Mike Ball

Well, it’s been two quiet days, actually.

I visited a strange bookstore called “Uplandharma”. They had a good collection of early science fiction from the 50′s and 60′s. There were a couple of kids manning the stores dressed in what can only be called “midwest goth”. You know, sort of a cross between goth and Amish.

We [...]

This morning the women went to the Quilters Hall of Fame while I stayed and worked on some neglected Sun stuff. I gather that they weren’t terribly excited by the particular exhibit they had up at the time, but the house was really interesting.

The weather was hot and humid, so we decided to wait for [...]

In response to some requests, along with a desire to learn more about using my scanner and photo editor, I’ve included some maps. These are excerpted from

Yachtsman’s Guide to the Bahamas
Meredith Fields, Editor

I heartily recommend the book for anyone really interested in the area.

This map shows the entire Bahamas area. The little square shows where [...]

This is a summary of my May 6 to May 17 trip to the Bahamas. While there I stayed on our boat, the Roseate. Individual posts will cover individual parts of the trip.

Just to finish the story, it wasn’t raining the next morning, so the trip home was uneventful. No lost luggage, no bad weather, [...]

Still no weather front, but we had some strong gusts overnight and the little harbor where we anchored is getting rough. We went to the local market for some supplies, then back to Red Shank for some quiet water. There are a number of other boats anchoring in the area too, so we aren’t the [...]

Bad weather did not develop overnight, though it is cloudier than it has been. It’s also breezy, and Charlie claims that the crossing would have been harder if we had delayed, and could have been much harder. I am just as glad that we pushed a little.

I took the boat the few miles into Elizabeth’s [...]

After the prediction of an approaching front, we wanted to get the open water behind us before it got here. We started out today before 7:00 and made as directly as we could for Exuma. The morning was cloudy, but so far it’s been calm and very smooth cruising. We’ll see.

The whole day went well, [...]

The tide was high this morning, so Charlie and I took the dinghy to go see Gun Point and Turtle Sound. Interestingly, we saw a gun at Gun Point and some turtles in Turtle Sound. I didn’t get any pictures of the turtles, but I did get some of rays that we saw on the [...]

Today we completed our circumnavigation of the Bight. We cruised North, heading for a passage called the “going through”, which led to a sheltered area on the North side of Acklins Island. We didn’t get through. The water was much too thin, even for the Roseate, which only draws two feet. We gave up and [...]