** Leaving early tomorrow for Long Island, then Rum Cay where we will wait out a blow and leave for Mayaguana on Sun/Mon, weather pending!!!
Written earlier in the week.
We have been in Georgetown for ten days and am worried that we will start clucking soon! We received the dongle for our navigation system and now it is just a matter of finding that right weather window, which looks like it could be Wed.
The kids are having a ball here. There are about four other boats here with kids so a pack of about ten kids are running around the beach at all times. They play on the tree swings, hammocks and build tree houses, needless to say they are never bored. It's great because the older kids kind of keep an eye on Sam, although I still have to follow him around. It is funny watching little Sammy follow up the rear behind the group of kids.
Otis has been quite the social butterfly since we arrived. He takes the kids at 5:00 to the beach and they play while he chats and has sundowners, meanwhile I have quiet time on the boat and make dinner. So everyone knows the Brown boys.
I haven't been doing too much since we arrived. I practice yoga three times a week and other than that haven't been swimming much at all. We have gotten a lot of the 'boat list' stuff crossed off such as de rust the pots and pans, clean the grill, wash topsides, scrub dinghy and laundry. Due to the high cost of food, I have been using my stores and will hopefully restock in Dominican Republic where things are considerably cheaper.
We have met some great people since we arrived. Most notably a family on a St. Francis 44(exactly like ours) that have just finished a three year circumnavigation. It has been great picking their brain regarding all the little things. They base out of Georgetown during the winter but may also be South this summer.
A boat from Iowa is here and are very good friends with the boat Scud that I mentioned above. Anyway, the other day they had been out hunting with Scud and caught more lobsters than they needed so they gave us a HUGE lobster! It was so thoughtful, not to mention delicious!. I made them a banana bread to thank them.....we got the better deal.
Otis happened upon a colony of conch! He grabbed six of the biggest ones and a fellow cruiser showed him how to remove them from their shells, clean and skin them which took about three hours all up. I then made a conch salad, which I froze and cracked conch. Cracked conch is basically breaded conch. My grandmother sends me a wonderful breading mix that she buys at the farmers market in town, it is light and spicy.... which was PERFECT with the conch. So Gram, you can tell the man at the market that his breading is great with conch too!
Until later....