We were so smug, we ordered our Bahamian SIM card before leaving the US and thought we'd be "connected" right away. It only took 10 days to work out the wrinkles!! We did have limited WiFi at Leeward, but it didn't always work... We signed up for a week at Leeward YC partly due to a good deal and partly due to the winds. We enjoyed the whole atmosphere in Black Sound. Lots of friendly people and lots to do.
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| Even the bathrooms had class at Leeward! |
We hung out with Debbie and Mike quite a lot....which means bars!
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| We both added our boat cards to the walls of Miss Emily's Blue Bee(home of the FAMOUS Goombay Samsh), we had lunch and rum punch at Pineapples, watched sunset with a rum punch at Sundowners and had another lunch and punch (called the Snapping Turtle) at the Tranquil Turtle. |
We also made several trips to the beautiful beaches mostly on the windward side of the island.
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We even found pigs!! We thought Big Majors in the Exumas had the corner on pig entertainment, but No Name
Cay, just across from the southeastern end of Green Turtle has a family that loves vegetable "waste". We also
were in search of sand dollars that are said to be plentiful on the flats at low tide. We did find quite a few. |
I even found a water aerobic group (unfortunately on our last day at the marina) . We rented a golf cart the last day there (a 4 hour rental) and were able to explore the whole island including, White Sound, Black Sound and New Plymouth the settlement in Settlement Harbour.
The hardware store even had the right size pvc piping to support Dory's new bow seat in the dinghy.
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| She was a little skeptical at first, but has settled right in and likes her front row seat. |
It's been handy to have my Sailrite Sewing Machine along, and I'm thrilled with my latest machine (courtesy of Tess Hinckley), a vintage Singer featherweight portable. It purrs like a kitten and sews like a dream. Dan did have to replace the power cord...it had turned to powder inside the cord, but now
it's good for another 65 years!
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| SWEET!! |
We were less than thrilled with the laundry at Leeward, the dryer didn't dry much, so we resorted to stringing a clothes line from the bow, down through the hatch and back to the companionway. The tasteful teal clothesline was a gift from Jeanne Helldorfer, she said it just looked like me!!
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| No comment.... |
We left Black Sound at 9:45am on Friday (high tide) and headed for the "Whale" as everyone calls the Whale Cut Passage with
Resolve. It is the only route to the southern part of the Sea of Abaco and you have to go out into the Atlantic through a narrow cut that is notorious for being rough and often dangerous. We had a head wind so progress was slow, but not all that rough and we dropped the hook in Fisher Bay on Guana Cay by 1 pm.
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Resolve just outside Whale Cay - - - in the big A.
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As we passed by Bakers Bay we spotted this sight....the three masted schooner is a relatively familiar sight in these waters, but we couldn't identify the other vessel until we got closed. On the ports side is a three story inflatable slide and the starboard side sports an inflatable climbing wall!! The 167' yacht Lazy Z probably calls Bakers Bay home. Checking the AIS of the vessels in the harbor we saw Winning Drive (131') owned by the owner of the Ravens was the smallest one in there!!
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| Lots of other little "toys" were tied off the stern. |
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| For those of you who know Debbie, you know she is notorious for spoiling dogs... A few nights ago Dory got her first taste of turkey at the hand of Debbie, and she is ready to jump ship as you can see. She sat here just watching Debbie in the distance! |
We went ashore for a beer at Grabber's Beach Bar and took a walkabout around to the next bay, Settlement Harbor and the Orchid Bay Marina. One of our new friends from the crossing,
Mariner's Dream, had emailed to tell us they were there and it was 50 cents a foot!! We found them nestled in and just across the dock .... what to our wondering eyes should we see but WEST WIND. Luckily the Canadian owners were "oot and aboot" and we verified that it was one and the same West Wind that was Bob and Joann Baum's old boat. They talked about buying it in Annapolis from Bob and still loving it just as much.
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She looks just like we remember her.
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When we woke this morning we discovered the special engine davit for supporting the dinghy engine was missing!! We found most of it hanging from the engine, dangling in the water. One part of it is on the bottom easily visible in the clear water, but we are waiting for low tide before Dan goes diving for it. He spent most of the morning drilling out the broken bolt and the rest of this afternoon cutting down another bolt to fit only to have it drop overboard just as he was cleaning the threads!! ..... LOW TIDE-- He just recovered the three foot bottom portion of the pole from 10 feet of water, but no luck finding a 5/16th 18, 3/4" long bolt!! We really would have had to get a lottery ticket if he had found it!! Luckily Mike had one in his spares so we're in business. Hopefully I'll be showing you a picture of the repaired davit next blog.
You can't come to Guana without going to Nipper's so we went in today for lunch and had one of Nippers famous frozen drinks made with 8 different rums!!! Very tasty! Quiet night aboard. We'll head to Marsh Harbor in the morning. ~~~_/)~~~M&D
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