Apologies again for the lateness in posting. We just kinda fell asleep and forgot. I'll write this as if I posted it the day of, though.

After looking at the tides and whatnot, we decided against going to crab cay's beach, raised anchor, and went on our way.
There's a narrow pass between crab cay and Great Abaco that could have saved us 2nm of travel... If it wasn't low tide. We eyeballed it and saw that waves were breaking against the area that'd we'd cross, and it was very obviously sand, so we just went around the cay.

As we went along we saw a catamaran that had also anchored off crab cay last night, Mer Soleil. They hailed us on channel 16, we switched to another channel, and just chatted a bit. They apparently came over last Wednesday, but one of their two engines (we envy that redundancy) went out during the crossing so they spent time repairing it and hadn't even checked in yet! We were both headed to green turtle and they weren't going too much faster, so we decided on tagging up then.

We arrived at the anchorage, set the anchor, and went about dropping the dinghy to go ashore. And of course something hadn't gone wrong lately so now was the time for that to happen. The dink dropped fine and we inflated it a bit, it was the dinghy engine. The engine is kept separate on board and when we went to unclamp it from where we keep it, the levers you twist to loosen the two clamps (I bet there are terms for this but I don't know what they are) were totally stuck. It was loose enough Shawn could pick it up from its stand and move it somewhere he could futz with it easier, but the inability to tighten it to the dinghy worried us. If it's not tight enough, it could possibly set itself free into the beautiful green waters.

We applied the notion of "apply WD40 until it moves" again (my scuba bag zipper was stuck and we couldn't get my mask out, but an obscene amount of WD40 fixed that) and with enough elbow grease and muscle strength got it moving again. Shawn yet again questions how most sailors get along, because many are old and don't weightlift like we do and there are some tasks that just require brute strength aboard.

Anyway we secure the dinghy engine after some time and follow Mer Soleil's Jeff to the dinghy dock. Or, at least halfway. The engine decided to randomly stop intaking water and stopped, which we can tell because marine engines spit out the water they take in (a process Shawn has affectionately termed "peeing"). And the engine wasn't peeing.
After re-fueling the line and generally messing with it, it did eventually work and we followed the general path Jeff took to the dinghy docks.

Jeff had kindly waited for us there and showed us around a bit. It's a small town but we still appreciated the brief tour. We now know exactly where customs is on the cay if/when we need it in the future.

New Plymouth is a beautiful little town. Bright candy-colored buildings, accented with white, and a bright and unforgiving sun giving the whole town a bit of a sunny glow. It's vaguely reminiscent of Greek island building colorations, and by that I mean "it reminds me of the Ilios map on Overwatch".

But the English shines through here, in architecture and in a monument to British loyalists that fled to the Bahamas during the Revolutionary war. The monument has red and white pavement in a rectangular area that centers the monument itself in a union jack.

We explored the town, but Shawn got hungry, so we enjoyed some cheeseburgers at the liquor store (I'm not making that up - one of the liquor stores serves lunch). They were... Okay, I guess. Kinda bland, but it was interesting how they arranged it contrary to American standards with the fixings below the patty. Heresy, I tell you!

Shawn kept looking out at the boat, worried sick the anchor was sliding. He remarked he was like a parent leaving his child alone.

We found two hardware stores so we'll bring the DIY anchor tomorrow to figure out sizes for each of the screws.

In another liquor store, which doubled as a bar, we had some fruity drink that had been premixed in a gallon jug and chatted with the bartender. She was new to the area and remarked on how she had no idea the Abacos was many islands and not just one big one, despite still being from the Bahamas (I think she said Andros?).

We wandered around a bit more trying to figure out where exactly we wanted to get dinner. We eventually went to Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar and had some of the famous Goombay Smashes with conch and lobster burgers.

Shawn remarked that the whole cay feels like how Key West used to. A bit touristy, but still charming and not catering to the insanely wealthy.

We stumbled back to the dinghy and got home before dark. Earlier we had spoken with Jeff about getting some drinks later, but when we returned to Cyana their boat was gone. I guess they had already moved on? Who knows.

Tomorrow we're aiming to pump out our holding tank (for the landlubbers, this is where our sewage goes) somewhere. We asked Jeff about locations and he suggested trying one of the marinas nearby or just dumping overboard.

After seeing what happened to the Indian River Lagoon... Yeah, no dumping here. I don't care if we're just two people, I don't want to contribute to the recurring problem of humans ruining the environment.