sailing back to Florida...literally

We alluded cryptically in a previous blog to "engine problems" encountered in Georgetown. In reality, we lost mechanical propulsion as a result of a massive failure of the drive train. After consulting with various experts, we determined we could not properly do the repairs locally, and decided our best course of action was to sail the boat back to a specialized yard in West Palm Beach. Fortunately, my sailing buddy Guy was on his way to join us on Bon Vent for a leisurely cruise back to the USA, which turned out into a more robust version of the original plan. After checking out the weather forecast to ascertain steady easterlies for the week long return voyage, as well as the tides to help us negotiating the passes between the Exuma Sound and the shallower bank, we eased our way out of Victoria harbour under sail early morning. We did the 300 miles trip in three legs, the last one from Nassau to the Florida coast, including the overnight crossing of the Florida strait. Once safely ensconced in the Victoria Beach harbour, we got ourselves towed to the yard, and got hauled out immediately as the boat was leaking water from the damaged stern tube. Bon Vent is now resting "on the hard", and the repairs can proceed. We were fortunate in our misfortune that the accident happened in Georgetown, that we had access to a support network of boaters, that the weather cooperated for the trip back, and mostly that we had Guy on board to help us out. It was also a grand occasion to give wings to our boat, and the pure sailing over the 4 days and 2 nights of the return trip was for the most part a glorious conclusion to our first season on the water. See you all next year!

The Mecca of cruisers

Georgetown, on Great Exuma Island in the Bahamas, is where boaters congregate in the hundreds during the winter months. There are a number of reasons for this: the place is "boater friendly" and the surroundings amenable to all kinds of recreational activities, including snorkelling, fishing, beachcombing, people watching, etc...; Elizabeth harbour between Great Exuma and Stocking Islands creates a huge and safe space for anchoring and wait out the strong westerlies and northerlies that attend to the winter cold fronts and depressions. After Georgetown, one encounters deeper waters and more remote destinations calling for overnight crossings, potentially rougher seas, and stronger winds, so a lot of folks just chill out the winter months enclosed comfortably in this safe harbour, before returning North or West. And finally Georgetown is a port of entry to the Bahamas, with an international airport allowing for changes of crew.

Accordingly, as the lure and lore of Georgetown inexorably pulls mariners down the Exuma Keys, the number of boats has steadily grown over the years with an equal component of repeat and first-time visitors. This "floating" community is very organized and structured, starting every day with a cruisers net on VHF radio, community events, regattas, cook outs, workshops, crafts, volleyball games, and the toing and going of friends and acquaintances visiting on each others' boats, or going in town to do the groceries, fill water jugs, connect to the internet, or visit the laundromat. Dinghy traffic, water taxis, sailboats and trawlers, and the ubiquitous Bahamian mailboats make this place very busy all days of the week, some say too busy. But it is fun nonetheless, and since everything in Georgetown revolves around the boaters and their needs, there is a symbiosis between those that floats and the landlubbers that is quaint and somewhat unique. For instance, most retailers (there are not that many as this is indeed a small place) participate in the cruisers net, and are expected to sponsor various boating events. Because there are so many boats in the harbour, one can find parts and expertise to make the routine, or not so routine repairs, and there is no shortage of goodwill in helping boaters in difficulty...as we found ourselves when we had an engine problem entering the harbour.

Of course there are downsides to all these snowbirds being in one place: pollution, noise, congestion, and loss of authenticity in the Bahamian way of life, although one must say that the Chat and Chill cafe on "VolleyBall Beach", and the Peace and Plenty Beach Club have not entirely lost their islands' flavour with menus of home-made conch salads, fried fish served with rice and peas, rum-based drinks, and chilled Bahamian beer.

For us too, this is as far South and East we will go this year, before making our way back to Florida where we will haul the boat out for storage until next season...

Food on the islands

Before we left the United States, we tried to stock up so that we would not have to buy food on the islands where everything is soooo expensive! For example, a loaf of commercial bread costs $8.00 Bahamian currency (same as U.S.), same as for a box of Corn Flakes.

What do we buy then at the grocery store? Tomatoes and green peppers, for sure, and we usually go at the meat counter and purchase frozen meat, such as mouton which is delicious and poultry. The other day the store offered pig ears. Now, how would you serve that? With jam? And pig feet? Hum...

Plantains are good and I serve them as chips during cocktail hour.

In George Town there is Mom's van. The back of her van is lined floor to ceiling with racks holding trays of her baked goods: white bread, whole-wheat bread, muffins, cakelike coconut bread, rum cake and doughnuts. And mom gives big hugs to all her customers.

And what about conch? The queen conch is a cornerstone of Bahamian cuisine, and the islands bear the proof: mounds of empty conch shells, the mottled cream and tan exteriors and pearly pink interiors bleaching white in the sun. The shells can be up to a foot long, though most are no bigger than eight or nine inches. Each one has a small telltale hole chiseled between its short blunt spikes - where a knife was inserted to server the tendon so the tasty inhabitant could be pulled out. Conch meat is flattened, tenderized and hung in the sun to dry. Cured this way, it will apparently last without refrigeration for a year. The meat is sweet and mild somewhere between clam and calamari in its taste and chewy texture and widely acclaimed as an aphrodisiac. Conch salad is a mainstay of beach side lunch staples.

Other dishes we've tried are Bahamian Mac and cheese and Bahamian Peas 'n Rice. And what about christofen root, an excellent alternative to potatoes. We had it in a beef stew, and it gave texture to the gravy. I don't know if Bahamian comfort food will ever make it on the curriculum of Cordon Bleu haute cuisine school, but we are certainly enjoying the flavors of island cooking. The home cooked Bahamian bread we bought in Black Point, Great Iguana was arguably the best tasting we had for a long time.

Where is everybody?

"The place is dying" said the friendly Bahamian who gave us a lift in town from the marina where Bon Vent is moored, "nobody is coming anymore". I had also noticed last spring in the Eastern Carribean the relative desolation of ghostly resorts and half empty bars, but in the Exumas, it is an extreme case of emptiness. We are in a marina that has room for 180 boats, and there are fewer than 35 or 40 boats in the harbour, waiting for (another) cold front to pass us by. The Sandals resort next door stands almost completely empty, and in the four days we have spent here, I may have seen perhaps 2 or 3 foursomes plying the Greg Norman designed (and gorgeous) golf course on the property. Mind you, at $150 per round, who can afford it anyway. The restaurants have one or two tables occupied, lunch or evening. Many are closed. It is probably here, in the out islands, where available disposable income is the drive for people to come and spend time and money "in paradise", that the global economic morass can be most acutely felt, affecting the hundreds of invariably friendly and smiling Bahamians on Great Exuma Key that rely on tourism to make a living. Even Victoria Harbour in Georgetown has much fewer boats than usual, perhaps half as many. Curiously the Canadians are still coming, possibly lured by the visible presence of ScotiaBank and the Royal Bank who seem to have cornered the retail banking market in the Bahamas. The situation is not helped either by the ghastly weather down south this winter, which is not an incentive to contact your travel agent to arrange for a week in the sun. Where is everybody, and when will people come back is the recurrent question here. Meanwhile, the boom and bust of halted property development means a lot of sunk capital in stalled projects and bankrupt ventures.

Iguanas and hutias

There are reputedly 365 cays in the Bahamas most of them uninhabited. Many of them are surrounded by coral reefs, therefore off limits to Bon Vent. From Highbourne Cay Marina, we travel a few miles North to the next cluster of islands. We anchor between Allan's and Leaf Cays and get acquainted with the prehistoric iguanas that are the only inhabitants of the islands. We are not alone as there are about 15 other boats anchored there. Tourist boats arrive daily from Nassau with their loads of eager tourists, and visitors are asked not to feed the iguanas, however it seems everyone does (we did as well!). The iguanas seeing the tourists come out from the bushes and approach the people to get fed. But we have to watch out as they can bite, and they run surprisingly fast. One iguana apparently jumped in someone's dinghy we were told. And they are not so pretty!

On our second night of anchorage at Allan's, a cold front (again!) approaches us and we are not able to sleep as the boat rocks all night long with the surge from the bank. In the morning, we get out of there and continue our voyage and anchor at Shroud Cay on a mooring ball, but the wind is so strong and the sea rough, the boat sways from side to side and we sleep poorly for another night. As soon as the sun has risen the next morning we continue to Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (also called Warderick Wells Park) where we are lucky to get a mooring ball as the place is so popular. This park is a No Take Zone and marine protected area. Finally, bliss in a protected harbor... we spend our first afternoon on a walking trail and take beautiful pictures. Nocturnal hutias, the only land mammal native to the Bahamas, live on this island. Loyalist ruins on the southwest side can be seen and the famous BooBoo Hill (where visiting boats leave a memento) and a spectacular blow hole are also found on the island.

The weather forecast is rather stormy for the rest of the week, so we may end up staying in this little paradise for a few days...

Les Exumas: log du capitaine

Toujours soumis à la tyrannie des dépressions et fronts à répétition, un créneau s'ouvre pour traverser aux Exumas, avant un méchant coup de vent qui se prépare pour le week-end. Quelques bateaux de la marina ayant décidé de tenter le sort, je décide de lancer les dés: nous partons. Cette traversée, certes courte, se fera dans des eaux peu profondes, et le soleil doit être au rendez-vous pour nous permettre de voir, et d’éviter les patates de corail qui jonchent la route. Nous nous en tirons comme des pros, et ancrons en fin d’après-midi dans Oyster Bay, au sud de l’île Highborne, dans le nord de l’archipel des Exumas. Après une nuit tranquille, nous captons sur radio VHF les prévisions météos émises par la marina voisine, qui nous confirment que le coup de vent d’ouest sera bel et bien au rendez-vous plus tard dans la journée. Malheureusement, l’ancrage de Oyster Bay, quoique fort joli, est exposé aux vents d’ouest, donc il faut se préparer. Je communique avec la marina pour réserver une place, mais on me dit que c’est complet, et que je suis sur une liste d’attente. Au cas où il faudra faire face au mauvais temps à l’ancre, je décide de placer une seconde ancre...et les ennuis commencent. Le câble d’ancre se coince dans l’hélice qui coupe le cordage, non sans s’être enroulé sur l’arbre, bref, il me faut plonger pour dégager le tout. Entre-temps, ma belle ancre Fortress se retrouve orpheline dans 25 pieds d’eau! Je passe une heure dans un courant de jusant de 2 noeuds à nager en rond pour la retrouver, et après une tentative infructueuse de plongée (la pression sur mes oreilles est intense, et je constate que je ne peux plonger en eau profonde), Lise m’aide à l’accrocher avec un grappin à partir du dinghy. Nous remontons le tout. Trois heures ont passé, et je suis tout simplement épuisé d’avoir passé presque tout ce temps dans l’eau à me battre contre le courant. Mais tout n’est pas perdu, car la marina nous rappelle pour nous dire qu’ils peuvent nous acceuillir, donc nous levons l’ancre dans un vent qui commence à se lever, et nous entrons dans la sécurité du bassin de la marina.

Le lendemain, après une nuit où le vent a poussé des pointes à 40 noeuds (il est bien rassurant d‘être à quai dans ces circonstances), nous nous rendons à la plage réputée de l’endroit...et c’est tout ce que nous espérions trouver dans les Exumas, et plus encore. La photo jointe en témoigne. C’est un hiver pourri, même dans les Bahamas, mais il y a, on en conviendra, des compensations...

De Bimini à Nassau

Nous quittons Bimini le lundi 8 février après avoir dit au revoir à bien des nouveaux amis et au seul chauffeur de taxi de Bimini- Scooper Taxi - qui nous a bien fait rire avec sa personnalité unique.

A Bimini, on m'a invitée à pêcher des conques, à la marée basse, près d'un îlot en face de la marina. Les conques se cachent dans les plantes aquatiques, mais avec l'aide de mes amies, j'ai pu en ramasser une jolie collection, qu'il a fallu ensuite nettoyer, avec l'aide bougonne du capitaine. Quel boulot! Mais nous ramenons avec nous de magnifiques specimens que nous conservons précieusement sur le voilier.

Nous avons finalement quitté Bimini, entre deux dépressions atmosphériques, pour faire la traversée du Grand Bahama Bank vers l'île de Providence en tandem avec Denis et Guy de Québec voyageant sur un Gulf Star 42. Denis, le capitaine du voilier, avait animé nos soirées à la marina de Bimini en installant un Karaoke sur le quai, à mon grand plaisir. Nous avons quitté au petit matin et fait une traversée de nuit pour arriver à Nassau à 7 h. Nous étions fatigués du voyage, mais avons quand même pris nos cliques et nos claques et sommes allés luncher au restaurant Poop Deck, une institution locale. Malgré son nom qui nous fait penser à autre chose, nous avons bien mangé. Puis nous nous sommes rendus dans le vieux Nassau pour voir les paquebots gigantesques amarrés à la gare maritime. Nous avons pu voir les boutiques hors-taxes autour de ces quais à touristes - Cartier, Versace, Chanel, Dior, etc. Nous avons aussi parcouru le célèbre marché aux paniers d'osier. Que dire de Nassau, sinon que c'est la capitale des Bahamas et une grande ville - l'on trouve tout ce qu'on veut à prix fort, mais c'est un peu trop agité à notre goût.

Avant de quitter pour les Exumas, nous voulons visiter l'aquarium du complexe Atlantis dans Paradise Island qui est tout à côté, et qu'apparemment "il faut voir". Nous prévoyons quitter mercredi le 10 février vers les Exumas et nous ne savons jamais à l'avance si nous aurons de la connectivité. Ici à Nassau, nous afficherons notre page de blogue à un café Starbucks qui possède le Wi-Fi.

Ce soir nous éteindrons les feux tôt pour une bonne nuit de sommeil, pour récupérer de nos 24 heures de trajet. Bonne nuit!

Welcome to the Bahamas, Mon!

On Saturday a weather window opens to leave for the Bahamas just before a cold front moving in. We make our final preparations. When the captain goes to the marina in the dinghy to fetch water to top up the tanks before the departure, he encounters a mother and a baby manatee swimming near the water pump. How lucky of him to have been able to see them so close. These huge, slow-moving, wrinkled mammals with whiskery snouts and elephant bodies are also called sea cows and are none too bright. They were swimming trustingly up to the captain's dinghy and he was able to scratch them and noted they had moss covered bodies with scars from being hit by the props of passing watercrafts.

So we depart at 9 a.m. with another sailboat to do the crossing together for safety purposes. It's not the distance that makes the crossing difficult - 130 miles from Marathon to Bimini where we plan to land in the Bahamas - but rather the Gulf Stream: a 40-mile-wide river of warm water that flows northeastward, hugging the Coast of Florida at speeds of up to 4.5 knots. The Gulf Stream can make the crossing miserable. When the wind is out of the northeast, north, or northwest, it collides with the north-flowing current and sets up white elephants - steep, square, often dangerous and always stomach-churning waves. So you have to wait for a weather "window" to open to envision crossing the stream, usually the 36 hours preceding the passage of a cold front when the winds veer to the south east, then south, west and north west, and north for a couple of days after the passage of the front, before settling back to the dominant easterlies.

We cross under full sails with a 15 knots south, southwest wind which means that we encounter big waves, but nothing dangerous, and Bon Vent is going a steady 7 knots. My sea legs are not yet established after a couple months of placid anchorages in Florida, so I manage to be seasick.

We arrive at South Bimini at 2 a.m. on Sunday morning and have to anchor since the entrance to the harbour is not recommended at night. We proceed in a "protected" nook of South Bimini island, with strong winds pushing us toward the island, never a reassuring situation to be in. We're in the dark and can't see anything. Our sails are lowered with difficulty. After we safely drop the hook in the designated anchorage, all night the boat is pitching and rolling with crosswaves and nothing seems to stay put in the boat.

At 8 a.m. we can't stay where we are with all this rock and rolling, so we, along with our buddy boat tread the passage to Alice Town with its shallow sandbar on one side and rocks on the other where we enter and will need to clear customs. The water is calm, but in the afternoon it starts pouring and the temperature goes down. So the cold front they were announcing reaches us anyway. At 6 p.m. the wind picks up to force 6 (25 knots) and the boat moves a lot on its anchorage. The captain is not happy and is going through one of his cussing moods.

The next morning the boat has moved on its anchor and we need to get out of there to avoid hitting another boat. Torrential rain starts pouring down as we lift the anchor and move out.

We arrive in a marina where the majority of boaters are from Canada: Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, British Columbia - amazing! From 5 to 7 pm the boaters gather and Denis from Quebec Ciry starts a karaoke and eveyone sings along and dance and have a drink with munchies. What fun and laughter after these difficult days!

But the rain continues its downpour and we hope that tomorrow will be sunny!

We wake up the next morning with the sun smiling at us. It will be a beautiful day.

Welcome to Paradise!

Les Keys de Floride

Un avant-goût des eaux vertes et peu profondes des bancs des Bahamas, un laisser-aller, un rythme lent pourrait-on dire, qui rappelle la langueur des îles des petites Antilles, une végétation tropicale qui s'épanche sous l'alizé (sauf bien sûr quand un front froid nous rappelle que l‘hiver continental est tout proche), la plongée en apnée sur les récifs coralliens (en relativement bonne santé), des pêches parfois miraculeuses, des couchers de soleil, célébrés quasi religieusement tous les soirs (le capitaine soufflant dans sa corne de brume), et qui enflamment l'horizon du Golfe du Mexique, mais aussi l'accès relativement aisé aux biens et services qui facilitent l'avitaillement des voiliers, - après tout on est encore aux E.-U. d'Amérique -, bienvenue dans les Keys, cette extension quasi tropicale de la Floride continentale qui chatouille Cuba à 100 kilomètres au large de La Havane, porte d'entrée des paradis de la plaisance qui s'étendent sur 1500 milles du Nord-ouest au Sud-est , de Bimini bordant le détroit de Floride en face de Fort Lauderdale, à Trinidad au fond de la mer des Caraïbes, juste au large du Vénézuela. Bien sûr, il y a le kitsch charmant de Key West, même dans ses excès et sa décadence, mais les Keys offrent aussi des ancrages sauvages, le fort Jefferson dans les Dry Tortugas, la richesse obscène de Key Biscayne, et le magnifique port de Boot Harbour à Marathon, où Bon Vent est amarré sur un tangon depuis dix jours, en compagnie de plus de 250 voiliers, certains en attente d‘un créneau météo favorable pour la traversée aux Bahamas, à Cuba ou vers le Yucatan, d‘autres installés à demeure, leur bateau incrusté de bernacles, immobiles et contents. Après les froids intenses du début de Janvier, - au point de faire chuter la température de l’eau de plus de 30 degrés F -, après avoir campé dans la cabine (chauffée)de notre voilier pendant une semaine à Naples, après une descente glaciale (mais néanmoins sublime) le long des Everglades, le temps s’est mis au beau, comme il se doit dans les îles, et bateau et équipage ont “sombré” dans une certaine indolence, temporaire rassurez-vous, notre départ vers les Bahamas étant prévu dans quelques jours...

Comme il a été mentionné dans un blog précédent, il y a toujours beaucoup à faire sur Bon Vent, et ce court séjour dans le havre protégé de Boot Harbour nous aura permis de revernir les planchers et diverses boiseries, celles de l’extérieur étant particulièrement pâlies par les rayons UV, et ternies par les embruns d’eau salée. Et bien sûr, qui dit séjour au port dit aussi vacances de cuisine à bord, les dîners à l’extérieur nous permettant de goûter poissons, crustacés et fruits de mer disponibles en abondance dans les gargotes de l‘endroit. La marina municipale de Marathon est un lieu tout à fait spécial. Les bateaux étant sur tangons dans la baie, chacun se déplace en annexe pour accéder aux services, et le quai d’amarrage des dinghys donne parfois l’impression qu’une chatte n’y retrouverait pas ses chatons, comme on dit. Ditto pour les supports de bicyclettes. C’est comme une petite ville, avec un net d’information sur radio marine VHF tous les matins à 9 heures, des navettes marines qui vident toutes les semaines les fosses d’eaux usées des bateaux (la qualité de l‘eau dans le port est relativement bonne), des activités communautaires (yoga, balle molle, artisanat), des marchés aux puces, un échange de livres, des tables communes pour se connecter à l’internet, un atelier de réparation “do it yourself”, et bien sûr la course quotidienne pour accéder aux douches et aux machines du lavoir. Mais tout cela est fort sympathique et l’atmosphère reste bon enfant, malgré l'agitation.

A propos Bon Vent

Some readers have asked to know more about Bon Vent, her systems, moods and idiosyncrasies. After all, she is our vacation home, our mode of transport, and our hobby.

Bon Vent is a 42 foot center cockpit sloop, built in 2002 by Beneteau in St. Hilaire de Reiz, France. Center cockpit boats have the advantage of allowing for a very roomy aft cabin, which is the master bedroom, with en suite "head" and a stall shower, quite a luxury. In addition, center cockpit boats are well protected from the elements, and Bon Vent has a fixed "dodger", essentially a kind of windshield that prevents spray to douse the crew. The aft section creates a platform on deck which retracts to give access to steps to a swimming and loading platform, at the water edge. This is very convenient for accessing the dinghy to move around when at anchor or on a mooring ball, which is most of the time. When underway, the dinghy is hoisted on davits on the stern, and this apparatus also serves to support solar panels to supplement our power requirements.

Bon Vent, despite being 42' (11.60 m) long is still a relatively small boat for “live aboards“. Quarters are tight, space is at a premium, and all operating systems need to fit in nooks and crannies. This means keeping to a rigid discipline about bringing "stuff" aboard, provisioning, clothes, books, and personal items. Books for example rotate in and out of the boat, and most marinas provide "library" space for boaters to exchange books.

Speaking of systems, boats are quite complex operations with separate and complementary systems for propulsion (power and sail), power (AC and DC), fresh water (including "water making" for those that can afford it), hot water, grey and brown waste water management, various pumps to move the water, fuel for cooking, secondary transportation by dinghy with outboard, electronics for navigation and communication (VHF, satellite phones, and short waves), reverse cycle heating and air conditioning, refrigeration, etc...

In a typical house, most of the water, electricity, communication and heating is "plug and use", with municipal or provincial utilities providing water, sewers, consumer waste pick-up, communication, fuel (if one uses gas) and power. Not so on a boat where self reliance is the name of the game. Curiously, one of the most difficult system to manage properly is household waste, and how to dispose of it responsibly, especially when cruising undeveloped islands...

For instance and as illustration, auxiliary propulsion for Bon Vent is 54 HP Yanmar diesel engine, but we also have a separate inboard diesel generator, and an outboard for a total of three motors, with the need to store both diesel fuel and gasoline, and spare parts; cooking is done using propane, which needs to be kept in a ventilated space to prevent the risk of a leak in the bilge; there are over 10 water and bilge pumps on board, seven of which electrical; 2 waste water reservoirs, and 2 drinking water tanks, 5 sails and associated running rigging, 4 winches one of which is electrical, 1 electrical windlass and three anchors, 1 electrically driven "bow thrusters", 1 radar, one onboard computer for navigation supported by 2 laptops, 2 spare GPS units, depth sounder, water and wind speed indicators, automatic pilot and hydraulic steering system (but no wind vane), 7 water filtration units for fresh water, 2 air conditioning and engine cooling units, 2 diesel fuel filtration systems with a primary and secondary unit, etc..., etc...You can just imagine the maintenance schedule, which runs for pages and pages, keeping captain and crew quite busy.

By the way, Bon Vent has its own ensign flag, captured on the photo attached, proudly flying of the starboard shrouds. It was designed by our friend Glenda Murray at the Canadian Chemical Producers Association, recently renamed the Canadian Chemical Industries Association: Responsible Care is alive and well in the Florida Keys!

But what about the sailing qualities of Bon Vent, you may be wondering. Bon Vent is certainly not a racing boat, but she sails comfortably, safely and reasonably fast as long as there is 10 knots of wind. The boat does not heel excessively, and is “seakindly”. I would love to have a staysail in addition to my rolling genoa, but this came as an option on the original boat, and the retrofit is expensive, so I am doing without for now. We have an assymetrical spinnaker for light winds in reaching or downwind conditions, which we have affectionately nicknamed “The Sock” as it is hoisted by opening up a sock like contraption to allow the light sail to deploy, and “conversely snuffs“ the sail when hoisted down. We normally cruise under sail at 6-7 knots, but sometimes Eole, the ancient wind God smiles on us, and we do 8 knots, which is like flying, kind of...

I can think of very few idiosyncrasies, except of course the usual funny business with marine heads, but I will spare readers the details...that specific maintenance task

is always the captain’s to do, for some reason, on all the boats I have been on, and this boat is no exception!

Ah yes, all sailors dream of their ”next boat”, and we have seen quite a few nice ones in the past few months. But Bon Vent is our home for now, and with proper care (and lots of maintenance!), we expect her to be an integral component of our adventures for the foreseeable future.

Capt. CAL

Les Everglades de Floride

Nous avons tous cette vision de la Floride sillonnée d’autoroutes, tapissée de condos, maquillée de parcs d’amusement et de mini-golfs, infestée de touristes qui se font rôtir la bedaine sur des plages surpeuplées, et incrustée de centres commerciaux dont les plus courus sont les “outlets”. Mais il y a une autre Floride, à laquelle nous avons déjà fait allusion dans un blog précédent, celle de plages immaculées et vides, de villages de pêche authentiques, et de paysages sauvages où la faune et la flore s’imposent sans être autrement dérangées par une présence humaine on ne peut plus discrète. Cette Floride se trouve sur la côte ouest, dans ce qu’on appelle le Panhandle, et dans l’extrême nord et le sud de la péninsule.

Nous quittons le luxe et le confort de Naples le 11 Janvier (bonne fête Georges!), dans un froid qui ne lâche pas prise, direction Everglades City, ou plus précisément Indian Key dans le parc national des Everglades. Après une journée de voile sans histoire, nous entrons dans le canal de Indian Key où nous nous ancrons dans une baie parsemée d’îles, sans âme qui vive. Les dauphins nous ont accompagnés pour une partie du voyage, comme ile le feront le lendemain plus bas dans les Everglades. Curieusement, les Everglades sont boisés sur la côte ouest, contrastant avec cette autre image d’immenses champs d’herbes poussant dans des marécages infestés de crocodiles. Il faut dire qu’avec ce froid sibérien (ou canadien), les crocodiles comme les iguanes sont probablement en hibernation (comme il appert de la photo jointe)...D’ailleurs le lendemain matin, par une température extérieure de 34 degrés F, je vérifie la température de l’eau qui marque 44 degrés! L’eau est jonchée de poissons morts qui flottent à l’envers, et d’autres qui nagent à la surface paresseusement, gelés. il faut dire que les eaux du golfe sont peu profondes, et qu’après trois semaines de froid, dont la dernière qui a battu des records absolus, l’eau est glacée, et les poissons aussi.

Le lendemain donc, nous quittons les paysages idylliques et sauvages de Indian River pour nous diriger vers Little Shark River, la seule escale possible pour notre bateau jusqu’à Marathon dans les Keys. Dans cet ancrage, nous avons la compagnie de trois autres voiliers et d’un trawler. Ce matin il fait un peu moins froid, et la météo prévoit un retour aux normales saisonnières dans quelques jours. Nous pourrons alors ranger foulards, tuques et mitaines, et retrouver cette Floride des Keys, celle des bedaines à l’air et des fins d’après-midi langoureux à déguster un pastis sur le pont de Bon Vent...

vache de mer

Le lamantin

Nous avons vu notre premier lamantin (manatee en anglais) à Lover's Key à Fort Myers. Quelle surprise, ce n'est pas un animal que l'on qualifie de ¨beau¨ au premier abord. Il ne répond pas aux critères esthétiques habituels, avec sa taille énorme et ses déplacements lents. C'est un mammifère herbivore, au corps fuselé, vivant en eaux littorales peu profondes. Son faciès large et son mode d'alimentation lui vaut parfois le surnom de ¨vache de mer¨ (sea cow).

Nager, dormir, brouter, se câliner, ainsi va la vie du lamantin. C'est un animal pacifique. Ses journées se déroulent tranquillement dans les eaux chaudes des Antilles ou de la Floride, où il broute l'herbe du fond des mers. Le lamantin aime se faire caresser par les plongeurs. C'est malheureusement cette proximité avec les humains qui fait de lui une espèce menacée, à coups de coques de bateaux ou de filets de pêche. Il est donc sensible à son environnement.

Le lamantin est une origine souvent avancée pour expliquer la légende des sirènes : son corps peut en effet laisser penser à un buste de femme, surtout par des marins ayant navigué pendant des mois. De même que le chant des sirènes est assimilé à celui des lamantins, il serait en effet comparé à une lamentation. La forme de la queue des sirènes serait, quant à elle, plutôt due à celle des dugongs, cousins des lamentins.

A quand notre prochaine rencontre cher lamantin, déjà je m'ennuie de toi! Tu es laid, et pourtant si beau...
　

deep freeze in Florida

The waiter at the smart French bistro in Naples summed it up best: "I have not turned up the heat at my house in the past 5 years, but last night my wife said, if you don't heat up this place, I am out of here". Yes folks, it is cold in Florida. The manatees are congregating at the outfalls of power plant in the hope of finding warm water, the pelicans are puffing themselves up to insulate their skin from the cold, the bars are enclosing their terraces in plastic, with patrons huddling under patio heaters, fishing boat captains are moaning about the lack of customers, and the crew of Bon Vent is hiding inside the cabin with the reverse cycle air conditioning blowing warm air night and day to keep us cozy and comfy. By now you may have read that Florida's vegetable and citrus crops are being sprayed to create a coat of ice to protect them from the deep freeze at night, that Jacksonville hit 25F, that it snowed in the Panhandle, and that even Miami and Key West are buffeted by relentless Northerly winds. Ok, enough you say, after all it is colder still in Canada, the Northen States, and Europe for that matter, but if records of cold weather are being broken in the South, that is news all right, and we did not bargain for that when we left the Great Lakes for supposedly balmy climes, to spend our first winter sailing southern waters with ski parkas!

Before sailing to Naples a couple of days ago, we spent a month behind Estero Island, on a mooring ball in the Bay, close to the action of funky Fort Myers Beach, with lots of bars and restaurants, magnificent beaches, superb sunsets, great seashell gathering, and the companionship of our fellow sailors we had met in previous stopovers.

We spent a week in Eastern Florida, renting an apartment in Pembroke Pines to taste the comforts taken for granted by landlubbers and gorge ourselves on "Pollo Tropical", a fast food joint that has long been the favourite of the Captain. We cooked lamb for the Christmas meal and spent time with Georges, CA's dad. We hosted Guillaume, CA's younger son on Bon Vent for a week. All in all, a nice rest and change in the routine for the crew.

The festivities of Christmas and the New Year were fun, as usual, with a "bon enfant" spirit permeating the large crowd that congregated in Fort Myers Beach' Times Squares, on the beach, listening to a rock band, before the traditional waterworks launched from the citiy pier lit the sky greeting the New Year. It was not NYC, but it was warmer...until the next day when the cold blanketed Southern Florida.

The run from Fort Myers Beach to Naples, with Guillaume joining along, was at least done under sunny skies, with the biting Northerlies in our back. With Guillaume back to Canada to start his winter semester at Bishops', both of us are now preparing to another night crossing, this time to Key West, hoping to finally reach a latitude when we can kiss goodbye to cold fronts.

Happy New Year, from the deck of Bon Vent!