Cheap Fill

This is going to be a quick, low-quality, cut-rate, disappointing post to fill in this big blank period between the last post and the next post. I'd call it an interim post, but I think I've overused that term in some of my earlier shallow excuses. We are working on a new post, but other commitments keep splattering on the windshield of life and delaying us. Hence this Cheap Fill of a post to let you know we haven't forgotten you. Nope. Not at all.

We had a visit from an old friend in late June. The "Star of the Sea" stopped by the island on another run to Haiti. Captain Bob Nichols and crew spent several days here, taking on fuel, food, and water. If you have read previous posts in this blog, you have read about the missionary work that the three-masted schooner has been involved in. If not, or if you'd like to read up on the boat in more detail you can take a side trip to that post by clicking here: Star of the Sea.




While setting up that link I noticed that we've written and posted photos of the boat on four different posts. I am hoping most readers know that if you click one of the topics on the list over on the bottom of the right side of this page, you'll be instantly transported to posts on those subjects in a separate window. When you're done, just close that window and you'll return to this one. In the perfect Internet world, that is.

We heard Capt. Nichols on the VHF radio one morning as they approached Providenciales on their way in from the Bahamas. They're once again out sailing the seas to deliver donated food and supplies to orphanages. They sail from Florida to the orphanage in Cat Island in the Bahamas, and then they sail from Cat Island to here. From the Turks and Caicos Islands they go pick up more supplies at the Morton Salt Company on Great Inagua and take them to starving children in Haiti. We published a map in the earlier post. Here's a photo of the ship docked at the Southside marina. This was taken from a little shelter where it's rumored that passing sailors and motor cruisers occasionally put aside their differences and get together for cookouts and happy hours. It's a nice spot to take a break on shore for cruisers who need a break on their journeys between the Southern Bahamas and the Caribbean.



We did have another reason to visit the boat again besides just saying hello. Captain Bob had decided it was time to replace a couple of the main sacrificial anodes on the hull of the Star of the Sea, and this is a good place to do it. For any non-boaters out there, these anodes are just big hunks of the metal zinc. Boats with metal parts in the water (and especially those with electrical systems) generate electrolysis in seawater. The short version of all this is that zinc acts like the weakest link in this circle of electron swapping. It corrodes away first before iron, steel, or aluminum corrodes away. This is useful information to boating people who don't want their boats' metal parts to disappear.

When these hunks of zinc anode are all eaten away, the electrolysis starts eating on the aluminum, iron, and steel parts next. So from time to time someone has to remove old corroded zincs and replace them with new ones.

Captain Bob had located two suitably sized anodes here in Providenciales, but they needed to be modified to fit the mounting studs welded to the hull of the Star of the Sea. He brought them over and left them for me to do a little 'bush machining'. I ended up 'milling' the slugs down and drilling some holes to make them fit. Here they are sitting in the skiff.



I should have put something in the photo for scale, but the line there is ½", if that gives you an idea. I said I 'milled" the ends, but actually I used a reciprocating demolition saw to cut the ends down. This is because the studs welded to the hull only protrude about an inch, and the zincs are too thick. Ideally, with correctly sized zincs, the holes would be drilled in the steel mounting flanges. If you're curious about the labels, "Camp" is the name of a company that specializes in zinc anodes. There are lots of different versions. Painting over the zinc is bad because paint protects it from the sea, and the electrolysis goes looking for something else to eat. Like, a rudder or a propeller shaft.

We took another look at the ship while we were delivering the zincs. I don't think that I ever showed you where cargo is stored in the previous posts. I was trying to think of something new to photograph, and I know that I was interested in where they stacked seven tons of food.

This is the starboard side of the cargo hold. The food boxes are stacked in there between the fencing and the hull.



You can see photos of those food boxes being offloaded in Haiti if you jump to the second half of the post Loose Ends.

I don't know, exactly, what's inside one of those food boxes. I'll try to remember to ask Captain Bob to send us a photo of the contents one of these days.

This is the port side of the cargo hold. Yes, that's a mattress on a sheet of plywood on top of the cargo cage. This is where one of the crew sleeps for the entire cruise. No air conditioning. No television. No room service. No privacy. No kidding.

And not very comfortable in ten foot seas. What holds you on the mattress?



The food is decent though. I certainly wouldn't begrudge them a good meal. We can also verify that in addition to being an old-fashioned modern-day sailing missionary, Captain Bob is an excellent cook. That's another oxymoron, isn't it? I had already decided not to call him a swashbuckling Christian, and then let old-fashioned modern-day slip by me. I'm leaving it in because it comes as close to saying what I mean as I can think of right now, if you know what I mean.

Capt. Bob and his crew were out at the house playing catch with Dooley the Dervish. Well, it was 'catch', or 'fetch' if he missed the catch. Dooley loves it. And Bob noticed that all the fuzz was chewed off Dooley's favorite tennis ball. He said he had about 500 used tennis balls that he was taking to Haiti. He figured he could probably spare one for Dooley. So I asked him why he was taking all those used tennis balls to Haiti. Bob told me the majority of these kids in Haiti have never in their lives owned a rubber ball. If they want to play 'catch', they have to use a rock. If you've ever played catch by throwing a rock back and forth, you probably know that it's a totally different experience than playing with a bouncy rubber ball. There's something missing from the fun of the game when you have to catch a rock thrown at you. A single used tennis ball would be the equivalent of the best gift these kids ever received. Probably the only gift they ever received that wasn't immediately eaten to survive. Things are pretty bleak in Haiti.

We try to help where we can. Like, getting the word out that the mission still needs donations to pay their expenses to make these life saving trips to the orphans. When the accumulated donations add up to five thousand dollars, and the donated food is ready, they can start planning the next trip. The food is donated by churches in the USA. Bob donates the ship, and the crew are all unpaid volunteers. The money goes for diesel fuel, food, and supplies. Using a sailing ship is about the cheapest way there is to transport tons of cargo. I thought I would show you guys that donations to the ministry are not going for luxury ship accommodations.

We took a tour of the ship again when we dropped off the modified zincs. While we were down below decks, Dooley the Detective was searching the deck for the kinds of things he's interested in. Every time I looked up, he was pacing past the portholes, and peering in to see what we were up to. I thought it made for some good photo ops:



I was also playing around with some of the effects built into the photo software, looking for a frame that would complement the round porthole:



Dooley really wanted to come down below with us, but we decided it best to leave him up where he couldn't get into much trouble. If he had smelled rats on board, it would have been a different story. It's very, very obvious when he gets on the trail of a rat. I'll spare you the ugly details, but suffice it to say that rats use Dooley stories to scare their kids into behaving.



We didn't abandon him on the deck, of course. We wouldn't do that to him. We'd have to pay for any damages. Anyhow he was in good company with one of his new buddies. This is 'Sharky', from Cat Island, Bahamas.



Did you notice that anthropormorpologically speaking, Sharky and Dooley have assumed the same pose in that photo? Is anthropormorphologically even a word? I doubt it. And if it is a word, there's a better than even chance I am misusing it. I am trying to say they have settled into similar sitting positions, given their obvious differences. Dooley is the one getting his ribs scratched. Looks to me like they are both enjoying it.

Sharky is sixteen, and is the son of the director of the Cat Island orphanage. He is making his first big sailing trip away from home. Nice way to start. Sharky brought us a watermelon from Cat Island. We iced it down and shared it with the crew. Delicious.

We noticed that the ship is starting to show the effects of all the wear and tear of constant traveling in the tropics. This boat gets tied up next to some pretty marginal docks and wharfs and quays and, well, rocks. She gets a beating. Bob told us that she is going to be hauled out at a shipyard in Florida after this trip, and the hull will be cleaned and painted. I'll try to show you some before and after photos the next time she comes through 'town'.



Speaking of beatings, I really don't mean to beat you up about donations but we believe that what these guys are doing is just one of those worthwhile things in life. It's very basically just the right thing to do from a purely humanitarian aspect. These food donations are not just a big box of candy bars. Those kids are starving, literally. And it's not just the children who are helped by this. Bob was telling us that on the last trip they were in Haiti during the cholera crisis. The survivors of the cholera are intended to be put on specific diets in order to let them recover from the ordeal of being completely cleaned out of nutrients and the good kind of intestinal bacteria. But the right food is seldom available to most of them, and continued dehydration and starvation are very real threats to their continued existence. The donated food is the ideal mix for cholera patients. So in addition to that seven ton cargo feeding hungry orphans, it is also being used to increase the chances of survival of the adults that are taking care of them.

I posted a link to the Star of the Sea mission on that previous blog post. This time I am posting a link to their Facebook page: Star of the Sea. There are more photos and information there for you Facebook fanatics. If you can spare a few dollars for a good cause, please help. And it doesn't always have to be just money, although space on the boat is somewhat limited. I've already told you about the tennis balls donated to liven up life a little for the kids of Haiti. While the crew was in town here, we also took them to rendezvous with a local businesswoman who was sending a pile of donated clothing back to Haiti with the ship.

Now I'll get off my soapbox, and back to our own little privileged world, where nobody starves and where children are never even asked to imagine living a short miserable life in a hungry world without toys.

Ah, speaking of toys (how's that for a segue?) I thought I should make some modifications to the skiff after our experiences in some squalls a couple of weeks ago. As captain of our own little boat it behooves me to make sure we don't get caught offshore in those conditions again without a radio, a compass, and something to hang on to. I know, I know, it would also work if we just stayed close to land. We'll take that under consideration, but in the meantime, I have made some modifications to the boat.

This is what the little console looked like before I started. I have already installed three grab rails so that people have something to hang onto, and I have ideas for a much more substantial frame and seat. I want to have one fabricated that incorporates a seat and windshield frame in front of the console. That project is still in the design phase. I also needed a compass and radio. The compass is easy, and I bought one of those on a trip last month to Pittsburgh when I stopped by a West Marine store. Mounting the radio was a bit of a challenge. I just could not find a good place to mount one on this little boat.



I wanted the radio protected and out of the way. We only need it when we need it. I decided I had to make some kind of a mounting bracket. I used a scrap piece of marine plywood for the prototype. Easy enough to screw the radio bracket to a strip of plywood:



All those shiny shavings and dust are zinc particles left over from me sawing up Captain Bob's anodes, in case you were wondering. I should have taken some photos of that. I had zinc shavings in places that should only see zinc oxide. I cleaned all this up after this project, but at the time I knew I was going to be sawing some more metal to mount the radio. Sure enough, I added aluminum and 316 stainless shavings to the pile before it was all over.

I had some aluminium angle left over from the modifications I did to the Hobie Tandem Island trailer (photos in that same Southside Marina post) and I just used two pieces of that for angle brackets on each end of the plywood. I drilled two holes in each side of the skiff console that match up with the two holes in the brackets. This way, the only mods to the console are four little holes that are nicely covered by stainless screws. I might even be able to engineer up some drink holders that use the same screws.



I did run into a problem in mounting the radio antenna. I didn't have any stainless quarter-twenty bolts that were threaded all the way to the head. I needed four bolts that would hold the antenna bracket to the fiberglass console. It was a Sunday when I was doing this, so I couldn't just make the always exciting trip to the hardware store for the correct bolts. And not being a disciple of delayed gratification, I couldn't wait until Monday. So I just continued cutting the existing threads with a ¼-20 die. Which added to my pile of metal shavings. I did vacuum it all up once I put the hacksaws and drills away.



Here's a before and after photo. You can see that the top bolt would not let me tighten up a nut enough to hold this antenna mount (the thing in the top of the photo) to the thin fiberglass. The bottom bolt is the 'after' version. A tap and die set is one of those tools a DIY guy will find very very useful in a place like this. It sits unused for long periods of time, true, but when you need to cut new threads or clean up old corroded threads (which is called 'chasing' threads, by the way).... there's nothing better than having the correct tools. And for me, nothing rarer.



So anyhow, here is the 'after' photo of the skiff console with a compass, grab handle, VHF radio, and a short 4' antenna installed. A four foot antenna won't give us the range of an 8 ft. antenna, but it should cover us for most of the places we'll be taking this little boat. I had to cut out two places on the plywood strip so that it cleared the hydraulic steering and the bottom of the shifter/throttle assembly. If it works out okay, I plan to replace the wood with Starboard or some kind of plastic, using the prototype plywood mount as a template for the finished bracket. What I'll end up using for that will depend upon what I can find locally. An added benefit of having the VHF is that now we can register the boat and fish legally.

How would you like to have to haul your boat up that driveway? And the driveway is MUCH better than the road to the nearest pavement, four miles away. We do a shake, rattle and impact test on the boat and trailer every time we leave the house.



Another aspect of living here is what I've learned about fuel and outboard injectors. Using unfiltered fuel from the local marinas has caused me a fair bit of grief over the years. These days I tend to buy gasoline from the automobile stations and top up the skiff's 25 gallon tank before leaving the house. I think the automobile fuel stations have cleaner fuel, because it's fresher. They have a higher turnover than the marinas, and they tend to use more modern pumps with better sediment filters. The fuel at the local gas stations also is less expensive than the marina fuel. We just filled up the Land Rover last week, and diesel is presently running $ 6.30 a gallon here, to give you an idea.

I now use a little Racor fuel filter when I fill the skiff's tank. I use this even with fresh fuel straight from the gas pump. And I'll show you why.



I wanted to top up the tank for a recent trip up to Water Cay (more on that in the next post). This is the fuel filter when I started. No water, no dirt.



I drove the Land Rover to the nearest Texaco station and filled up two clean six gallon containers with gasoline. I just siphon the fuel from the container to the tank. This is easier than pouring it, and doesn't splash all over the place. Also, the filter is limited as to how fast it can pass fuel through the filtering screen (2.7 gallons per minute max) and using a small hose works just fine. It also lets me carry on with other stuff while the siphon is going on.



After siphoning six gallons of fresh, new gasoline, this is what was left in the little Racor. This was filtered out of the fresh gasoline:



About two tablespoons of water in six gallons of new gas:



There were also particles of sand and what appeared to be rust in the fuel. And this is the clean stuff fresh from the pump. Of course we also have an even better filter between the tank and the Suzuki, and I have started trying to keep the tank in the skiff topped up to minimize the condensation inside the tank. It's also a handy place to store gasoline for the generator, but that's a whole 'nuther story for another day. Our generator gets used a lot.

Well, despite my initial description of this as a short post, I see my long windedness has stretched it out about as far as I feel I can get away with. We have another post with some nice photos and videos coming up. All these mods to the skiff and filling it with gasoline were, of course, preparations for a trip to another island. I managed to cobble up a way to mount the new GoPro camera to Dooley the enDuring... and here's an advance photo of him after swimming ashore with the camera attached:



Just editing a few minutes of video from Dooley's view makes me feel like taking a nap, but we'll get it done. Actually, La Gringa takes over from this point on the videos, and we recently generated a lot of footage to go through and edit. We have also just returned from a 4th of July trip to Austin to visit family last weekend, and on the way back to the airport we stopped by an electronics store and bought two sets of anti-fog inserts for the GoPro camera. So we should be able to improve upon the quality of our videos using that underwater housing by preventing the lens from fogging up. Hopefully. We'll soon know about that, as I have several ideas for some different videos and more of the still photo montages and time lapse stuff we've been doing. For example, I am thinking of attaching the GoPro to a rock or anchor and lowering it down to deeper water outside the reef. That outta be fun. And of course we have scads of ideas using the Dooley DogCam approach. He doesn't seem to mind being a camera platform. I am drawing the line at buying him his own director's chair and a beret, though. Hmm.... Dooley the Director...?

I'll close this one with a short time-lapse from the GoPro camera. We were hoping for one of those nice, dramatic, tropical sunset scenes. We didn't get one of those because we were in a typical summer hazy day situation here. But I am hoping we can compensate for that with the neat effects of the clouds reflecting on the salina as they head for the sunset and the horizon.





Cool, eh?

Loose Ends

I usually try to put a colorful, tropical sunrise photo here near the start of these posts. But in the past couple weeks most of our photos have included family who have been visiting us for the holidays. Late nights and sleep-in mornings mean not many sunrises or sunsets. Since there has been some howling at the moon, however, I decided to post one of the moon images La Gringa was taking last week when the lunar eclipse was occuring during the solstice. She got her camera set up just in case we happened to actually be awake at 03:15 in the morning and felt like taking photos. (We weren't. And we didn't. It was cloudy, anyhow)



There, that looks suitably cold and miserable, doesn't it? It's not all sunshine and clear turquoise water and white sand beaches here, you know. Oh no. Definitely not. Sometimes it's moonlight and clear turquoise water and white sand beaches instead. This is a great little country for people who like to walk deserted beaches in the moonlight.

We are into winter here, too. Last night the outside temperatue plummeted down to 67 deg.F. We were scrambling for warm clothes to put on. Winter days are typically a mix of clouds and sunshine. We are getting into the drier part of the year and windier. We start seeing more birds around now, as many of them winter down here in the lower latitudes. Some of our favorites to watch are the Ospreys. A couple of them usually have a nest just a few hundred yards from the house. They swoop down into the ocean in front of us and sometimes land upon the shore to eat. This guy has a fish on the rocks at his feet but was getting nervous at the attention he was getting from La Gringa. Can't imagine why a bird would be worried about a human pointing a dark cylinder with a lens at them. Perhaps he thought she wanted to steal his lunch.



So he picked it back up and swooped off to find someplace a little quieter and more peaceful than our house has been for the past week. Can't say as I blame him.



And away he goes, lunch firmly in hand. Or in talon, in this case.



I didn't really have much of a "theme" for this blog post. As I look through the photos we haven't posted yet I am finding I have little snippets of things. Not a nice long narrative that starts in one place and logically continues to another. This is more along the lines of cleaning up some small stories so that they don't get lost and forgotten once we get all enthusiastic about sailing. And I just know that's going to happen after the holidays. So I am going to take this opportunity on the last day of 2010 to say goodbye, for now, to a couple of the 'characters' that have passed through our lives recently.

We know quite a few people have been interested in the boat Treasure Seeker, which is the former ferry C.G. Richter. Capt. Ray Hixon has been stranded in the boatyard here on Providenciales since getting towed in back on November 18th.

Most of the repairs that could be done here in Provo have been done. Treasure Seeker's diesel is completely repaired. Ray tells us his engine room is clean and squared away, and he has gotten caught up on a number of other projects in the five weeks he spent here. We have a little news to report on that front. We had written quite a bit about this story a few weeks ago when we had a post with a lot of photos and the story of the "Treasure Seeker"

We got a call from Ray a few days before Christmas and he was finally leaving the dock on his way south. The decision had been made by Treasure Seeker's insurance company. An ocean-going tug boat was chartered to come to Providenciales, hook up to Treasure Seeker and to tow Ray the Pirate right on down to Puerto Rico for the next stage of his adventure. Here he is finally getting away from the dock after five weeks of 'standing by' waiting for parts, repairs and decisions.



We have been looking at this red and black pirate boat for all these weeks, and we know Ray has been sitting there looking up at us for the exact same length of time. Finally getting the green light (with 'green' being the operative word here) to move on to Puerto Rico was such a momentous thing that La Gringa did a little video of Treasure Seeker actually leaving the dock. For a while there, we thought we might have to find a cutting torch to break her free.



The tug boat from Haiti was not coming into the boatyard to take Treasure Seeker under tow. I would assume that the tug probably draws more than six feet, which is about the maximum draft for any boat trying to get to a dock in this part of the islands. So Ray managed to finagle a pull from his new friends and recent neighbors for the past month, the Marine Police:



We had ringside seats for all this, of course and were able to follow Treasure Seeker's progress as this slow-motion handoff proceeded without a hitch. The tug boat waited offshore in slightly deeper water:



And of course the crew of the TCI Marine Police patrol boat Sea Defender has more than a little experience towing disabled vessels. In fact, dealing with seagoing pirates is a part of their very job description.



The reason Treasure Seeker is being towed to Puerto Rico is because the Turks and Caicos Islands just does not have the ability to haul out and repair the hull of a boat this size. I believe Ray told us everything was done except replacing the large steel rudder that was lost off Plana Cays. The nearest suitable shipyard that can do the work is in Puerto Rico. Under ideal conditions, that's a three day trip from here for that tugboat. I would think that to be a long three days at the end of a rope.

The Sea Defender and the Police RIB ('Rigid Inflatable Boat' call-sign Hurricane ) managed to ease Treasure Seeker out of the boatyard without a scratch. Not so simple when Ray the rudderless has no way to steer Treasure Seeker at all. He could put the boat in reverse to slow it down, but he still won't have any steering control. Just the drag of the propeller.... and that's the brakes.



The transfer of a suitable tow line from the tug to the Treasure Seeker all took place out where we couldn't really reach them with our cameras.

They certainly picked a good weather day to depart Providenciales and get clear of the reefs that surround these islands.



Finally, the boats were all hooked up and the last sight we had of Capt. Ray the Pirate and the Treasure Seeker, they were disappearing over yet another horizon headed roughly south east.



We found it slightly humorous that the Treasure Seeker found itself being escorted to the outskirts of town by the local sheriff. It seemed a fitting sendoff somehow. What else would you expect from a pirate ship that was just passing through?

La Gringa took those photos as Treasure Seeker departed for Puerto Rico on December 23. We just received an email from Capt. Ray (the Pirate) yesterday, December 29, from Puerto Rico after an "interesting trip". That's six days for a trip the tugboat crew estimated as three. Can't wait to hear this next chapter.

At this point, I think I will turn the story of the newest pirate in the Caribbean back over to Ray Hixon and family to keep up with. But I wanted to let everyone know that he made it safely away from the Turks and Caicos. Alas, the origin of Ray's next pizza is no longer under our control.

Now on to some more news from a different ship entirely. We very recently posted some photos of the Star of the Sea, along with a description of the humanitarian efforts of Capt. Bob Nichols. We knew when the ship left here bound for Gt. Inagua and we read that they were anchored off the Il D'Vache, an island on the southwest edge of Haiti. Then we didn't hear anything more.

Well, this weekend we got an email from Capt. Bob. The Star of the Sea made it home to SW Florida on Christmas Eve after an eight day, non-stop run from Haiti. Capt. Nichols writes us that the rampant cholera and violence on the main island had kept food and supplies from ever reaching Il D'Vache and he promises me a good story to tell once things settle down next week.

Capt. Bob did attach five photos to his email, and I am going to post them here. I didn't receive any explanation or captions along with the photos but as far as I know these were all taken during the offloading of food for the orphans in Haiti.

I can tell you that I recognize a panga style hull when I see one:



And we've certainly seen enough hand built Haitian sloops to know what we are looking at here:



Baskets and donkeys and cardboard boxes marked "Kids Against Hunger". Seems pretty self explanatory so far.



Looks like a few kids are pretty excited about boxes of goodies from the USA.



And physically handicapped orphans will have a better life than they would have had for the next few weeks thanks to Capt. Bob and the Star of the Sea crew.



I would guess that these photos and more will be showing up at the ships blog for the Star of the Sea and you can follow that story straight from the source. As with the previous story of the Treasure Seeker, I am going to turn the narrative back over to the people involved at this point. (This is supposed to be a blog about living in the TCI, after all.) The Star of the Sea headed north. The Treasure Seeker headed south. If and when they ever pass back through our waters and our lives we'll probably be posting more about them. But for now all we can do is wish them fair winds.

In the meantime, we are already planning some trips for the new kayak. So far we have a couple easy ones in mind and two that are a little more challenging.

For the easy trips, of course we will be heading up to Pine Cay at the earliest opportunity. This has become somewhat of a benchmark kayak trip for us, and we are anxious to see how much time it will take for us to sail the new boat up and back.

Last week we were scrambling around for last minute Christmas gifts and one of those involved some gift certificates for a restaurant over on Chalk Sound. While there we looked around and realized that while we had made one trip to these irridescent turquoise waters back when we first got our inflatable almost two years ago, we never made it back to complete the exploration.



So another trip to more completely explore Chalk Sound is definitely on the agenda.



We had also taken the inflatable out to West Caicos. This was an ambitious little trip for us since we had to cross over six miles of open water between Providenciales and the nearest tip of West Caicos. We had hoped to be able to try to find the ruins of Yankee Town but had equipment problems on the way over and spent our time beachcombing for string to repair the kayak Mirage Drives. So we definitely want to go back to explore more of West Caicos. And I am very interested to see if we can find the little spot called Maravidi Cove.

And of course we have long wanted to return to French Cay after our plans to explore that little uninhabited island got interrupted by fuel problems on our one and only attempt way back in October of 2007. We got tied up getting the fuel tank of Cay Lime repaired and well.... we just never went back to finish up our exploration of all the wrecks that get washed up on the outside of that remote little cay.



The distance out to French Cay from where we launch on this side of Provo is a little over 18 miles and it's all open water. So I suspect we will get a few other trips under our belt before we decide whether or not to take on a journey like this. We'd have to go out there prepared to camp out on the beach overnight, for example. Should be quite an adventure if and when we can pull it off. It might make sense to wait until longer days are once again upon us. Then we might have a chance of making it out and back in the same day. We have sailed kayaks in the dark before but it's definitely not our idea of the best way to do it.

And as ambitious as a kayak trip to French Cay might seem to us at the moment, that's not the big goal. For some time we have been thinking about whether anyone has ever physically set foot on every single exposed island in the Turks and Caicos Islands. When we first had this idea, we had been reading about the "40 cays, 8 of which are inhabited" that is a pretty standard description of this little country.

Then I started going over the charts and Google Earth, and putting a mark on every exposed rock I could find. And guess what? Without even numbering the islands we have already walked upon, I came up with another hundred. No kidding.



Now to be precise, a lot of these little islands and cays I have marked are nothing more than an exposed bit of rock, but since they are exposed and surrounded by water, I am choosing to include them in our definition of island. Just as an arbitrary rule, I am going to include every island and cay I can find that is larger than the boat. That sets us up with about an 18 ft. diameter required for an island to qualify.

I wonder how long it would take for a couple people with an obnoxious little dog to actually stand on each and every 'standable' island in the Turks and Caicos. Interesting thought, isn't it? Certainly would be enough material for a few blog posts. And I would be genuinely surprised if anyone has ever done it. ever.

Well, that's all I have for this last post of 2010. It's been an interesting year for us. Much better than 2009 was, in many ways. Maybe it's the start of a trend.

We want to take the opportunity to wish all our readers, friends, families, and other correspondents a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Thanks for all the support and interest.

And until next year, here's a photo of the sunset here, taken by La Gringa night before last:

"Star of the Sea"

Christmas is still quietly roaring down upon us like a gentle slow motion avalanche. Holidays here in the tropics just seem to be softer than they are up in the USA. We don't see so much of the yearly commercial blitz that we remember descending upon us between the pecan pie and aperitifs of Thanksgiving dinner. There is tinsel on some of the palm trees and we have spotted some unlikely looking elves stocking shelves, but for the most part it's still a religious holiday here. Our one local television station can only advertise a very few stores. And everybody already knows where they are and what they stock, anyway.

Walmart, Norelco, and Isotoner don't buy air time in the TCI. Thank the lord of small favors.

Oh, almost forgot the sunrise photo. Gotta start with a recent sunrise. La Gringa got this one that even has a boat in it:



I was looking for a blog topic that somehow folded the Christmas season into the tropical life mix. I mean, another kayak trip post would be way easy to do right now. Our new approach of each carrying a waterproof camera along on the new kayak is producing scads of photos. Some good 'uns, too. But how "Christmassy" is that, huh? Y'all need a break from kayak photos I bet.

Then just as I was contemplating duct-taping a set of paper reindeer horns on Dooley the Disgruntled, La Gringa reminded me about the "Star of the Sea" and their humanitarian mission. Perfect! The good work these guys are doing, and the way they are doing it, just matches up the spirit of Christmas nicely with a tropical life experience for us. This kind of thing never happened to us living in New Jersey. Trust me.

We first became aware of the schooner "Star of the Sea" when we spotted their very distinctive suite of sails disappearing over the far horizon one morning back in late July. I got a crummy photo and posted it here. Somehow, that photo got to Captain Bob Nichols' attention and he emailed us. I wrote a little more about him and his mission in a later post and mentioned that they were coming back through Provo in November. Well, they did. And this time we heard them on the VHF radio as they were pulling into South Side Marina, a couple miles down the road. We loaded up Dooley the Delighted and were down there the next morning. We'd been promised a tour of the ship and we didn't want to miss it. I mean, how many opportunities to see a working three masted schooner does one get in the course of a normal year? In this century, I mean.

So with all that background, I know it's going to be easy to figure out what this is:



Yep, that's a bowsprit. A real one. A working, structural spar that is used to anchor the tack of a jib and to distribute the load of that foresail around the bow of the boat.

And this is a real schooner captain, Capt. Bob Nichols. A working, structural spar that is used to tack the ship...



He looks almost friendly without the eye patch and cutlass, doesn't he? But you just know there's a potential spot for a parrot on his shoulder, too. A lot of people were probably born a few hundred years too late. But we do what we can.

We've already posted a bunch of exterior photos of the ship from a distance so I won't repeat a lot of those views. But the other photos don't have Capt. Nichols and me in them, so I AM going to sneak one in that does:



As promised in our earlier correspondence, La Gringa, Dooley the Deckhand and I were invited aboard. In this photo we have (left to right) Zach Griffen, some bozo in a UT shirt, then Jay Swett in the dark t-shirt, and of course, Capt. Bob Nichols:



La Gringa is not in the photo because she was the one taking the picture. Most of these are hers, in fact. I am not sure why Dooley the Distracted isn't in it. He must have been up forward sniffing up memories of foodstuffs of yore. Investigating something he read about hardtack. Whatever that is.

Here's the view from amidships looking aft:



(Boy, that sounds nautical as all heck, doesn't it?)

We went below and got a tour of the recently remodeled galley:



Microwave, coffee pot, two burner stove and oven, refrigerator... everything you need.

I am haunted by a more-than-passing interest in marine engines, so Capt. Bob took me through the ship's engine room. In addition to the Perkins diesel, they have a generator for electricity and a compressor to fill SCUBA tanks. At this point I had been asking some specific questions about what the "Star of the Sea" was all about. Somehow, we seem to have settled in the engine room for this conversation. We got to the heart of the mission, in the heart of the ship. Appropriate in many ways.



I am going to post some links at the end of this post for those who are interested in more details, but I'll give you the brief version, as I understand it, right here.

Capt. Bob is a modern day missionary, pure and simple. He does good things for other people. He believes in kids and specializes in working with children who need help. He has an ongoing program in Naples, Florida, to help at-risk children learn about a better life than the one they would get if they continued without this help. His programs there include the "Super Kids Club", the "Super Kids Church" group, and the "Star of the Sea Teen Sailing Program".

You might well ask what all this has to do with a three masted schooner parked for a couple days in Providenciales. It's all tied in, believe me.

Capt. Bob sails the ship to deliver tons of donated supplies from Florida to an orphanage in the Bahamas. He sails the boat with a crew of unpaid volunteers from Naples , across the Gulf Stream, through the Exumas to the fairly remote Cat Island in the eastern Bahamas. There he offloads supplies to the Old Bight Mission orphanage. Still with me? It's kinda complicated to get it all on the first pass. Or it was to me, at least.

With a now empty cargo hold, he then sails from Cat Island to here, Providenciales. I didn't ask him specifically why here, but I suspect this is the nearest place on his route to reliably take on water, fuel and provisions for the rest of the trip. And he has friends here from years gone by.

Okay, I'm going to oratorically tie up "Star of the Sea" in Provo for a moment (is that even a word??) and put some more ship photos in here before carrying on.

Just forward of the engine room is the Captain's cabin. I bet the old time missionaries and schooner captains would have been amazed at electrical panels, weather fax machines, VHF and SSB radios, and satellite music and telephones:



I noticed a radar antenna high on one of the masts, too. Truly a well-equipped vessel for this kind of voyage.

While the brain of the ship is up to date and modern, the heart is still pure and the soul is very traditional.



Now I am proud of this photo below. It was originally two pictures that I managed to merge using Autostitch into one wide angle of the Captain's quarters on the "Star of the Sea":



Captain Bob apologized for the mess. The crew had just completed a long sea crossing from Cat Island. They arrived here just after daybreak. They had just gone through Customs and Immigration clearance. And then looked up to see La Gringa, Dooley the Distracted and Yours Truly all bright-eyed and bushy tailed (well, one of us) after a full nights sleep that they had not had. Nor had they had time to spruce up the ship for early visitors. This is a working boat as opposed to a pleasure yacht with staff. And sail boats lean over and stuff falls off shelves and rolls around a lot. So for any neatness freaks that would like an explanation... well... There you have it.

Actually, now that I think about it... Captain Bob's personal area was the only sign of disarray. The rest of the boat was ship shape, so to speak. Hmmm.

Now, after that little break, back to the heavy stuff. After a brief stop here on Providenciales, the ship's next stop is the island of Great Inagua. Gt. Inagua is the very southwestern corner of the Bahamas. It is considered way off the beaten path for most sailors. Leaving here, most boats head straight to Haiti or the Dominican Republic. But not the "Star of the Sea".

And the reason is the Morton Salt Company.

A lot of people probably don't realize this, but a lot of the salt you buy comes from evaporated sea water. The salt industry has historically been the main source of revenue for many of the islands in this part of the world. The "salt trade" is responsible for much that has gone on here, both good and bad, over the years. And not only on Gt. Inagua but here in the Turks and Caicos, as well.

These days, it's all about good stuff.

(now here is where I lapse into my pseudo-scientific explanation thingy)

The little island of Salt Cay just south of Grand Turk, for example, is still largely covered with salinas. (There are some photos of all this on a long ago post we did after visiting Salt Cay.) These are shallow areas that flood with sea water at high tide. Gates are closed at high tide, and the water allowed to evaporate in the hot tropical sun. This leaves salt and the other minerals in sea water. Repeating the process builds up the mineral layer to the point where it is shovelled up and loaded onto ships for transportation to market. There have been volumes of books written about all of this, so I won't go further into it here.

The Morton Salt Company is still engaged in this sea salt mining on Gt. Inagua. They load ships full of salt there and transport it to the USA. Then after offloading the salt in the US, the boats are empty. Typically they then motor back down to Great Inagua empty to pick up another load of fresh salt. Still with me? (You can see how this is all tying in, now, I bet.)

Captain Bob has worked out a deal with Morton to transport another seven tons of food from the USA down to the salt loading facility on Great Inagua on ships that would otherwise be empty. Morton's good people offload the food and supplies from Florida at their facility on Gt. Inagua.


Captain Bob sails from here just 130 miles and picks up the load of cargo waiting for him at Morton. He then sails from Gt. Inagua to Haiti, and delivers the food and supplies directly to the hungry children who need it.

Okay. That's the basic nuts and bolts of it. It's all about empty ships and full ships and hungry children and good people who care about them. I don't know why I made it so complicated.

I haven't said much about Dooley the Demented yet in this post. That's probably because he was uncharacteristically behaving himself for the most part. He had already checked out the ship for rats and cats and unclaimed bits of edibles. Having found none of the above, he was just enjoying the sunny day and perfect weather on deck:



"Oh yessir... boss. Now THIS is a sailboat... lets go to Pine Cay.."

And you thought belaying pins were just for whacking pirate skulls:



A modernization, and a nifty way to check out the deck during wild and woolly weather without wetting your wig:



So, I asked Capt. Bob why he would sail supplies to Haiti instead of just using the usual cargo plane method. He told me some stories about how things get bottlenecked up at the main offloading center in Port-Au-Prince. Piles and pallets of donated food and relief supplies sitting inside locked compounds, in the rain and sun. There are a lot of problems with this. Getting the supplies loaded onto trucks when there are not enough trucks. And the road system is in a shambles, of course, having been largely destroyed by the earthquake.

A huge portion of the supplies are ruined, stolen, misappropriated, or just evaporate into the huge city of Port-Au-Prince. They never make it to the remote areas that "Star of the Sea" can reach.

Money donated to the big relief organizations gets largely absorbed into their own infrastructure, with only pennies of each dollar actually making it to the people who need it. Without going into a lot of details, lets just say it's not a good situation for small groups of ignored and starving children in small remote towns far away from the capital city. They never see those supplies.

If Capt. Bob's mission receives a dollars worth of food, they deliver a dollar's worth of food to the children who are starving without it. Money donated for expenses go to pay his expenses. Not to a corporate executive at headquarters, or to an advertising campaign generating ads and buying television time.

"Star of the Sea" only draws about 6 ft. of water. She can sail right up to any small dock, in remote areas, and hand the food directly to the people who will be eating it. No real paperwork, no inland transportation issues, no government bureaucracy. The food offloaded from "Star of the Sea" doesn't sit inside a fenced compound spoiling and feeding rats. It goes where it is needed.

And these are the guys who can make that happen.



(well, not La Gringa, of course. She's not a guy.)

It costs Capt. Bob's mission about $ 4,000. US to make one round trip from Florida to Haiti and back, with a stop at the orphanage on Cat Island. That covers the expenses. The crew are unpaid volunteers but they do have to eat. And the boat does have some expenses. Big boats have big expenses. But they are still cost effective when they sail.

"Star of the Sea" would like to make three or even four trips a year. So far they have been able to find donors for the food and have just been able to cover the expenses. But without some additional funding, they won't be able to continue for long.



There are additional expenses. Southside Marina lets them stay for a couple days while they are in Providenciales, but they have to pay for the fuel. I just filled a Land Rover yesterday. Diesel here is presently $ 4.70 US a gallon.

So the ship has maintenance and permitting and insurance costs. Capt. Bob is barely making a monthly mortgage payment on Star of the Sea. Donations for the orphanages do not get applied to ownership of the vessel and he has had to put her up for sale. I guess in the ideal world we would be able to find someone who could pay off the boat loan and let Capt. Bob continue to use her to support his work with children in Florida, the Bahamas, and Haiti.

If anyone has any ideas on how to do this, please let us know.

Speaking of people who have to eat, Jay told us he caught a nice rainbow dolphin on the trip down. Of course you can't count on that for dinner every night. Even though I could see a potential lunch swimming right under the bow as we were talking...



(not bad water for a protected marina, is it?)

Here's a nice view of what you see from the cockpit looking forward:



And some of us could just see ourselves steering a course out through the reef, headed south for fame and adventure...



"Avast me hearties! Repel Boarders! Repeal hoarders! Man the rigging! Splice the main brace.... is it dinner yet?" Dooley the Deranged thinks he knows the ropes.

He would have a lot to learn about the ropes to be a sea-dog on an adventure of this magnitude, I suspect.



Makes me dizzy just thinking about it.

Later on, we took the kayak around the marina to get a closer view of the ship's stern and caught the crew getting caught up on some much needed rest and relaxation. This was the last time we saw Capt. Bob on this trip but we are staying in contact and hope to see them on their next trip delivering life saving supplies to children in Haiti.



The last word we got was that the "Star of the Sea" was anchored off Los Cayes, Haiti, awaiting an opportunity to offload their supplies and get out of town. If you follow the news, you may be aware of the severe cholera outbreak in Haiti and a rampant crime wave and lawlessness has once again surfaced. We wish Capt. Bob, Jay and Zach a safe trip and fair winds home.

When we hear more, we'll let you know.



And of course you can check in on any news on their blog

You can find them on Facebook, at Schooner Star of the Sea.

If you are serious about charitable donations, they are registered as a non-profit organization in the USA. There is information on how to make a donation on their website.

Or just skip all that and call Capt. Bob directly at 239-248-0647. He might not answer immediately. He's in Haiti at the moment.

Fair winds for now, Captain Bob. Hope we can be of some help.

Now we haven't been getting great sunset photos lately and that's only partly because the sun is presently setting over one of the distant neighbor's houses here. We don't like the same old view over and over. While we could hop in the truck and head over to a beach for the sunset, by the time we notice it's going to be a nice one it's usually way too late to try to change our perspective. However, La Gringa is persistent and every now and then she sees an opportunity. Guess she caught the neighbor's house with the lights out.