Despite all my reports of Troubles lately, the good times still far outweigh the bad and we continue to marvel at some of the experiences we've had.

We left Marsh Harbour on Wednesday to go over to Tahiti Beach for a couple of days. Because the tide was low, we couldn't get over the shallow banks to Hope Town and go down that way. Instead, we hoisted our sails and made use of the wind to take us down to Tavern Cay and around the end of Lubbers Quarters to a new-to-us anchorage. We just cruised along slowly, letting the wind blow away our fretfulness. With clear minds and happy hearts, the crews of Madcap and Solitaire joined Tessa and Jeff on Inamorata for Happy Hour. We enjoy the company of these new friends, and discovered that Jeff once worked at CFDR in Halifax/Dartmouth back in the early 80's. Now based in Annapolis, MD, they spend their non-sailing time as entertainers - mentalists - and we are begging them to do an Eastern Canada tour!

The six of us visited Cracker P's for lunch and discovered that Patrick, the owner, lives part of the year in Charlottetown, PEI - just across the Northumberland Strait from Nova Scotia. He has a good thing going here in Lubbers Quarters. We had one of the best Bahamian meals ever. The conch from their kitchen is stewed rather than deep fried and is served in a sweetish sauce. It was delicious and came with peas'n'rice, creamy coleslaw and grilled vegetables on the side.

We all met up with Mike and Kathy (Sapphire) over at Tahiti beach and spent a few hours wading through the shallow water, scooping up pretty, small shells and generally enjoying the sun, sand and some good laughs. Inamorata and Sapphire found some conch - once again we found only under-sized ones. This is a lovely curve of sand that juts out into some pretty shallow water - as discovered by the two boats that went aground there that morning. (Both floated off again as the tide rose several hours later)

On our way back to the boat, we stopped by our neighbours, m/v Sea Que II to say hello, and that was our best small world experience in a long time. On discovering that they are from Mobile, Alabama, we said, "Oh, we have a friend from Mobile. His last name is Echols", expecting maybe a "Yes, I think that's a name from there" or some other vague comment. Can you imagine our surprise and delight when Leslie replied, "Oh - you mean Uncle Mister from Vancouver?" It turns out that one of her best friends is our friend Frank's sister's daughter, Jessica. How about that??!! Of course we accepted Carol, Bill and Leslie's invitation to come aboard. Of course we had a fantastic time visiting them till the sun went down and it was time to go home.

It is just that kind of encounter that makes us so happy to be out here, exploring and discovering and being excited by what we find.

We topped off the evening with more good times aboard Solitaire as we engaged in fierce domino playing with Nancy, Jim, Tessa and Jeff.

We're flying our Nova Scotia flag most of the time now (along with our big red maple leaf of course) and we've been pleased to get waves and visits from passers by: Kim (Gaia II) from Jeddore and a fellow from Ship Harbour, and Bill (Acushla) headed back to Halifax. Small world - with lots of exploring to be done in it!

After a quick run back to Marsh Harbour, our next stop is Fisher's Bay on Great Guana Cay. The weather is supposed to be fabulous for the next week so we'll enjoy it as much as we can before heading back across the deep water. I wonder who we'll meet next?