We left The Berry Islands on January 7 & headed our way south, making a stop in Nassau to restock our fresh veg/fruits. We traveled with several other boats and anchored the evening at Rose Island. It was a "rolling" anchorage. I normally always put the dishes away at night but unfortunately left the dishes out to dry. During the night we were awaken to a crash & Mike's coffee press was in a million pieces. Our comment was the next person that comes to visit us will bring a coffee press.

We made our way down the Exuma chain of islands. Did lots of hiking & snorkeling. Climbed the infamous BooBoo Hill & placed our driftwood boat sign on top of the many other boater names (see photo gallery)
We were snorkeling one day with another couple, when a 7' nurse shark swam past me (Joyce) I thought Paul was sneezing underwater when in fact he was saying "shark". The shark swam slowly away, not interested in the 4 of us, but I got out of the water after that!

It's Not Always Sunsets, Sipping Wine & Relaxing.........

As most boaters know, there always seems to be something that breaks, needs repaired or replaced.

We discovered we had water in the bilge (floor of boat) and troubleshooted the problem to find that the water cap on the aft (rear) water tank had cracked. Unfortunately or fortunately, we had stored toilet paper in a compartment near & it had absorbed ALOT of water.

While deploying the anchor with the electric windless, it quit working. Normally Mike is on the bow (front) of the boat, while I am at the helm. Investigation determined that the connection between the pendant & boat had corruded, & was no longer making electrical connection. The next day, we had to run 60' of wire from the bow to the stern of the boat & install an up/down switch at the helm. (the boat was torn up completely, so a good time to do some housecleaning....) Now the helmsmen (me) is responsible for raising & lowering the anchor from direction from Mike at the bow of the boat, in addition I have to steer & throttle. I multi task!
There have been a couple of other minor boat repair issues but the Good News is:

Friends from TX are coming for a couple days to Staniel Cay the first part of February & will be bringing us a coffee press & boat parts. We are looking forward to seeing John & Carole..................