Dear Friends and Family,
Jimi - The mighty fisherman – huh huh huh! O.k. Mmmm, maybe
not, but he tries real hard and never gives up. Jimi caught a fish once; a
really big fish,
sometime during the 90’s. He was on a commercial
fishing trip in Mexico with his brother and sister-in-law. He says he used up
all his fishing luck the day he caught that fish and hasn’t been able to catch
anything since. This isn’t entirely true. In the Dry Tortugas he caught a fish,
but it was sooo cute I had him throw it back and he’s caught so many barracuda
we’ve lost count. Some of the barracuda have gotten away with our lures even. During
one of his most recent barracuda fishing tales, as he began reeling the line
the barracuda jumped out of the water, hook in mouth, flew over the dighy,
clear over Jimi’s head and landed back in the water on the other side of the
dinghy. He was then able to finish reeling it in all just to release it. We
don’t eat barracuda because of ciguatera poisoning. 
We began collecting sea glass.
We set sail with high hopes of making a fifty-six nautical
mile jump to Acklins Island. The adventure began before we could even get out
of the cut to Little Harbor. With a strong current moving in one direction and
high winds in another direction Sanibel was fighting to stay on course. And if
that wasn’t enough excitement, I set Molly in the cockpit as she was loudly
voicing her opinion below deck thinking she would want to be with us. As soon
as I set her on the cockpit floor she lost her breakfast; cat vomit covered a
small area of the floor and as Sanibel rocked, it rolled. I grabbed the paper
towels and came above proceeding to clean up the mess. As I was doing so my
knee hit the auto pilot button. I had us set on a course straight for the
rocks. Jimi’s trying to steer, but it’s not working -----what’s going on? In a
flash he realized what had happened, turned off the autopilot and with all his
strength turned the wheel to get us back on course. It was still rough; it hadn’t calmed yet and
cat vomit was still rolling. One of the best things to do when motoring to calm
the motion is put up some sail – check – I took the helm fighting to stay on a
course of 110° to
120° while Jimi was trying
to wrangle lines and maneuver around in the cockpit only to find himself
face to face with cat vomit every time. With life vest and harness on he went
to raise the mizzen. The waves were hitting the side of our bow causing a sideways
jolt; Jimi was having a hard time hanging on and putting up the mizzen. He
hollered “in to the nose”, ignoring the compass, I turned our nose straight in
to the waves and it was then he could raise the mizzen. He took over the helm,
I cleaned up cat vomit and we bobbed around in heavy winds and high seas rest
of the day (I slept in the cockpit through most of it). While all seemed well
above deck below deck was another story. Salt water collected in the hallway
(aka the tunnel) and the liter box tipped over spilling everywhere. Molly was
calmly tucked away in my berth; she slept soundly there most of the trip. Later
Jimi found that the chain and line for our extra anchor, which is mounted on
the starboard side of the bow, fell over; we were dragging anchor chain and
line off our starboard side. Who knows how long this went on. It’s clear the
chain and line were banging on our hull side, as they are covered in toxic blue
bottom paint. Last, but not least we thought something had gone awry with the
wind generator. It spinned, but no energy was being produced until Jimi
inspected everything the next day and found all on perfect working order. It
must have been a fluke due to lack of sleep. We arrived safely (floating and in one piece)
at 1:30am; though, Jimi was a little frazzled at the intensity of the evening
trip. It was dark…I mean real dark. No lantern hanging in the sky this night
and the stars were barely visible. Jimi had to navigate and sail dealing with
not only the seas, winds and potential obstacles, but without light.
We’re here in Acklins Island – another secluded location of
the Bahamas. Originally we thought we would leave after a good night’s sleep,
but that is not going to happen. We are going to stay here a couple of days to
give Jimi time to recoup and check out a few things with Sanibel.
We think we are
changing our plans. We’ve been fighting our way southeast for months now and
with summer upon us I don’t think it’s going to get any easier. All would be
well if we were willing to motor, but we are not. We would rather keep our
dollars in the bank rather than stuffing them in a diesel tank.
We’ve come up with a few options:
1.) Head West sailing across the
northern coast of Cuba.
2.) Sail North back to Georgetown,
stay there for a month or so, then sail down the Jumentos and West across the
northern coast of Cuba.
3.) Head West sailing across the northern coast of
Cuba and then North to Marathon, Florida. Hang there for a few months during
hurricane season.
It’s not yet decided, but I think we are looking at combing
option numbers 2 and 3. Sailing back up to Georgetown, spend a couple more
weeks there, then explore the Jumentos chain, cut across the northern coast of
Cuba and back to Marathon for three months of the hurricane season.
We’ll let you know.
Love everybody,
Lorie & Jimi
Update: During our evening TV last night we heard a lot of
splashing outside. We went outside to investigate. Fish everywhere leaping out
of the water all around Sanibel. Yep….it was feeding time. Jimi said he was
going to throw a spoon on a hand line to see what he could catch. Right away he
caught a good size fish. We are so pleased Jimi’s fishing luck may be coming
back. Molly is happy too!
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