Lowe was all hiked out after he and Ouest had wandered off the day before—but Ouest wanted more, so the two of us soldiered on. I eventually said, “Let’s find a path back down to the water and walk the beach back.” We then spent the next hour scraping ourselves up trying to forge a path through the bush to the water, eventually ending up back at the top of the hill to retreat to where we had originally started out from. Follow me kid, I’ll get us nowhere fast.
Our boat neighbors for a few days as we all waited for some sort of calmer weather. Nobody else had kids, so we didn’t see much of them as the wind howled. One guy did come over and ask if we had any DVDs to exchange—like it was 2005.
Always treasures to be found. We had a white buoy similar to this that I would tie to our back anchor when we had it out. Last week in Grand Turks the tourist boats were flying past us so close that twice they just ran the buoy right over. So we took this orange one from the beach, then grabbed a Sharpie and wrote a note on the white one before setting it adrift. We had been talking about how “Sea-Beans” fall in the water and float with the currents thousands of miles before coming ashore again, so we thought it’d be fun to see where our buoy would end up.
Of course, maybe it’d work a little better if we weren’t in a bay when we set it adrift. We got an e-mail within just a couple of days from a lady who found it about fifteen miles away.
Our bimini was already our least favorite part of this boat. It started life out as some sort of four-season porch enclosure thing, and when we tossed everything else in the garbage, the resulting bimini top was pretty janky. The storms the last few days pretty much put an end to it. A new setup had already been on the hurricane season to-do list, so no big loss.
It was at about this point that Ali called me down to have some lunch. After sitting up top in the sun all day as we traversed the sound, I went downstairs, took a few bites of quesadilla, and then we hit bottom. We jammed the engines in neutral and ran outside to see the patch of rock/reef we’d hit. After checking the engine compartment for water, I dove in to check for damage. Amazingly, and luckily, we just scraped the bottom of the keel from about 2/3 back to the end, so it must have only been a couple inches too shallow. There was nothing on the chart, it was high tide, and we were maybe 100 feet off of the Garmin route. Shouldn’t have been anything to hit there, but that’s why I should have still been up on top watching. Close call, that one. At low tide we might have sunk ourselves.
Looks pretty and calm in the pictures, but we had 20 knots blowing us downwind the whole day. With nothing but exposed anchorages to choose from, we tucked into a marina on the south side of Provo for a couple days.
Lowe had a fever for a day or so. It’s so rare to get sick when we’re living on a boat, that we are always surprised by it. He shook it off quickly, and was back to his old self in no time.
Took advantage of the marina to get a handful of minor projects done around the boat. Painted the rusty bits of the back anchor, as well as the chipped up bowsprit support pole. Fixed the malfunctioning bilge pump, which may be the first time in history that I actually “repaired” one of these. It wasn’t shutting off automatically any more, so for the past week or so we’d flip the switch to manual to make sure we didn’t have a bilge full of water. Anyway, I took the thing apart, which doesn’t reveal much on these. Then I read the instructions on the spare pump I have, and realized that they don’t have a float to tell them when to click on, they just somehow sense when there is water. There was some goop on the little box that I assumed was the sensor, so I wiped it off, and like magic, it worked again. I’ve always hated bilge pumps because they are insanely expensive, and notoriously unreliable. Well, score one for the bilge pump this time—it still works, I just wasn’t taking care of it. Fresh off of that success, I went after the shower bilge pump. Predictably, that one worked fine again after being cleared of a pile of hair. Lovely jobs, cleaning out those bilges.
So, we had planned to spend a week, maybe two, in the Turks and Caicos, yet a month later we’re still here with no end in sight to the 20+ knot south-east winds. The Dominican Republic lies due south-east of us, so let’s just say that this wind is less than desirable. Hurricane season is creeping up on us.
13 Comments on “Retreating to Provo”
If you gotta be stuck somewhere, might as well be somewhere beautiful. Fair winds!
Yes, although true. There really isn’t much going on here in these islands and not many anchorages. Our exploring-selves have a hard time sitting still. Over 5-weeks in 40-islands with maybe 5 anchorages to choose from…it’s been a tad…boring. Yup, I said it. Not complaining, just saying.
What are your plans for Hurricane season? Caribbean or States?
It was Puerto Rico, but with a 5 week stop In TCI, it looks like we will be heading to the States. This is valid for TODAY only, as our route/plan has changed daily waiting on weather updates. Late out of Florida, and the Bahamas, here we are…
You are living the life a lot of us wish we could share,sadly if we really were determined we would have never sold our boats but would have charted a course, in my case South. This old Marine has lived a good life, had a great Marriage of 58 years been around the World a few times once on an aircraft carrier USS Midway CVA 41 and again on the USS Toledo heavy cruiser.Was Part of the Marine detachment on the Midway when we left Long Beach,Ca for dry dock in Washington state. All the other Marines were being shipped all over the Country and I just know I was in for a 30 day delay in travel when they informed me my next assignment was on a heavy Cruiser.Uss Toledo was tied up to the Midway. Throw my sea bag from on deck to the other. What I didn’t know was the Toledo, was going back to the East Coast.
So I got to see again what I had just came from. Did get to see Iwo Jima off the Toledo and was part of the tenth anniversary of the Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi. Arrived in Long Beach and got orders for Embassy school at Henderson Hall, Va.
Finish school and was assigned to Oslo, Norway where I met my Bride and was Married for 58 Years before Cancer took her away four years ago.
In a nutshell – AMAZING. Sounds like you’ve lived a good life. Yeah for the Marines, travel, and a bride for 58 years! Let’s meet up should we ever be near – share some stories.
Lovely pictures as always, and interesting to see a bit more of the TCI than a lot of cruisers post.
For years I followed a blog of a couple of ex-pats living there that has some great info on some of the islands outside of Provo: 2gringos.blogspot.com
No let up in those winds…sheesh.
Hi Bill, when “stuck”, see more. 🙂
Someone else posted about the 2gringos when we arrived here — I checked them out and then wanted to go to the huge shipwreck off of Long Bay Beach (Provo), but weather hasn’t let us stop there.
What wind?! 🙂
We plan on leaving on Thursday with the lightest winds we have seen since arriving – 17knots.
Any idea what kind of eggs those were? Beautiful!
I was thinking iguana eggs but then looked up images and they don’t match. I’m not sure what they were.
They look like seagull eggs.