March 31 again..

SO I'm waiting for our appointment in town, and I did this is 20 minutes!!! Go get your clam shells, kiddies...this is as easy as the coconuts!!!

March 31

Yesterday we went to explore one of the beaches on Crab Cay. We found 3 coconuts and hundreds of large clam shells. We went to Peace and Plenty for the Thursday night BBQ chicken with Bill and Julia, Jeanne &Gordon, Jim and Cheryl and Sue and Tom. It was great except for the noise [music] Bill said he enjoyed himself: "never talked to so many people that I'll never see again!"

Today I have to go to shore to the Exuma Foundation with Jeanne to present the cheque. After that, not sure ...maybe snorkeling. Water's finally warming up.

Friday March 24

Lights are back on in town. The harbour is empty on the town side. Everyone else has cozied up to Stocking Island. The winds here are not too bad...we saw 19 but we have a short mast. Lots of little jobs to do to pass the time and if we get desperate we are only a couple hundred feet from shore so we can go for a walk. Have a good day everyone...see you when this passes...

March 18 after St. Pat's

March 18
So this past week has been very uneventful except for the COLD WIND!!! The past 2 nights we've had a blanket on the bed, and we are wearing long sleeved shirts during the day.
Chris Bailey from TBYC [Thunder Bay Yacht Club] stopped by with his crew yesterday! They are just touching George Town and heading back to get the crew to a flight in Nassau. Tsk tsk...boaters should never have schedules, especially in this kind of weather...good luck Chris!
Jeanne and I are trying to wrap up the 2017 Regatta so I can get on with planning next year. I warned them all that they would probably hate me by the end of it...oh, well!
Tomorrow we are going to St. Francis for Trivia night and hopefully Gordon is still on his winning streak!!
We are sitting here bouncing around in the waves and wind. Today we go to shore to pack up all the Regatta stuff and put it in storage. Gotta find a parka and some sweats! Ttyl

Back in George Town

Made it back to George Town in 9 hrs. Not great but has some good motor sailing moments...until Freedom passed us going south and reported that he'd had 30 knots since he left George town. I was a little panicked but we never saw that and we were along the shore all the way. Saw some great little cays that we'd like to explore before we leave here.

Time to start planning the exit agenda...Family Island Regatta...Eleuthera to visit the science school...Allen's Cay for iguana study and then head home.I sure hope the snow is gone by the time we get there!!!

March 12-13

It was a relaxing two days after the end of the rally on Long Island. We spent yesterday morning with Al & Susan. Then we went beach combing on the little islands in the middle of Thompson Bay. 
Today we delivered all the school supplies to the Tourism office. They promised to have the teacher take a pictures of the kids using the supplies an send it to me so I can pass it on to the Artist's Co-op who donated the supplies.
Then we walked up to AL & Susan's place and went on our Beach tour with them and Te Amore. Welk Cay is a beautiful little bay. We went to Ty's SouSide Bar for dinner, then we picked up the extra dinghy. We are all loaded and ready to go in the morning,...sad to leave . It's beautiful here, but more importantly, it was great meeting and spending time with Susan and getting reacquainted with Al. Miss you guys already!...but we'll talk !

Day three- Cave tour and Dig site

Yesterday we had a lot of fun. Susan divided us into three groups and we split up to go to the various venues: the caves and the dig site. When she found out Rick and I had been archaeologists, she split us up to so we could talk to the various groups about the dig...like we would know more, but...


The Hamilton cave is truly awesome...it's where the original Lucayans lived and sheltered. It's where the local people his for years from hurricanes until the government deemed them unsafe. It is filled with bugs...mostly cockroaches and millipedes[no spiders thank god!] and 8 species of bats. Luckily for me there were many accesses to the outside world but I stuck like glue to Leonard,the guide and he teased me all the way through about being claustrophobic and him not remembering how to get back out,. The cave has over 3000 feet of mapped tunnels that go under the island...he owns it and he has never explored them all.

After the cave, we met up with Al and switched vehicles. Susan left me with the group Al was driving around and after he showed me where the site was, he made me lead the group while he sat on the beach! The dig site was just a cleared spot in the "bush" that had been dug up and filed in but I knew enough about it to be able to explain it.

We went to lunch at a resort in Clarence Town and then some of the last group opted to go to the smaller caves..Rick went but I didn't. I went back on the bus and we met one of the local politicians who gave us a talk about the upcoming election. I waited at the bar near the dinghy dock for Rick to come back then we went to the beach for Goodbyes and Sundowners again. IN the midst of that Jeanne and I decided we needed to eat so we coerced Susan and Al to drive us to  a place to eat a and we went to tiny's a great restaurant at the end of Thompson Bay. The dropped us back at the beach around 10 and we talked with the last of the boaters for awhile, then came home to bed. Missed the time change and missed the net this morning but had a great visit with Susan and Al until noon.
Okay this is probably really boring so just look at the pictures. They're all mixed up but you get the gist.

Long Island Mar 8-10

March 8-10

We spent Wednesday getting ready to go to Long Island to the rally that is the continuation ...or the wind-up to our George Town Cruising Regatta. It was a windy, stormy day again with winds up in the 20's and waves up over 3 feet in the harbour. We took the bat over to Volleyball beach so we could have the Chairman's wind-up meeting and Volleyball, and listen to a talk by endangered Species, a boat that spent 12 years circumnavigating the world.

The talk was very, very interesting and I learned that I really don't want to do that!!

At the meeting, I became the Chairman for next year, but I have a co-chairman in Bill Roy, [boat Providence]. Bill has been around the regatta for many years and has lots of good ideas, and memories of how things were done in the past. That's important to help coalesce plans for next year.

So...moving on...we packed up early the next morning, picked up Jeanne and Gordon and headed out the channel to Long Island. The wind was ...you guessed it...on the nose...20-25 knots and the waves were 3-4 feet..I hate Chris Parker, the local weather predictor.

We had to go because there was a huge dinner planned for that night that we all had paid big bucks for and we couldn't miss it. We got into the harbour about 5:00 p.m. and the bus left for the dinner around 6, so we were on time and surprisingly, not the last ones to arrive!!! We had a couple of drinks before dinner and had the conch races...I lost.

So dinner was in this amazing cave! It was huge and apparently had bats! I didn't see any but others did. I was just worried about bat shit in my dinner!

It was a great night although I have to admit I am a little bit tired of rice and peas, bbq chicken and coleslaw. But at least I could eat it. I couldn't eat the fish or the mac'n cheese of course, or the awesome looking dessert.

Today we took a bus tour down to Clarence Town, the south end of the island. We went to an amazing [and scary] Dean's Blue Hole. It's the deepest recorded blue hole in the world.

We saw some ancient churches and the results of hurricane Joaquin and Matthew. Long Island seems to re-build and restore a lot faster that Exuma when it comes to keeping up their facilities.

Tomorrow we are going on cave tour. It sounds exciting...15000 year old burial and habitation site....and caves with stalactites and stalagmites...can't wait!!!

We will probably stay here for an extra day or two to get the art and school supplies taken over to the school. We will explore the island a bit more, then head back to George Town.

 

First island church built in 1700's

Inside the church

A new Class A racing sloop being built

Looking down on the blue hole- while is sand, blue starts to go down 600 feet

Memorial to those who have drowned here at the Blue Hole

Standing on the edge of the Atlantic

Storm coming over the island

Conch races...oops I think this is supposed to be secret

Dinghy chain at sunset

Inside the cave

Inside the dining cave

"Dolphins on the Storm"

Rick spent a half hour in the water this morning swimming with the dolphins, before the big storm hit.

Regatta Ending

Feb 27- Mar 3

Wow ! What a week! But regatta is over..sort of sad about that. It was exciting.

We missed the small boat races and the coconut Challenge on Wednesday because the day was stormy and we didn't think there would be room on the other side to park the big boat.

On Thursday we proved once again that the Goose should not race...we didn't even qualify to have our name on our own trophy!! However, it seems that there is now a new manoeuvre is racing called the "Goose Step"...if you can't get around the mark on a tack, just sail around it backwards.  George on Copper Penny came with us and gave a running commentary on our progress. I think they knew we were using the motor ...a bit. The winner of our trophy lost the race because he caught the biggest fish...a 32 inch mahi-mahi! Worth more than a bottle of wine or rum!

We had Beach Golf yesterday morning, and we were teamed up with Shep and Deb from High ZZZ's whom we first met in Bimini two years ago. Shep is a golfer...he gave us pointers and by the end of 9 holes we were able to get close to the 'green'.  It was great fun and Rick thinks he might be good at golf, so this summer...

After Beach Golf, was Fun Volleyball which we watched...no sense pushing my luck. The Scavenger Hunt was running at the same time. This year Cindy on Copper Penny [from Midland Ont.] ran it and had a great list of questions for people to search out for their prizes.

After we handed out the prizes, recognized the Chairmen, tried to convince people to take over next year, Jeanne and I hitched a ride over to St. Francis and got us signed up for Trivia...which we won!!! Gordon is amazing...he knows so much stuff! But I got the answer to the math problem!!!  I remembered BDMAS!!! Rick knew dome of the answers that Gordon didn't know and we won another bottle of rum!!

There is a huge storm coming in over the next 2-3 days...in fact it started last night. We brought OG back to this side of the harbour so Jeanne and Gordon could get a dry ride, and we parked beside them. With the winds starting up early, we might need to move away a little. The winds are supposed to be pushing 35 knots.

We are going to Long Island this week in the Rally...it will be a bit rough getting out at first if this system doesn't settle down by then, but we've paid our money so we are going. We will probably come back here and set a spell. There are some things I haven't finished here, like getting pictures of the kids with the Art supplies. Then we will decide where to go next.

Sadly through all of this C-Soul left on Thursday. We miss them and wish they could have come to Long Island with us. But we always stay in touch and we will catch up with them later. Be safe, you guys!

SO...here are some pictures.