Well, we did make the weather window. Even if we arrived in a rainstorm, the wind was nothing like it is tonight. This morning it was still blowing at over 20 knots and had been all night. Bud had decided when we arrived we'd stay two nights, because of the forecast. Now it looks like we'll stay three. The wind really increased in the late afternoon and hit 30 knots at around 5 PM. It's now 9 PM and it's still blowing at 30 knots for much of the time. The boat is heeled over 4 degrees in the slip! So Earendil is still in the slip in the picture (where Bud is checking the dock lines, good thing, too). And we're still paying for a marina, but happy to do it.

This morning we biked over to the inlet. I started a new album in the gallery for the Bahamas. I put in a photo of the inlet; it's pretty narrow to come in at about 6 knots with a triple reefed main. I also took some pictures of the area, the wind and waves and one of an island trading ship with truck trailers on its deck. We took a second ride this afternoon down to the little settlement here. I didn't take any pictures as we never stopped the bikes and I can't take a photo while riding, especially since I have Fuzzy in a front pack. There wasn't much to see other than the thousands of conch shells, the guy selling conch and another guy zooming around in a little center console boat. He had nine-tenths of his hull out of the water and was doing circles and jumping his own wake and obviously having a good time.

We also spent time looking at the weather and the charts. We want to get down to the Exumas and try to catch our friends Jon and Arline. But we also want to be able to anchor and snorkel and enjoy the Bahamas as we go. So we've decided to head across to the Abacos and go south along them and then figure out the best route from the southern tip of the Abacos to the Exumas. We need to be in a protected place (particularly from the west) by Wednesday as another front is coming through that's possibly stronger than this one. We wanted to leave tomorrow, but the wind is clocking around to the north before it dies down and our route takes us north of Great Bahama to get to the Abacos, so we will probably wait one more day. Not only do we have to go on the north side of the island, the beginning of the route has shifting sand bars, so you need good visibility to see the way, not likely if it's wavy.

Once we leave here it may be a few days before I find Internet access again. I'll write the blog and take pictures every day, and the next time I get access to the Internet I'll post it all.