Saturday we sailed briefly in 20k winds, northeast to Manjack Cay. Manjack is a mostly deserted island with only a few widely spaced homes. The wind was still strongly out of the east but we just flew the headsail and were making 7-8knots the whole way. It's only a 4 mile jaunt altogether. We dropped anchor in the southeast bight in about 10 feet of water at mid tide. The anchored boats tend to group around the northern part of the bight and there were about 5-8 boats already anchored there, with another couple of shoal draft boats deeper into the east side of the bight.

After a quick lunch, while we made sure that the anchor had set well, we made up our day packs and dinghy'd to the northern part of the island. In the cove on the northwest side of the isle, there is a dock on the north side of that cove. There were picnic tables there and a sign that said to clean up when you leave the island. Supposedly the northern part of the island is kept as something like a nature walk area where visitors are welcome. So we tied the dinghy to piling and ventured ashore eventually working our way to the northeastern, Atlantic Ocean beach and then walked south from there about a mile and then back. There was a significant amount of wave action at the beach there with all of the wind we'd been having. We didn't spend a lot of time hiking because I picked up the wrong set of keys when I left the boat and we weren't able to lock the dinghy to shore. So I was nervous about someone coming by and taking the dinghy since it was so deserted there. We had a wet dinghy ride back to the boat, upwind all the way.

Once we returned to home base, we secured the dinghy, cleaned up a bit, and made plans for dinner. It was after dinner when I was able to hoist the WIFI receiver high up in the rigging to see if I could access the Bahamas WiMax service from whom I had purchased airtime. Since I was about 4 miles from their antenna on Green Turtle Cay, I figured it would be nearly impossible to get wifi coverage. But later in the evening I was actually able to connect for about 15 minutes. The received signal was weak and the quality of the connection was marginal but I was impressed that we were able to connect there. Even the BTC signal in the bight was pretty weak. I was able to text Nicky a couple of times and we setup a phone call for midnight since she was busy keeping tabs on Jasmine's birthday party. The call went through without problem although I used the phone in the cockpit to make sure the signal was strong enough.

Sunday morning dawned with significantly reduced winds of less than 15 knots out of the southeast. However, there was still a bit of wave action still coming in around the southeast point and bouncing off the northern bight's shore. So there was a bit of a confused surge in the bight that rocked the boat. This morning it looks like pancakes for breakfast and I'm ready for food. As soon as we get better wifi we''ll post these blog entries later. HUNGRY! C U L8R ;>)