Hi Everybody

 After Robbie's terrific dissertation, I would like to share my views on life from Anteater Blues.  It is probably going to be a bit more geared for the blokes than Robbies.  So I will start off with the beers.

There are no bad beers in the Carribean.  The beer here in Bahamas is Kalik. It is a very good beer.  In fact it is 3 oclock in the afternoon and I am drinking one in the cockpit and looking over an azure blue lagoon while I punch away on the keyboard.  The colours of the Bahamas are crystal aqua to deep blue, and absolutely stunning.  The land forms are small atolls or islands called cays.  On the seaward or east side the water is deep (up to 5000 m).  On the west side the water is shallow.  I am looking over a sea of very light blue/green that would be about one-two meters deep.  There are narrow and at times scary gaps between the cays that leave you with your heart in your mouth as you pass through turbulent waters locked by reefs to come in from the deep to the shallow water.  A typical passage is in through a 50 m gap in the reef or rocks, then hook a sharp right and eyeball your way in for 500 m watching out for bombies in 3-5 m water.  It is especially great when you time it perfectly so that the outgoing tide is at full roar as you are coming through.  The wind is alway easterly (behind you) and the outgoing tide can whip up a boiling sea.  Thank goodness for electronic charts that you peer at anxiously as you roll from side to side while Robbie is there pointing out the natural geographical beauty of the place.

This trip has been absolutely fantastic.  The weather is perfect, the wind always blows from the east (except sometimes it blows from the north) and wind strength from 10-25 knots.  The Ant has been flying except when the wind drops below 10 or 12 knots from behind, when we motor.  We chose a boat that was technologically advanced and would sail well.  It is important with a sail boat to keep it well balanced and to keep weight out of the fore and aft sections to give her maximum lift for fast sailing.  Well now she has dinghy davits hanging over the stern complete with dinghy and outboard happily attached, the for'ard anchor locker as well as its 50 lb CQR and 70 m of chain now also has 4 x 36 L jerry cans of extra fuel, and generally she looks happily laden like a real cruising boat.  I dived on the hull and that is growing fur too, so when she gets back to Aus it will be a spruce up and then a BIG dejunking exercise to club race her.

Actually I had a good reason to dive on her.  We had one of those experiences that keeps your head out of the clouds and retains a perspective of how precious life is.  We sailed into this current anchorage at a place called White Cay in the Berry Islands, and dropped the pick in about 4-5 m of water just off the beach, and let out about 25 m of chain.  We had dropped in sand with weed about 10 m away.  We were facing a beach and there was another small cay with reef about 50 m away.  The wind outside was blowing about 20-25 knots, and this was producing a surge in the anchorage as the sea found its way around the entrance, but it was quite tenable.  We sat with the boat for a few hours, dropped the dinghy and explored for a while, then went back for sundowners.  (At sundown I change from beer to rum punch.  Robbie likes G&T so I have learnt to make G&T's.  I have also learnt to make rum punch.  A slosh of rum, a squeeze of lime, a wave of grenadine, a touch of water, juice, and then top it up with rum).  Anyway we were having our sundowners in the cockpit and debating the merits of a second one, when I saw that we were rapidly dragging anchor with the tide change.

I started the engine.  Robbie grabbed the anchor controller and went forward to try to get the anchor up.  I tried to keep her in the one spot while we got the anchor up.  But we were too late.  She grounded on the reef of the nearby cay and then worked her way onto it with sickening thuds.  She was laying over with a gunwhale in the water, each wave was crashing into her and the rig was thudding.  I kept the motor on full and tried to motor off; Robbie got the anchor up.  I then started to get the ancillary anchor out to lay it out and left the motor on.  The edge of the island was only about a boat length off and each thud seemed to be punching her closer.  Robbie got on the VHF with a security call but could not raise two power boats that were in the anchorage.

Then after about 30 mins suddenly Anteater Blues turned her nose around and righted.  Both Robbie and thought that she was somehow going to crash over onto the other side, but she had worked her way across the reef and was in flotable water, but was then caught in the tide and being whisked away toward another reef area.  By this time it was pitch black.  Robbie dropped the anchor again, but one of the rollers in the anchor well ripped out of the anchor compartment.  Anyway we settled in about 5 m of water; I ran out two additional anchors, and then the shock set in. We had not in a life time of sailing seemed so close to losing a beautiful boat. Robbie was fantastic - she just did what she had to do through out the traumatic experience.  I did not sleep that night but stayed up with our baby to see that all was OK.

Somebody out there looked after us.  Since cruising the Caribbean, two close friends have departed this world, who it could have been, but somebody gave us outside help. Makes you realise how precious life is.  This was one of those defining moments in your life.

The boat is very strong.  She is built of epoxy foam sandwich construction. The hull has full steel girders running through her that are tied into the keel and chainplates.  I have since pulled up all her floorboards, and she is showing no sign of any movement.  No water has come into the boat since the grounding.

So after that experience, I have returned for refuge to the beers.  In the Domenican Republic, the beer is Presidente, an appropriate name I suppose. It is also a very good beer.  Robbie is a cordon blue chef on the boat.  She has cooked the most superb meals including coconut curried crab that was out of this world.  Almost every day is an eating experience.  Being a good old Oz boy, I have had trouble adopting the European wines that I find a bit insipid, probably because I have no idea what is good and what is not. However, it is not difficult to find Aussie wines of resonable quality (and quite cheap) throughout the Carribean, and Robbie will often come home laden up with a fresh supply of Hardy's or Penfolds reds, or even NZ whites from Marlborough.

We have caught a few fish.  Along the Exuma sound, two days running we caught superb mahi-mahi.  The first one was about 1.5 m long and when we landed it, Robbie was drooling, but I could not stand the thought of killing such a beautiful fish, and so I put it back.  Then the next day was Robbie's fish.  She landed it and looked at it, and got weak in the knees and said "Put it back, Phil".  I have attached a photo of this one that was (seriously) the small one of the two.  Maybe it was those two dolphin fish who sent a message to free us from the reef.

I have now moved on with the email, and we are in Fort Lauderdale in Florida.  We left the Berry Islands around lunch time a few days ago with an overnight passage planned.  We knew that there were thunderstorms expected, but the electrical storms that we encountered were electrifying!, and a bit scary (that word again).  There was one huge one that sent bolts of lightening into the water along with non-stop background explosive light shows.  We spent some time dodging cells and the big shows, and took a course over the banks in about 7 m of water to reduce the risk of getting hit full on.

Then there is the Gulf Stream to encounter.  The Gulf Stream runs north between the Bahamas and the Florida coast at up to 4-5 knots, and is feared in these parts in any sort of a northerly wind.  I can understand that it does get very rough with steep-backed waves, but this is the exact conditions in which we send boats out into the Sydney-Hobart.  My point? - sure avoid these conditions if you can, but they are not unmanageable for a well-found boat.

Anyway, that is probably enough of my view on life from Anteater Blues.  Oh yes, and the beer here in USA - Samuel Adams.

All the best

Phil