Sea Yawl Later! Getting Ready for Bahamas . . .

[Sea Yawl Later]

Rusty's job ended last week so we are getting the boat ready for departure this month. We are Bahama bound. Would love to hear from anyone else headed that way from Texas.

[Stillraining]

Lucky dog!

[Sea Yawl Later]

Stillraining,

We feel blessed to have our adventure start!!! We are very, very lucky!

[sneuman]

Congrats! Best of luck!

[Cormorant]

We're on schedule to leave upstate NY with our 31' trailer-sailer on Feb. 15. Two days driving to Miami, maybe a day or two to fully load and prep the boat. Then we'll cross as soon as the weather allows. Ultimate destination is the Exumas, returning in April. Hope to see you out there!

[Tampasailor]

See you guys out there. We leave on Feb 27 from Tampa, will be in Exumas for 2 months. Boat name is Triumph, Catalina 350

[Cormorant]

I've been watching PassageWeather.com and over the last three weeks it seemed like there were few or no decent weather windows for crossing the Gulf Stream. Lots of cold northers blowing through. We had originally toyed with the idea of leaving around Christmastime, and now I'm glad we decided to wait till February. Hope we see good weather then. . . .

[Sea Yawl Later]

The ac/heater ( we would never have made it without the heater) done, inverter-done, rigging-done, sail pac-done, new sail-done, bottom job and buffing -done, sail repair-due this week, lettering on boat- in process, windows 1/3 done (weather has been preventing progress), fresh water maker- in process. Main items to finish is windows, windless and valve in head. The biggie is the windows. We even considered not doing the bottom ones this trip because they don't leak like the top they are just really ugly!

It has been soooo cold. We have been without water for 5 days because they had to drain the water from the pipes on the dock due to below freezing weather. It was suppose to come on today but apparently even with their precations they had pipes break.

Oh well, all part of the adventure!

Linda

[Jim D]

Hi Linda -
I grew up in Beaumont, moved to Houston and stuck there. Where do you dock your yawl? Pt. Arthur, maybe ... ?

[Sea Yawl Later]

The name of our boat is misleading. We have a Seawind 1000, an Aussie built 33' Cat. We are presently in Waterford Harbor in Kemah. Our home is in Beaumont but we are staying on the boat at present doing the refit before we leave hopefully by the end of the month. Our windows are the "critical path" as my husband would say. We are super excited!

If you are in the area drop by. Dock 11-slip 2.

Sea Yawl Later !!

[Vasco]

See you in the Bahamas. We're in Ft. Lauderdale, then on to Miami and Nassau. There was a short window last Friday and a few boats went over. Very cold though.

[Sea Yawl Later]

Do you use cell phones there? The research we have done seems to indicate that once you get away from Nassau the service is fairly iffy.

Thanks!

Linda

[Cormorant]

Linda --

Check Batelco's map of GSM coverage in the Exumas:
BTC Bahamas - GSM Coverage Map

Looks pretty good. Maybe with a good masthead antenna and a booster/repeater you'd be able to pull in reception even in some of the outer areas.

(Disclaimer: I haven't one this yet -- still planning our trip, like you.)

Get an unlocked GSM phone and put a Batelco SIM into it.

We bought a phone that has Wifi plus unlocked GSM calling ability, and a Windows Mobile operating system. Cost $130, but worth it so we can check email by cell phone, or use Wifi to do it faster and free when available. And we can make Skype calls on it when in Wifi range.