Jamie and Adler (our daughter and grandson) arrived at 12:30 yesterday. I met them at the airport in a taxi and brought them back to the Marina at Emerald Bay. After Jamie stowed their suitcases they changed into swimsuits and we walked over to the beach. Adler, who will be 3 in June, had his first taste of seawater. He liked swimming in the ocean. After an hour or so we went back to the boat. Adler also seems to like the boat. We put Jamie and Adler in the aft berth and Adler loves climbing around his big bed.

Because the wind was supposed to pick up from the northeast we wanted to move out of the marina early today. We were going to let Jamie and Adler just sleep in while we left, because they’d had such a long day yesterday. They left their house at 3:30 in the morning. We couldn’t pay our bill and leave until 8 AM, though, so they were up. Jamie left Adler in his pj’s and just put his life jacket on him. He started to look really worried as we sailed out on Exuma sound. It was pretty smooth, but there were about two foot waves out there. We were going downwind using both the jib and the engine. The motion of the boat wasn’t too comfortable and we were worried that Adler was getting seasick. Jamie took him back down to their berth. It turns out he was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing and still pretty tired. He perked right up once he was below, but Jamie couldn’t be below without getting sick unless she was lying down. Fortunately, Adler fell asleep and slept until after we were anchored in George Town.

We all went in to the beach in the afternoon and went swimming. Fuzzy was looking for a cool place to be and walked under the dock at this beach. Either he didn’t see the water, or didn’t care, but he walked into it. Then, perhaps because all of us were in the shallow water he started to walk around in the water. He’s never gotten more than his feet wet before. He was walking almost chest deep in the water when suddenly he walked forward and his head went under. Bud rushed over to grab him. Just as Bud reached him I saw that he had started to paddle and got his head up out of the water, but then Bud had him anyway. Bud and I decided to take him back to the boat and rinse him off and dry him and leave him below. We’re anchored right in front of the beach. We still don’t know if he was hot, disoriented, or vying for attention, but we’ve never seen him acting so strangely.

The rest of us stayed at the beach for another couple of hours. Adler loves swimming. He goes in right up to his chest and flops around. He doesn’t put his head all the way under, but gets splashes and is learning to keep his mouth closed to keep from getting mouthfuls of seawater. He saw a pretty big crab today and Grandpa found a tiny hermit crab and showed him.

Right now we’re all getting ready for bed again. This will be their first night at anchor. The wind did come up and the boat is moving around quite a bit. This motion doesn’t seem to bother either of them, so that’s good. I’ve been sleeping in the salon with Fuzzy, so Bud is in the forepeak. Rick, Bud says he doesn’t know how you ever got in that berth, much less got to sleep. And you were sharing it with Tracy!