March 1st George Town

Mike and I went in to do some laundry. We had plenty of our own and also Erin's wet clothes from the boat ride last night. We were in luck, as they had enough machines open for us. Those who came later had to wait. We headed back to the boat for lunch.

After lunch Sam, Erin and I went to town to do a bit of shopping and to call Erin's mom to let her know they were here safely. We went into all the little shops in town, but only ended up buying a few groceries.

We went back to the boat and then to the beach to see what was going on. We had a little lunch at the Chat N Chill and checked out activities. I said something about conch salad and Mike asked where you could get one here. We have been on this beach many times and he never knew about the conch shack! So, later in the afternoon we went down to check it out. Johnny was busy chopping onions, tomatoes, and sometimes green peppers and mixing them with his special spices. Then he cleans some fresh conch and chops that up and adds it to the mix. He scoops it all into a bowl and squeezes fresh oranges and limes on top and it's ready to eat. We got a couple and they were excellent. Many people who were waiting for a salad say that Johnny makes the best in the Bahamas-and he is quite a character. Sam made some comment and he threatened to tie her to the corner of his conch stand. It was fun just to watch him and talk to him.

There was live music (some boater with a guitar) at the St. Francis Resort on the deck. We headed over and listened for a while, but since we did not have our flashlight with us we headed back to the boat just before dark. We had dinner and made the girls watch the movie "Captain Ron"-always a requirement for people staying on our boat.

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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.

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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.

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