spumes of spray 40 feet high in places. Many people have said that they have never seen the ocean do this, even during hurricanes. I walked down to the landing craft landing on the Sea of Abaco this morning and stood there for a long time getting mesmerized by all those waves breaking.

(Those people out in their little skiffs were crazy!)

A couple of days ago, Dave, Ken, and I went to Man- O-War Cay in Walkabout and we knew it would be a bit rough in the Sea of Abaco, especially by the South MOW channel. It wasn't quite as bad as we thought it would be because the ocean reef was breaking up the major part of the swell and waves. What we didn't expect was that the waves built again after the reef and were breaking on the sandbar that is actually inside the several small barrier islands called Johnny's Cays. We've never seen this before, and the water is about 3-5 ft. deep on the bar, so normally we cut right across it instead of going around it. I thought it was an optical illusion at first and kept telling the guys I saw breaking waves. They thought I was crazy until THEY saw it happen. Naturally we took the long way around.

One of our friends Amy, sent this photo from down at the Abaco Inn towards the southern end of Elbow Cay. The waves don't look quite that large, however you will notice that the pool is filled to the brim because when the tide was up, the waves filled it up with seawater.

It's not just Abaco that is experiencing this phenomenon. Over in Eleuthera, the famous glass window bridge that was built over the cut where the ocean meets the bay, has been closed due to high waves. People have been swept off the bridge and cliffs. Click HERE for an article and video of what it has been like there. Below is the photo from the bottom of this blog page that I just remembered was taken several years ago right on the glass window bridge with the cliff in the background! Dave just read that they will now be using ferries to get past this cut.

After this is all over and the sea calms down, we will have to walk to the beach and see how much is left after all the erosion from pounding surf. Another friend, Sunny, posted this on Facebook, "whoever took our beach, would they please return it?"

Close Quarters

We've had some awesome sailing excursions in our Daysailer lately. The harbor is packed with boats on moorings and it's always a fun challenge sailing around them. Thanks for the photo Ken!

Angry Seas

The wind has been howling again at 25-30 mph, due to the cold front that brought all the snow, rain and wind to the Northeast. Luckily we have the use of a friend's golf cart this week while he and his wife are away...thanks Milton! They only use it about once a week, so we needed to exercise it. We took Ken & his father Don, who are visiting from up home, with us as we went from the Hope Town settlement down to the south end of the island. With the north/northwest wind there was no lee or calm weather in the Sea of Abaco or Oceanside. The photo below was taken near the old Elbow Cay Club on the Sea of Abaco. The islands close by are called the Parrot Cays, and the island in the distance is Man-O-War Cay. That is a sailboat between the islands, and as it got closer we saw it was only sailing with a very small jib and no main, and yet it was still flying downwind.

Then we found one lone surfer on the ocean side off of the Abaco Inn. We never did get to see him catch a wave, even though we were yelling encouragement to him..."Here comes one!" or "Catch the next one, it's perfect!" "Ahhh...you missed it." Not that he could hear us from up on the ridge road above the beach.😉  The waves are predicted to be up to 16ft. today, so I bet there will be more surfers heading out to this popular spot. Perhaps we should go encourage them too!

It's hard to tell the size of the waves in the photos, but they sure were pretty with the touch of west in the wind blowing the spray backwards. This photo doesn't do it justice. We'll just have to try again tomorrow.

Along the way we stopped at the landing in White Sound, where barges bring in supplies to this end of the island. They also accumulate junk to be removed. Can you find the tractor somewhere in this photo?

The guys were looking for old license plates, but couldn't find any this time. How about what's left of a washing machine instead?

However, they did find this pool that we couldn't figure out if it was coming or going. I can tell that they are trying to figure out how to put an outboard motor on it and turn it into a boat!

"Great minds think alike."

Let's Have A Picnic!

Our good friend Wendy superimposed me into her photo of her backyard up home today. At 9 AM she had 7"of snow. Other friends from the higher elevations reported 19" this afternoon. I may be there virtually, but in real life I'm glad I'm down here!

Fast Paced

Dave may not be going very fast in the Sunfish class, but he is flying in the cruising class on our friend Milton's Capris 25 Sunrise. You may recall that they placed first during quite a few of the races last year, receiving the prestigious Boat of the Year award. This season the race committee has changed their handicap a bit, but they are still coming in second most of the time. Will Heyer took these fantastic photos...