Rotting Our Brains While It Rains | Allans Cay & The Little Bahama Bank

Anchored on the Little Bahama Bank to do some snorkeling.

Personally, I like rotting my brain with movies and TV shows. 

I spent so much time in school cramming in boring facts which have proven to be useless in real life (despite what my teachers said). Is it really important to know that there are 88 counties in Ohio? Nope. Is being able to explain fungible currencies helpful? No siree. Is knowing how to do semiotic analysis useful? Not a chance. And math. Don't even get me started on math.

All of these useless facts and theories are just clogging up my brain. They need to go. And the best way to get rid of them is by watching lots and lots of movies and TV shows. Preferably, ones that don't require any thinking on my part.

Rainy days are perfect for staring at a screen. 

You always hear people complain about the weather (and, yes, I'm one of them), but to be honest, sometimes a good old fashioned rain day forces you to slow down, chill out and relax. While we were in the Bahamas, the weather was pretty close to perfect. Except for one day at Allans-Pensacola Cay when it rained and rained and rained. So we got out our trusty portable DVD player, popped in True Detectives and had ourselves a little TV marathon.

Until the battery ran out. And as we run on solar power, when the sun isn't shining, things can't get charged and the fridge doesn't run. So, once our marathon was over, we got a little bored. There wasn't even any cold beer to take our minds off of things. So we napped instead. I had nightmares about fungible currency monsters roaming around the rural counties of Ohio and kidnapping people and forcing them to do semiotic analysis. It wasn't a very good nap. That's what happens when you watch creepy TV shows before nap time.

We got the DVDs off of the free table at Indiantown Marina.

We love free tables. Obviously, because all the stuff on it is free. I love how cruisers leave unwanted stuff for other cruisers to make use of. You find things that you wouldn't normally buy, but which are fun to try, because they're free. Like quinoa and creepy TV shows. I wouldn't normally have bought something like True Detectives, but heck it was free. Turns out it was pretty good, except for the last episode which kind of let the whole thing down.

The weather was proving to be a big mystery.

I don't think even Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson could have solved this one. Well, they probably could of if they had a SSB radio and could pick up weather forecasts. Armed with only a VHF, which couldn't pick up anything at Allans-Pensacola Cay, we were clueless. Being clueless about the weather isn't a great thing when you're on a boat and want to make your way back to the States. But clueless we were.

We headed off to Great Sale Cay in the vague hopes that we could pick up the weather forecast from the States once we got there. First off, we made a little detour to do some snorkeling in the midst of the Little Bahama Bank near Pawpaw Rock. It was a great little spot in the middle of nowhere with not another boat to be seen. Except for the one boat that came out of nowhere, just as I was changing out of my swimsuit in the cockpit. Perfect timing.

Despite standing on one leg holding a fork, we were still clueless about the weather.

When you're trying to get reception on the VHF, holding utensils and contorting your body into weird pretzel like formations while balanced precariously on an object not designed to hold your weight will sometimes work. It didn't for us when we were anchored at Great Sale Cay that night.

The next morning, Scott managed to the weather. I'm not sure whether he was holding a fork, a knife or one of our useless can openers. To be honest, I didn't really care. I was just happy to have a forecast which told us that things were looking good to cross back over on Sunday. We headed off to Mangrove Cay to stage ourselves for the crossing. Once we got there, we tried to get another weather forecast. No luck. Of course.

We did, however, see a magical sunset with two setting suns. I'm not sure how or when our solar system became a binary one, but there they were - two separate suns going down on the horizon. We weren't sure if the other sun has always been there, but is usually obscured by comet dust or something. We gave up trying to figure it out and went to sleep wondering if having two suns was going to affect the weather patterns for the crossing back.

See how practical I'm getting the more time I spent on boats? I don't even think about whether aliens have transported another sun into our solar system as part of some preparation to colonize our planet. I just wonder what the weather is going to be like for sailing. Maybe I am getting just a little bit salty.

LOGBOOK NOTES | Wednesday, 3 June - Friday, 5 June 2015

• Total Nautical Miles - 61
• Anchor Up - Allans-Pensacola Cay
• Snorkeling Stop - Near the Fish Cays by Pawpaw Rock
• Anchorage #1 - Great Sale Cay (Thursday, 4 June)
• Anchorage #2 - Mangrove Cay (Friday, 5 June)
• Weather Forecast Frustrations - Plenty 
• Oops Moments - Leaving the bung in the dinghy during a downpour and having to go out in the middle of the night to undo it.
• Number of Barracuda - 2 (all released)

Next up on the blog...we finally get a weather forecast and decide to go for it and cross back to Florida. This time without any cookies. 

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