While we are again at Great Harbour, It is about a week later than my last post. We had 3 great nights on the hook at Soldier Cay. Only about 10 miles away as the crow flies but about 25 nm in a vessel with 5-1/2 ft of draft. Motor sailed both over and back. We might have tacked into the wind but it would take twice as long or more to get there.

Winter is the shortest sunlight days of the year. Not only do you have the least amount of daylight, you also have the least amount of sun intensity. Great that we have the generator as the solar panels had difficult keeping up with the demand when we were at anchor. And Paul, no hair dryer was used. We used about 70 amp hours on each of the 3 nights for refrigeration, fan at berth and anchor light. A bit more in the morning to make coffee. Last time cruising, we would use over 120. Pleased with the reduction. Water maker is making 16 to 18 gph. Big improvement over b4.

While we are not marina people, to get fast shipment of parts into the Bahamas, you need an airport. Since our dinghy is our car, the parts we need for a permanent outboard motor fix are being flown into to Great Harbour. Email from the cargo shipper said they are coming on todays plane. Will walk the 1.5 miles to the airport tomorrow to see. The other advantage of Great Harbour marina is once you are here 10 days, the rest of the month is free. Update: Motor parts a day late and the marina gave us a lift to the airport and helped get the parts thru immagrations. Parts installed and outboard motor seems to be running well.

At anchor, we are in and out of our dinghy several times during the day. At night, I lift the dinghy up with the stern arch and block and tackle leaving the motor on the transom. The triple block at the transom takes about 30 pounds of pull to lift the dinghy with the motor on. It is a bit of effort but I think very worth it for the security at night. During offshore passages, the motor is stored on the motor mount on the arch. During our stay at Soldier, I was working off the swim platform of the sailboat. I had connected TWO lines to the bow of the dinghy. One line is attached from the stern rail and on the other end a very high strength Wichard snap shackle to connect to the dinghy. The other line is the painter (line/rope) attached to the (front) bow ring on the dinghy and tied to the sailboat rail. I had been in the cockpit and returned to the swim platform to find the line with the snap shackle hanging in the water and the dinghy about 5 feet further away from the boat than it should have been. This description gets a little complicated. The bow ring on the outside of the dinghy has a complimentary ring on the inside of the fiberglass hull. Attached to this ring is a "D" shackle which connects to a stainless steel carabiner. The arch lifting tackle attaches to the inside bow ring as this is the strongest connection. The rope with snap shackle attaches to the D shackle. This is usually the first line attached when returning to the sailboat and stays in place when the dinghy is lifted out of the water. That way it is place when the dinghy is lowered. The pin in the D shackle had unscrewed and was laying in the bilge of the dinghy. This allowed the snap shackle to come free without it opening. Friends of our, Paul and Laurie "found" a drifting dinghy several years ago about 20 miles or so from where the owner had lost it. That's why I always have two or three lines attached to the dinghy. The D shackle has been tightened with a wrench this time and I will probably add seizing wire to make sure it does not come loose again.

Pretty much always projects to do on the boat. Drilled the 1-3/16" hole for a USB charger at the navigation table. A couple of 3 foot wires from the house fuse block will need to run. In the past, the 120 VAC from the inverter had to be on to charge phones, iPad, InReach satellite tracker at the nav table. This new charger lets two devices be charged without having the inverter on. The same chargers are at both berths. The iPad has an anchor alarm program called ANCHOR. When we anchor out, the GPS function of the iPad places the position of MiJoy on the screen of the app. the anchor is positioned on the screen with the tip of your finger and an alarm radius is created around the anchor position. The anchor can be moved around to get the alarm circle to line up with the track the boat has swung thru. This alarm going off in the middle of the night means something may need to be done immediately. When the ANCHOR alarm is on, the iPad pretty much has to be on a charger thus the need for this additional charging station.

The picture of me fishing off the side deck is not the method we typically fish. There was a school feeding at the outer edge of casting range so I quickly snapped at Rat-L-Trap to the small rod. Several strikes but no hook sets as I retrieved thru the feeding. On the last cast, it appeared to be a 2 foot barracuda hit the lure. The 15 pound test line was not up to the very sharp teeth barracuda have and I lost the lure.

The plan is to listen to Chris Parker (weather guru for boaters) on Monday and if the weather looks OK, head around to the SW corner of the Berry Islands. The next day 35 nm to Nassau where I will drop Joyce off at a marina across the street from a very good grocery store. I will get diesel and wait for her to return. Anchor a night east of Nassau and then head south towards the Exumas.

The 75 pound fish on the cleaning station at the marina (photo in gallery) is a wahoo caught by SeaMoore, a sport fishing boat from the US in our marina. They caught two, the other one about 20 lbs. They were kind enough to give away more than half of the fish. We got enough for two meals. Grilled it on the boat, excellent.

This is Christmas Eve. We wish all joy and peace for the next year. Our Christmas miracle was the internet was fast enough for us to see and hear most of First Baptist Tulsa's service this Sunday morning. We were hoping to see the Christmas eve service music but that did not happen. We got to talk to the kids thru the internet which was nice.