The sun hadn't even peeked over the horizon when we set off from New Bight for the 52 mile jaunt to the Exumas. The plan was to catch the flood tide at Galliot Cut at around 2 pm and we kept our fingers crossed for favourable winds. We motor sailed the 9 miles across the bank and as we crossed over into deep water Bev ran out her fishing gear in anticipation of fresh fish for dinner. By 9 am. The forecasted 15 knot north wind filled in and when the engine was shut down Dagny was in her element powering along on a beam reach. By noon the wind was blowing close to 20 so we took a reef in the main to reduce our speed a bit, the last thing we wanted was to be early at the cut. But alas, our timing was fine and we steamed through the cut at 8.5 knots in flat water and set course for Hetty's Land, our anchorage for the night. The only down side was we struck out fishing again, time to change lures and see what happens next time.

The mail boat had arrived in Staniel Cay on Friday so the shelves were well stocked for our Saturday morning shopping trip. Lesley's flight was arriving at 3:30 so we had all morning to get the boat stocked and ready for her visit. We decided to stay overnight to celebrate with dinner at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club on Saturday evening. The easterly trade winds have settled in nicely for the next 2 weeks or so. What this means is we can sail up and down the Exumas chain on the flat waters of the bank and at days end nestle in close to a beach for a great night's sleep in calm anchorages.
When Lesley visited us 2 years ago we spent half the time hiding from west winds and even had a day or 2 when we couldn't even get off the boat. However, this time the weather was perfect, days were spent hiking, swimming, kayaking and chillaxing Bahamian style. Before we knew it it was time to head back to Staniel Cay for Lesley's return flight to Montreal. Luckily we did get a chance to watch the lemans start of the first race at the 5 F regatta at Little Farmers Cay.

The only glitch of the week came when I was doing a check of the engine prior to departing for Staniel Cay and I noticed a water leak. Actually, what caught my eye was salt residue on the oil filter where it should never be. When we fired the engine it was obvious we had a serious leak somewhere in the cooling system, it didn't take long to discover that there was a hole in the exhaust elbow. For the uninitiated the hot exhaust from the engine runs through the elbow where it is mixed with the raw water that is pumped through the heat exchanger that cools the engine, then the water and exhaust are spit out the back of the boat. Normally we would have been up a creek until we could source a new part, and being the Bahamas that could take awhile. However, by chance I had inspected our elbow while still in Florida and thought one of the pipes looked a little suspect so I decided to order a new one which arrived a day before we left for the Bahamas. My thinking was I would change it in the spring when preparing the boat for Newfoundland, not thinking I would need it earlier.

Once the problem was diagnosed we elected to take advantage of a great wind and had a fantastic 18 mile sail right to the anchorage at Staniel Cay. We could run the engine briefly if needed for anchoring and the plan was to change the part once Lesley left on Saturday morning.

Today's picture is of Bev and Lesley enjoying some time together.