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Winding Down Our Bahamas Cruising Trip

It is the end of May and we are at the end of our Bahamas cruise. We are now preparing Odyssey for the summer in the Abacos while we are away. Odyssey will stay at the Hopetown Marina. The marina personnel will rig up the appropriate lines for any tropical storm, but we must prepare everything else on the boat for long term inactivity.

A 3-foot Remora swimming under our boat

The list of things to do to get Odyssey ready for the hurricane season is extensive. Some of the items are:

• Storing the dinghy – This involves cleaning the dinghy bottom, haul it onto the front deck, deflate it, roll it up, and place it in its storage bag. Lastly, it must be tied down on the deck.
• Assemble all the lines for the marina personnel to use for storms. We have 8 lines out holding Odyssey in our slip. We have an additional 7 lines ranging in size from 25 feet to 50 feet that we will leave in the sail locker for the marina personnel to use during a storm.
• Stow the anchors in the anchor locker.
• We will keep the sails on the boat tightly tied off, but we will have the marina personnel remove all the canvas if there is a storm.
• Take down and store all miscellaneous items on the outside of the boat; such as boat hooks, drink holders, cushions, WiFi antenna, flags, etc.
• Put all portable electronic items in ziplock bags.
• Wipe down all the interior wood with a mixture of vinegar and water which helps prevent mildew from growing. We will also put out some dehumidifier crystals that absorb water.

The above items and many other activities will take us about 3 days to complete.

A day at the beach; in this case Tahiti Beach

Boat Upgrades

I received a question recently from a reader asking, “What were the best upgrades we made on Odyssey for our trip to the Bahamas and what upgrades do we wish we had made?”

The best upgrades we made on Odyssey are easy to list as we learned many things from our previous trip down the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW) on our Pearson 34. However, I would say the three best upgrades we made were:

1. Adding solar panels to provide some additional battery charging capability without running our diesel engine. This did save us some fuel costs, but the best benefit was we did not have to run our engine two hours per day while at anchor.
2. On our last trip we had four each 6-volt golf cart batteries for our house battery bank. Golf cart batteries are very good for cruising, but they are lead-acid batteries that require periodic checking and filling with distilled water to keep them charging properly. This time we went with four each Group 27 AGM batteries. AGM batteries are more expensive, but they do not require any maintenance. So we did not have to worry about checking and adding water to our batteries.
3. I think the third best upgrade we made to Odyssey was getting satellite radio. Satellite radio allows us to listen to sports, news shows, and our favorite music while at anchor anywhere in the Bahamas.
   

   Final get together at Nippers on Great Guana Cay

As for the upgrades we did not make to the boat, I think the three most preferred ones were:

1. An enclosed cockpit – Many cruising boats enclose their entire cockpit with canvas and Eisenglass windows. An enclosed cockpit is not needed in the Bahamas, but it can be useful when traveling up and down the ICW in the fall and spring when temperatures sometimes get cooler than expected. However, on the rare days of rain in the Abacos, an enclosed cockpit is nice so you do not have to stay below deck.
2. Dinghy davits – Three or four times the past six months, I had to spend a couple hours scrubbing the bottom of the dinghy to get all the marine growth off. Dinghy davits allow you to lift your dinghy out of the water while not in use so marine grow is not a problem.
3. We did not realize this until we got to the Bahamas, but as can be seen on this site a good underwater camera would have been nice to have.

In fact we did consider the first two upgrades to Odyssey. Both are very expensive. So we had to make a decision about where to spend our limited funds to upgrade the boat. We decided not to make these two upgrades. They would have been nice to have, but not having them did not affect our enjoyment of the Bahamas.

Odyssey at anchor off Taverna Cay

Other Thoughts

I think the best decision we made on this trip was to get a slip for the winter/spring season at the Hopetown Marina. This allowed us to fully engage in all the activities of Hopetown and to make many close friends with other long term residents in the marina. Hopetown harbour is a very good location for protection from bad weather. Also Hopetown is a central location for cruising the Sea of Abaco. All the main cruising locations are within 25 miles of Hopetown.

One note on budgeting – we met many cruisers passing through the Abacos in December, January, and February. In April and May these same boats came back through Hopetown for a few days on the way back to their US/Canadian destination. They all wanted to go out to happy hour and dinner. This caused our dining out budget to go way up in April and May. Since we were well below our total budget at that time, we were able to join our friends. However, dining out is an area to be careful about if you are on a tight budget.

This past winter there were a lot of windy days (more days than usual we are told) which kept us in the marina longer than expected. We were not able to snorkel or scuba dive as much as we would have liked, but the Marina and Hopetown settlement provided many activities to keep us busy.

The other thing that we like about the lifestyle in the Bahamas is you never drive a car. Neither of us has driven a car in the last 6 months. We have gotten used to this way of life and are not looking forward to driving back in the US.

Hopetown Lighthouse at sunset; it was truly a great year

This trip to the Bahamas was a major goal in our lives. It exceeded our expectations in almost every way. We are leaving Odyssey here in Hopetown for the summer season, so we will be back.

Since we are returning to Maryland this week, this will be my last post regarding our Bahamas cruising trip. Hope you enjoyed them. I may from time to time add a post or some pictures to the site.

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