We sailed from Hope Town to Guana Cay, where we took up a mooring in Settlement Harbor. The moorings are rented by "Dive Guana" at $20.00 a night, a sum that is collected just before 0800 by a not-overly-friendly young man who comes alongside in a powerboat and raps on your hull to wake you up.

We thought that our friends from the Erie Canal, John and Kathy and their 31 Hunter sailboat Aurora might be in the adjacent bay. The wind had shifted to the west at 10-12 knots (which would mean it was blowing into the adjacent bay and harbor), and we thought it would be fun to rig the mast, sail, rudder, etc. on Dimples and sail over to look for them. We had to tack Dimples back and forth to clear Settlement Harbor, and then sail little 8' Dimples through a 2' foot chop to get around the point to the bay. And we sailed into the bay, there sure enough was Aurora! We shouted to John and Kathy - who it turns out, had been watching Dimples and wondering who would be crazy enough to be sailing an 8' dinghy on the Sea of Abaco on a choppy day like this! After i botched an effort to bring Dimples along side Aurora, it was decided that the nasty chop made boarding Aurora impractical, and that we would meet at the beachside bar - Grabbers - at the end of the bay. This was an easy broad reach all the way for Dimples, followed by a soft grounding (daggerboard up) on the beach! We threw out our anchor and climbed ashore.

When John and Kathy got to the beach in their inflatable dinghy, they joined us in a mutual celebration of our respective journeys. We talked about the ICW, and Florida, and our mishaps. John had run their sailboat into a piling channel marker destroying their bow pulpit and $4,000. in damage (easy to do, because with the sun in your eyes, visibility otherwise blocked, you can't see the markers sometimes). We bemoaned our $4000. rudder repair. John and Kathy are amazing. They had not been into a marina since last December (this was early May) and had spent the winter & early spring in Boot Key, Marathon - Florida. On our sail back in the dinghy to Les Miserable we were amazed at seeing a Manata Ray about 5 feet across jump out of the water right near our boat. We had never seen that before!

There is a "locally famous" place on Guana Cay called Nippers. It is a restaurant with a pool, a long flight of wooden stairs leading down to a beautiful beach. We went snorkeling on the reef right off the beach, and it was the best snorkeling we have ever done. In addition to the beautiful coral and clouds of tropical fish, the reef has caverns you can swim into - although we didn't swim in very far without SCUBA!

Nippers is famous for its Sunday "Pig Roast". We thought the pig roast started at 4 PM; it turns out it starts at noon and ends at 4, so of course, we missed it. We did see our friend Sam, the lighthouse keeper from Hope Town, and his beautiful girlfriend leaving the pig roast, having taken the ferry from Hope Town. Sam was concerned about being able to get up the 101 steps to the top of the light house that evening as he had a number of Nippers famous rum drinks! The pig roast party is a big deal in the islands!

We went snorkeling off of Nippers the following day the water was about 75 degrees so we wore wetsuits. The stairs to the beach were being worked on, and the Nippers employee who was supervising this told us that we would have to climb down the sand dune (which is at least a "house high") to get to the beach.
The surf was very rough, the visibility was not as good, and we didn't see as much as the first time. When I was trying to swim through the surf back to the beach, a wave knocked the mask and snorkel off my face and I lost it! It was the first time since I was certified in 1969 that I had ever lost my mask in the surf. However, Merry ran into the water and saw the mask tumbling along the bottom, and I was able to recover it.

We clambered up the sand dune to Nippers. As we walked across the patio at Nippers, the employee who had told us that we could not use the stairs to the beach now began yelling at me that he had "too much sand"! and "you go over there!", which I, docile as always, did. The guy then began hosing me off, getting sand off my wet suit and water in my face!! - the guy seemed to be enjoying this! I was offended and annoyed so I decided that not only would we not have lunch at Nippers, as planned but we would return to our boat and leave Guana Cay immediately, - never to return! I have since relented, in part because I found out that you can get to the beach and reef without going through Nippers.

Leaving Guana Cay was a good idea anyway, because the forecast called for increasing wind out of the West, and the moorings and anchorage would become untenable. We warned John and Katy and said, "farewell for now," and set sail. John and Kathy did stay, but regretted their decision a day or so later because they dragged anchor and had to leave under stressful circumstances.