Our new pump was installed Monday morning, as promised. Spanish Wells is a long way so we waited until Tuesday morning to head out. Ron fished along the way since we were crossing deep water. He had bites on both lines - something big enough that it straightened out the swivels and took the lures! We took a mooring beside Double Diamond, Judy and Andy, who we've met in several spots along the way. Next morning we rented a golf cart to see the town. It is a quaint little fishing village spread over two islands and surrounded by some very shallow water. The town is on St. George's Cay and spreads out on to Russell Island. There is a lot of farming on Russell Island - oranges, bananas, breadfruit and some things we couldn't identify. We had lunch at the Shipyard Restaurant, overlooking the channel to the Devils Backbone, a dangerous cut through rock and coral.

Thursday, March 19th we headed over to Royal Island to stage for the passage to Little Harbour in the Abacos. Truant was anchored here along with Amora. We had drinks aboard Amora, who we hadn't met before (Dan and Judy). They have been travelling with Truant since Georgetown.

Friday morning, bright and early we were off to Lynyard Cay, 57 nautical miles away at the entrance to the Sea of Abaco. Since we had missed high tide we anchored here and next morning made our way to a mooring in Little Harbour. Even with 2'8" of tide, we saw as low as 6'6" of water at the entrance but much deeper inside. We spent the afternoon at the beach, in the art gallery of the owner who does bronze castings in his foundry and having drinks at Pete's Pub.

Sunday, March 22nd we had planned to travel to Hopetown, but as we listened to the VHF, it became clear there was no space. You must either take a mooring or a dock. We decided we would travel to Marsh Harbout instead and anchored in the busy harbour. We spent two nights here. We needed to request an extension on our cruising permit since we were only granted 90 days when we arrived - so Ron and I walked to Immigration to get this done - we have another 30 days. We also celebrated Dan's birthday with a lunch at Snappa's. We ran into Mike nd Mary Ellen on Persuasion again. They are thinking of returning the boat to Canada rather than leaving it in Florida.