We stayed at the Green Turtle Resort and Marina just like last year. This is the place where whatever you spend at their restaurant and bar comes off your dock fee. Our new friends Steve and Jill, on Teotwawki stayed across the sound at Bluff House Beach Resort and Marina. They stayed the same number of nights we did - seen but got a much better deal, because our stay cost us about 3 x's what they spent. They got a discount because of belonging to the Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht Club (which is something we will do!) and they cooked on their boat much more than we did. Of course, they have a much larger galley with an oven and freezer. However, this may illustrate the great economic principal of some sort - if you think something is free, you use too much of it. In short, we ate too much and drank too much - but must admit we had a good time of it.

We had already experienced Green Turtle last year, so nothing was really new. We looked forward to revisiting last years' haunts - we went snorkeling off the Atlantic beach, and it was beautiful once again. Aquamarine waters, dappled with dark green reefs, and deep ocean blues run out toward the horizon. All the reef fish showed up! We took our dingy, Dimples, to visit Steve and Jill at their marina as well as over to New Plymouth. New Plymouth was as charming as ever. However, we missed seeing Vertrom Aubury who owns a little shop that makes sailing ship models. He had taken ill and been transported to Marsh Harbor, so his shop was closed. (We found out later that he is going to be okay.)

Merry struck up a conversation with an older lady who presides behind the counter at the little hardware store. She told us that her mother had been a teacher at the little school in town, for fifty four years! She said that a bust in the Memorial Sculpture Garden was dedicated to her mother. We promptly went there and found her mother's sculpture. The plaque confirmed her mother's more than 1/2 century of service as a teacher at the little school (beginning at age 12 as a monitor), and it also stated that she had been awarded the British Empire Medeal for her service - a very big deal indeed! What was remarkable was that the sculpture looked exactly like the lady at the hardware store.

Fifty-four years of experience in a profession is certainly remarkable - and with Merry being in the profession for about 30 years she was more than amazed.

Back at the marina, we met two couples who had much more experience sailing than we do. One couple owned a big expensive Benateau Yacht, and the other an ocean going Endeavor 31. They seemed to look down upon our little 30 footer. At one point, I was telling them that I had never seen any rust on Les Miserables fittings over 20 years on Lake Michigan, but started to see rust on the boarding ladder, and some of the bolts holding the toerail to the deck by the time we got to Florida last year, to which "Mrs. Endeavor 32 responded with obvious condensation, "Well, there are different grades of stainless steel.". yeah, and we must of course, be the low grade. They seemed unimpressed by us as well, since any experience we had that we told them about was NOTHING compared to this, that or the other thing they had done. Of course, they are correct. Neither us, nor Les Miserables, amounts to much in the sailing world. We are just a 30 foot family weekend coastal cruiser that muddled its way 2,200 miles from Winthrop harbor Illinois on Lack Michigan to the Bahamas.

On the other end of the experience scale were a young group of forty something (almost 50) who had come from Florida on a mostly open, fast power boat (it had three 350 HP outboard engines!) We met them at the marina bar on "steak night" which features a Bahamian musical group. We had lots of time to talk, because it took 2 hours before we could get a table (this is part of being in the Bahamas - there is never a rush). This wait was a bit embarrassing because we talked Steve and Jill into coming over to have dinner with us, in part by bragging about how great the service was! Steve and Jill joined us in listening with rapt attention as the power boaters explained that they had never taken any kind of boating or navigation course. They had just bought the boat and set out. Their boat was equipped with a Chart plotter GPS like ours, but they did not know to set up GPS waypoints. They did not have any charts - which they called "maps" on board. They had a tough time getting across from Florida, because they came across when there were fairly strong winds out of the north. They did not know that winds from the north cause big waves in the Gulf Stream, which consists of an amount of water equal to the combined outflow of every river in the world, moving at three to four knots in the opposite direction. They were friendly, self-depreciating, and very funny in describing their new found boating experience.

We left Green Turtle four days later to go out through through "the Whale" (Whale Cay Passage) to south Sea of Abaco. We had talked to the "experienced" sailors about leaving when they did, so that we would be in the company of other sailboats when we did the Whale, and Teotwawki would be sailing with us.

As we motored down the channel in White Sound to reach the Sea of Abaco, the big Beneteau was behind us, and the Endeavor behind them. There was a big ketch going down the channel in front of us, which suddenly slowed down, so much that at first we thought it had run aground. We slowed down too, to see what it was going to do. We were then called on the radio by the big Beneteau. He sounded crabby. He asked us to speed up, as he was having trouble keeping his boat in the channel at the speed he was going, because of the strong wind. The ketch had begun to move again, so I gave Les Miserables some throttle. We called back our response explaining that we were waiting on the ketch - however at the time we wished we shared a less kind response (these thoughts usually come to me about a week later)- such as "We had not anticipated that with your superior experience, and your big powerful, wonderful boat that you would have any trouble staying in the channel." But of course, we didn't and it is just as well - assuming that you are experienced or unexperienced - well none of it really matters because it is in having THE experience in the sea that is of greatest importance - it really is not a contest - we are all in the same waters together! I was thrilled when it was time to radio our traveling partners, Teotwawki - Congratulations you are in the famous Whale Cay passage!