This morning I called Cathy and Tom on Perseverance to see if that group of three boats was planning to hike, and if so, if I could tag along. In the end, Cathy went, Kathy and Darius from Breeze Hunter and Jackie and Roger from Audacious. Tom was studying for his HAM license exam and Bud is still trying not to walk much. We followed a trail that led from this beach, where we're anchored, across a spit of land to the beach on House Bay on the south end of the island. that's a very shallow bay and Roger and Darius spotted conch in the shallows. They were wading in about 18 inches of water and picking up conch big enough to harvest. It's the first I've seen conch in anything but deep water. I understand that this is what is was like everywhere in the Bahamas years ago, but not anymore. I waded out and managed to find one big enough to keep. They found a piece of fishermen's netting and we put all the conch in that and left them in the shallows to pick up on the way back.

We walked to the east end of that beach and found a trail that cut through to another beach. This beach was on the southeast side of the island, and from here you could see the cut out to the Atlantic. This beach was a good place for finding sea beans. I now have twenty or more of them, but I have yet to find another hamburger bean. Cathy from Perseverance found one today.

At the far end of that beach Roger, Darius, Cathy and I walked out on the iron shore and climbed the hill on the point. We got up to a high spot where we could see both sides of the island. We could look back a mile or so over the flats and see the bay where we are all anchored. We could see the high ridge that runs east to west across the island just to the north of our bay. And we had a good view of the cut going out to the Atlantic. I took a picture of Roger and Darius hiking up to that high point that will be posted with this entry. I took some more pictures while we were up there, I'll put the best ones in the gallery.

While we were there another cruiser came by. He was George from Sequel. He'd walked all the way across the high ridge, then around the ironshore south to us and was going to walk back the way we came and circle back to the beach just north of where we're anchored, where the main group of boats is anchored in Middle Pen Bay.

On the way back Cathy and I took another trial and walked along the south edge of the island back to the beach with the conch. We tried to find a trail at the far end of that beach and didn't, but we did find the ruins of a house and I found what looks like a good coconut under some coconut trees near the ruins. When we got back to the beach we radioed Tom to come and get us, but Bud was listening and he radioed Tom to say that he needed to bring Fuzzy ashore anyway, so he'd come and get us. So we walked down the beach and met Bud and Fuzzy.

This afternoon I finally cleaned the soot off the transom. It took one wash with Awesome Cleaner and two scrubs with fiberglass cleaner and restorer to get it off. Then I put more wax on it. It's still not perfect, but it's much better.

We're planning to stay here a few days longer. The next weather front is supposed to be a non-event down here, so we'll probably wait and move up as the wind permits during or after that front. We may need to cross the open channel during the light and variable wind that comes just before the front, and then sail further northeast as the wind clocks back to the southeast. It's too far ahead to know exactly what days, but it will probably be around next weekend when we start back.