March 16, 2016

We get up early and head for Georgetown. As soon as we hit deeper water we put out our fishing lines in hopes of catching another fish. We motor-sail across the Exuma Sound doing better than seven knots. The seas are relatively flat. The rollers are about three to four feet but are at about an eight second interval which makes it a gentle roll. We get only one hit on our fishing lines but no fish.

We enter the Georgetown Harbor at about 14:00. The waters there are crystal clear and nearly flat. You can see right to the bottom in thirty feet of water. The channel gets shallower as we get closer to our destination. It is a beautiful ride in on a bright and clear day.

We get a note from Mañana to meet them at Sandollar Beach. They are currently anchored at Chat 'n Chill but do not like their location near Chat 'n Chills generators. We pass Monument Beach, Honeymoon Beach, and Chat 'n Chill beach. We hear a hail for Déjà vu a couple of times and then a hail for Sea Vu Play. Apparently Nile cannot remember our boat name. That's Ok. Every once in a while I call him Neil. He tells us he is still at Chat 'n Chill but will meet us at Sanddollar Beach shortly.

We look for a spot at Sanddollar where we both can fit. I drop the hook in about fifteen feet of water and let about 100 feet of chain. True to their name, Mañana shows up a couple of hours later and I direct them to the spot I saved for them in front of us. We pop over for happy hour and to catch up on the latest events. We then head back to our boat for dinner and chill for the rest of the night.

March 17, 2016

I run into Georgetown and get some water and then we go onto Stocking and walk the beach with Mañana. On our way back we run into three boats from New Bern: Non-Linear, Windfall, and Our Freedom. We visit for a while and then head back to the boat for lunch.

In the evening we head into Peace and Plenty for their bar-b-que and drinks. Every Thursday night they advertise that they have a rake and scrape band. We have drinks and and play dominoes until the the barbeque is ready. The band starts playing about an hour after dinner. It was okay but was not rake and scrape. The two mile trip across the harbor at night back to our boats in the dinghies was uneventful.

March 18, 2016

We got up early and went into Georgetown for breakfast. We dock our dinghies on the docks in Lake Elizabeth and walk back to Redboone. We have breakfast and use the Wi-Fi. We place our orders and wait an hour for our breakfast while we watch locals walk in and out with theirs. I guess the tourists are a low priority.

Linda and Nile get haircuts while we shop the island. I go into the hardware store and get a steel leader kit. We don't want to lose any more fish due to using monofilament line. We then head over to the Exuma market to pick up some groceries and then head back to the boat.

In the afternoon I defrost the freezer. It takes a couple of hours to remove all the ice and clean up the mess. One of the chickens in the freezer thawed so Karen cooked that up for dinner. We head over to Mañana after dinner to play Mexican Train. It is nice to have someone to hang with.

When Mañana was trying to come up with a name for their boat Nile's mother kept nixing every name they come up with. Finally they offered up the current name Mañana. Nile's mother said perfect. Nile tends to be a slow mover.

March 19, 2016

I went into Georgetown to get some more water while Karen made gluten free cookies for herself. At lunchtime we went over to Chat 'n Chill for lunch with Mañana on Stocking Island. The winds were blowing better than 15 knots down the channel so it was a lumpy ride in. We beached the dinghy on the backside of Chat 'n Chill is well protected in a little lagoon vs. the front beach due to the rough water/waves.

We wait around for a while for Mañana to show up. Then the ladies do some shopping while Nile and I hang out at Chat 'n Chill. We place our orders for lunch and then find some shade on Volleyball Beach to wait for our lunch to be made. We wait for an hour for our meals to be prepared. We are on island time.

After lunch we head over to Hole #3 to do some snorkeling at the cave there. We arrive a few minutes after a small boat of drunken tourists. The young ladies are clad in butt floss bikinis. We watched them clown around while we got ready for snorkeling. The water was quite murky from the high winds that have been blowing. It was not very good snorkeling.

The cave opening starts about five feet below the surface of the water and extends down another 30 feet. The opening is about 30 feet wide at its widest point. The cave is full of fish. You dive down and see over a hundred good sized fish staring back at you. It is strange to see so many fish staring back at you. I swim into the cave and flush out some of the fish so the people above can see fish which are not apparent from the surface.

We don't spend much time in the water and head back to the boat following the other boat with the exposed buns. We make plans to leave the harbor and head for Long Island tomorrow. After returning to the boat I make another run for water in Georgetown. It will be a long time before we see free water again.

March 20, 2016

We are up at 7:00 and I make my last run for water. When I get back I see Nile leaving to make his last run for water as well. We wait until 9:00 am to see them start to pull their anchor and then we do the same. We put up our sails and head down the channel towards Long Island. When we look back we see that Mañana still has not left the anchorage. We have the sails up so we are committed and carry on.

We are sailing east and have to keep a close eye on the water to make sure to avoid the reefs in the area. The depth of the water ranges from 12 to 36 feet for most of our trip so we will have to remain alert at all times. The winds are blowing about 17 knots out of the southeast and we are doing six to eight knots as we sail towards Long Island. We seem to be heeling a bit more than normal but I cannot determine the cause. Maybe it is all that water I have stored on deck. It is another beautiful day for sailing.

We start out a couple of miles ahead of Mañana but continue to pull away from them until we loose sight of them all together. We pass several boats headed back from Long Island and going to Georgetown. The day passes without any major issues. The radar quits working so I cannot keep an eye on Mañana behind us. With the radar up we can see over 16 miles. Without radar we can barely see out 6 miles.

We make our last turn before entering Thompson Bay. We are lucky and have a beneficial wind shift and can continue to sail all the way into Thompson Bay. With the winds as they were predicted we should have had the winds on our nose. We are having a good run of luck. We sail into the anchorage at low tide and creep in with just the main up. We go as close to the northern shore as we dare and drop the hook in 6.2 feet of water. I let out 50 feet of chain and Karen backs down on the anchor to make sure it sets. I put the bridle on the chain and we go down below to get ready for the Sunday Happy Hour on the beach.

16:00 comes and goes and no one shows up on the beach. We decide to have happy hour over on Mañana's boat who arrived in the harbor about 30 minutes after we arrived. We return to our boat after happy hour and chill for the rest of the night.

March 21, 2016

The winds are out of the southwest and that leaves the harbor we are in pretty exposed. The day is cloudy and the water is rough. It is not a good day to go ashore. I borrow Mañana's sewing machine and resew a lot of the stitching on the Bimini for our boat. A significant amount of stitching is beginning to fail due to the constant exposure to the sun and wind. If I don't sew it up now we will probably lose the Bimini all together.

Mañana's sewing machine works fantastic. It has an additional reduction gear on it which makes it much more powerful and a lot slower. It is a dream to work with. It punches through twelve layers of material like it was nothing. My sewing machine struggles with just eight layers. It also seems to wander less making the stitching a much straighter line. It is a great machine to work with.

I return the sewing machine in the afternoon and put the Bimini back on the boat. It looks so much better now that I have resewn it and taken all the slack out of the material.

The wind has shifted to the west and we now have better protection from the seas. We head into Salt Pond and show Mañana where everything is in this small town. We end up in Sou' Side and have our dinner there. Afterwards we head over to Mañana's for another game of Mexican Train.

March 22, 2016

We ran the generator all morning long to get the batteries back up. Yesterday was not a good solar day due to it being cloudy all day. I also ran the sewing machine off the batteries, so that did not help.

Karen got a note from her sister telling her that she needed a power of attorney from her to complete the sale of her Mom's house so we headed over to the Ministry of Tourism to see how we could handle that request. Mañana came with us so that they could pick up some fuel at the Esso station and we could all walk over to the west side of the island to visit the beach.

We dinghy over to the government dock and tie up. Nile and I head for the gas station while the girls head over to the Ministry of Tourism to figure out how to handle the power of attorney. Nile and I fill up our fuel jugs, I also leave my spent propane tank at the gas station to be filled, and return the filled jugs to the dinghies.

We meet up with the ladies at the Tourism office to find that one of the Tourism employees has it all worked out and will take us where we need to go to get everything done. We are told it will only take a few minutes, so Karen and I leave Nile and Linda at the Tourism office and we head out to deal with the paperwork. I forgot what a few minutes means in "Island Time."

We drive down to Deadman's Cay to a past member of parliaments' house and get her document notarized. We then head further south to Hamilton to another person's house who handles the Fed Ex for the island. It is great that we got this all done so quickly. It did eat up most of our afternoon. So much for the few minutes.

We returned to the Ministry of Tourism. Nile and Linda were still waiting for us. Instead of heading to the beach we dinghy back to the other dock to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things for the party on the beach this evening. We then head back to the boat to pick up our snacks and drinks for the party on the beach which starts at 16:00. We did not have the beach get together on Sunday so we decided to have it today. Ten to fifteen boats showed up for the party. We had a good time catching up with old friends and meeting new friends. Bright Ayes was back in the harbor. It was good to see them again.