Sometimes cruising is not all glamorous. Usually one of those times is figuring out where or how to get the laundry done. Cruisers ears are always attuned to hearing about "a better laundromat."

One day a couple told us about a good laundromat 3 miles outside of town. Since there is only one laundry in Georgetown proper and it is always packed and your clothes come out a little more gray than when you put them in we were all about learning of a new place.

So here is how laundry day went down: we loaded the dinghy with 2 very full collapsible laundry baskets, our soap, empty boat bags to fill up with groceries after the laundry is done and large black plastic garbage bags (to put our clean clothes in later for the wet dinghy ride across the harbor back home).

The dinghy ride to town is about 1.25 nautical miles. In flat seas no problem. In strong southeastern breezes, problem. Very wet ride into the dinghy dock. But we didn't mind because the clothes were already dirty. To get to the dock you have to go under a bridge between 2 buildings. The width of the pass is slightly more than a dinghy's and because of the wind direction it usually has 2-3 foot standing waves in it. So you rev up the outboard and try to surf through into a flat calm lake without taking any boarding waves.

Once tied to the dinghy dock, we unloaded the laundry and walked up to the main road. Now here is the beauty of the plan: we called the Baranki Wash and they agreed to come and get us (and our firends on Bruce and Gina on DreamCatcher too). Of course it was Bahamian time so we arrived at the laundry about an hour later after 2 phone calls.

The laundry was new, clean and the machines worked! 3 for 3! We had never experienced this before in the Bahamas. The proprietoress was very accomodating and she even held the garden hose to fill up the tubs high enough so it would start agitating. It was a great experience, really.

After the laundry was finished all 4 of us walked about 1/4 mile to Cheater's restaurant for a nice lunch with our friends. We walked back to the laundry and a friend of the proprietoress gave us all a ride back to the dinghy dock.

After picking up a few groceries we headed out through the same pass we came in through. And then it started getting really wet and wild! The wind was on our nose and had 2-3 foot waves crashing over our bow. We took a lot of water over the bow and because Maryann stands in front of Don, he was shielded and she was drenched. We were very careful and went very slow but it didn't really help. The clothes, thank god, arrived dry but the groceries and passengers were soaked.

So, first order of business was to wash the salt off anything not sealed (like produce), then wash ourselves and clothing then hang everything out to dry.

Total time from start to finish: 7 hours. And you wonder why we never go out at night!! Whew! Tough day at the office.