The girls arrive
Mike
03/09/2008, George Town
Feb. 29.... Georgetown
While Kathy was cleaning I went ashore for a few groceries that ware forgotten yesterday and to fill our jerry cans with water. The ride back, which is about a mile into the wind and waves was wet but not too bad.. We had made arrangements with a taxi driver to bring Sam and Erin from the airport to the "Peace and Plenty Hotel." So another trip to town was to be our evening entertainment.
The wind picked up through out the afternoon and was blowing at or above 20 knots by dark when it was time to leave to pick up the girls. Kathy decided to stay aboard when I headed out about sunset. The trip over wasn't too bad running with three feet. seas. It was too rough to dock at the Peace and Plenty so I went into Exuma Market dock and walked over.
At the Peace and Plenty, a happy hour was in progress with complimentary rum punch, chicken wings and meat balls. I made myself at home for an hour or so until the girls arrived and struck up a conversation with a young family who were anchored near us. Two of them were taking their dinghy back and they were going to hire the water taxi for the other two. I offered to share the cost with them to keep the girls a little dryer.
The three of us had a rum punch while the crew of "Paradise" went out to call the water taxi.
About 20 minutes later they returned to that the water taxi driver had gone home to bed so I volunteered to take back to the boats even though 5 people in the was going to be a problem.
We all walked back to the dinghy dock and got the luggage loaded into garbage bags before we set out across the harbor. We had to angle into three foot waves and during the crossing took on so much water that by the time we dropped off our passengers and motored over to Sapphire, we found ourselves sitting in a dinghy that was full of water. We were never in any danger and the water was warm but...things were wet. The girls phones and cameras were soaked as were all of Erin's clothes. Sam's were remarkably dry.
We laid things out as best we could but there was little hope for the electronics.
Happy Birthday Abby!
Mike
02/28/2008, George Town
Feb. 26...
After Coffee I was off to the Chris Parker weather seminar. On the way I stopped by "Tilt" and we went across the harbor together. The Seminar was mostly review but certainly worth while. I was back by about 2:30 and we spent the rest of the day reading and working on small projects.
Feb. 27 HAPPY BIRTHDAY ABBY!
We were going to go ashore today but there were squalls forecast for early afternoon so we stayed aboard and worked. Kathy continued on the never ending job of polishing stainless steel while I dove into the toilet rebuild kit.
As you may imagine it was a job that had been on the back burner for a month or so but as it turned out was not nearly as bad as I had imagined.
We spent the afternoon reading ...
After dark there was a wonderful lightening display to our north. We had one squall with winds of around 30 but that was it. The wind direction clocked about 360 degrees and we ended up much too close to another boat but decided to wait until morning to move.
Kathy
02/28/2008, George Town
February 25 George Town
We listened to some of the nets and headed to town early to try to get on the internet and post some blogs (and try to figure out a problem with Abby's birthday gift). There was a long line of people waiting, so we headed for the Batelco office (phone company) to buy another phone card for use in the telephone booths here. Then we went to find the telephone booths to call the refrigeration people and I called my mom. She sounded good and is feeling much better. There was freezing rain in Holland today. It is sunny and 85 here. We also picked up a snorkel set so we can take the girls snorkeling when they are here.
I checked for computer time again and it was still packed, so we gave up and went back to the boat. Someone in town told us we could pay for an hour of internet use at St. Francis (the resort nearby), so we headed over there. We did have access for a time, but I was unable to get on to Sailblogs and did a little with email but the connection kept coming and going, so I gave up. We ended up sitting and talking for a long time to Julie and Ray from Australia and their boat "Meander".
We headed to Volleyball Beach to buy George Town Regatta T-shirts and then back to the boat to make dinner.