Hatches and Portholes

While proper ventilation is critical to a happy cruising life, it is important to remember that not only air can pass through your hatches and portholes. 

The foredeck hatch is the most important hatch to maintain. This hatch is the furthest from the cockpit, so its situation often goes ignored. This hatch is also the closest to the bow, so it is the most likely to see ocean spray coming up and possibly into the forward cabin! 

As a rule, we always close the forward hatch when raising or lowering headsails. I simply loosen the struts that keep it open and let the lid fall closed. I do this not to keep water out, but to keep the sails and all their control lines from fouling the open hatch and torquing it. Sheets and downhauls have a tendency to loop around the open hatch and present a problem while raising the sail. By simply closing the hatch, all of these problems are minimized. 

Sadly, if you are going out in large seas, simply lowering the hatch will not suffice. A large wave over the bow will push a sheet of water over the deck. When this water reaches the unlocked hatch, it will force it open just enough to let water pour in through the hole. In our case, this pours right in on our V-berth, soaking the mattress and our pillows.  

Now, our rule is to dog the hatch down as well as close it when raising sails. If the weather seems settled and calm, the hatch can always be opened. But if the weather is rough, we don't have to "remember to dog the forward hatch" as we are holding on to the teeter totter motion of the boat in large seas. 

Natural Bottom Cleaning

While in the Bahamas, I noticed that our bottom is staying cleaner than normal. Usually, I need to give our hull a quick scrub down with a soft broom every week, and if I stretch it out, to two weeks, there will be fuzzy growth present.

We have now been in the Bahamas for a few weeks, and anchored for most of it. Being anchored and not sailing in warm tropical waters is a recipe for bottom growth, yet our bottom has maintained itself as clean as the day we launched it! 

I couldn't figure out why we were staying cleaner than usual, until one day I noticed a little friend hanging out under the boat. We had collected four remoras and they were eating the beginnings of bottom growth. These fish which are commonly seen attached to sharks and whales had attached themselves to the bottom of our hull and have been acting like natural vacuum cleaners, scrubbing our hull every day. 

Weather Fax Signal

When receiving weather fax, it is important to have a very clear and good signal. The image is generated via a series of pitches. One pitch for white, another pitch for black. If the pitches are not distinct or there is a lot of background noise, your image will be distorted.

A relatively clear signal will produce an image like this. Few hiccups and a generally legible image of the weather systems at work around us.

Wind noise, conversations in the boat, or just bad reception will produce something like this. You can still make out the general context of the fax, but it is not as clear or legible as when you have good signal. 

Now, bad reception and no time to calibrate your image as it prints onto your tablet will generate something like this. The image is offset, and it is barely legible. All you can really make out is that it's supposed to be a map! 

Be sure to calibrate your setup and take advantage of the test run that NOAA sends out at the start of the weather fax transmission. If you get a clear image at the beginning, then all the subsequent faxes will be clear as well. 

Starfish

In the Chesapeake Bay, you never get to see the bottom. What lays down there has always been a mystery to me, and will remain so.

In the Bahamas, that mystery has had its veil lifted and you can see exactly what is going on down there!  Aside from the clear waters, there is so much life just inches below the surface. 

We were wading through the shore at this small island at the northern tip of the Berry Islands and we stumbled upon this massive starfish. At first we thought this was a rarity to see such a big one in such shallow water, but that is not the case in the Bahamas! 

As we walked, we found many many more starfish this size in knee deep water, just waiting to be marveled upon.  

Goat Island

While anchored in Slaughter Harbor, we took a little dinghy ride over to Goat Island. Those island looks like it is made up of volcanic rock hovering over the white sandy beach, but in reality it is all limestone! The limestone has simply been stained dark with time and eroded away in this fierce manner to create the appearance of a pumice like structure. 

The sand was so fine and fluffy, we could tell that this island is not frequently trafficked. 

The small fish that lived in the shallow pools along with the conch and starfish made every step around this island seem like a magical experience! The beauty of cruising in the Bahamas is that every island you land on is unique and there is a very good chance that you are the only one there.