Things have slowed down considerably for us so blog posts will be every few days until we venture out into the islands for more discovery and adventure. (in other words, not a lot of blog-worthy stuff happens in any given day right now so I have to save it up to make a post)

https://youtu.be/V2smwRTMmms?si=2VlV-mxnv3LQpfyL

We've been kicking back the past few days and getting settle into the marina. There are a lot of empty slips right now but apparently the wave of snowbird boaters is coming. A lot of the people here are Canadian as well.

We spent a day cleaning the boat, both inside and out, as it was caked pretty well with dried salt and crud from the repeated dowsings it got coming over here. It was getting pretty tough to see through the dodger and cockpit enclosure windows so they got a good scrubbing and treatment of UV protectant which will hopefully repel this stuff going forward (or backwards too)

https://youtu.be/5gr3jopJmVg?si=T8aL8jeiOqIuQge1

The water in our slip is at least 15' deep and crystal clear, so you can see a lot of fish swimming around under us. The shrimp here are having a field day treating our boat like a 7/24 all you can eat cruise ship buffet. We can't see them but we sure can hear them. The funny thing is we can see the keel and rudder and everything looks pretty clean so maybe they just like our bottom paint.

https://youtu.be/4eYegmxp1RM?si=Q9ZFaLjmADXeqJ9p

The tides here are around 3 feet and the dock is stationary. It took a bit of trial and error adjusting the mooring lines with enough slack so the boat could rise and fall with the tide without getting hung up on anything. Fenders in between the dock and boat were another challenge. Rather than let them hang vertically we rigged them horizontally so they would roll up and down the piling the dock was built on. All while making sure the anchor mounted on the bow of the boat doesn't hit the wall in its vertical journey up and down twice a day. The good thing is there are no waves in here at all, aside from the odd boat idling by.

On Saturday we took the shuttle into the grocery store to get a few things. It was really well stocked but the prices were pretty high on a lot of stuff. I don't know how the people living here manage as wages here are not very high with a minimum hourly wage of $5.25. The most exorbitant price we saw was for none other than toilet paper! It was 2-3 times what you'd pay for it in the US. I get that it's busy and therefore takes up a lot of space when being shipped to the islands but wow! I wonder what it was like getting it during Covid when that was the number 1 hardest thing to get back home.

Yesterday we went for a walk in the morning and spotted 1 of the 10 top tourist spots on this island, Cooper's Castle. Apparently the owner grew up here on the island dirt poor but got an education and made his fortune
and was famous for bringing fast food businesses like KFC, Wendy's and Burger King to the island, He built the castle on the highest point on the island , ~50' above sea level, so he could see and be seen. It used to be open for tours and could be booked for special events like weddings, but it doesn't seem to be open for anything at this time.

In the afternoon we launched the dinghy and went out to a reef to go snorkeling with Larry and Lynn. We were about 1/2 mile off shore and tied the dinghies to a mooring ball and went from there. The water was in the 15' depth range with lots of coral, unfortunately much of it had been damaged and killed by past hurricanes. But there were still a lot of very colourful fish so it was like swimming in a tropical fish aquarium. The water was close to 80F but even with wet suits we started to get cold after an hour so headed back in. The water here is very clear and it looks like a swimming pool in colour!

A quick trip tot he showers and then into the hot tub to warm up! Being a weekend we are noticing that it's already getting busier here so we actually had to wait to get into the tub for the party (sans James Brown)

https://youtu.be/yAJnpaFRrlw?si=roBX6VP5zADYqr7k

Today's photo is Cooper's Castle. Googling it produces a short list of details on various travel advisory sources, all which seem to have conflicting info as to history, tour availability, etc. Maybe tomorrow thye will update it. Welcome to the Bahamas!