Yesterday Bill and I hiked for five hours. We estimate we went about 4 miles. We walked the loop trails around Warderick Wells and it was a killer. It was kind of like caving… you needed to look at every place you set your feet because of the rocks and holes in the ground. It made for slow going and hard work. We’ve done that now, we never need to do it again! Biggest regret – I didn’t realize how far we were going and I didn’t bring enough water! Luckily we were prepared enough to have worn our hiking boots. That really helped a lot. Some of the trails were interior to the island, like you see in the picture above. The rest were on the edge of the island over the rocks. It was a lot cooler there because the sea breeze was constantly blowing on us. We were glad we took the hike though. When we finally got back to the boat we turned on the VHF radio and heard them announce that there would be a Cruisers Happy Hour on the beach at 5pm. We had no energy left at all, but we knew we had to check it out. Luckily we had time for a nap before 5:00!

The Happy Hour was small but nice. We met another couple who were scarily like Bill and I. He was a software developer, she did IT support, and it went on and on. We really enjoyed meeting them and hope to run into them again sometime in the Bahamas or back in the States. This was the most social anchorage we have been in since Vero Beach.

Bill has been accusing me of starving him to death. If you ask Bill’s brother, who came to spend a couple of days with us at the beginning of our Bahamas adventure he would probably agree. Bill decided we had to have a weigh in this morning after that tough hike yesterday. We brought a scale with us just to settle arguments like this. We actually had another cruiser come to our boat to get on the scale, he was so excited when he heard we had one! Well, Bill may be partially right this time. He has lost seven pounds since we were in Ft. Lauderdale. I have lost only two and a half pounds, but I’m down five since we started cruising south. We do eat three meals a day, plus two snacks, and appetizers before dinner, so it’s not that we aren’t eating. For the past three weeks there hasn’t been any place to even try and spend any money or eat out so I’m trying to ration the food we have.

This morning we left to go to Staniel Cay. We heard there was more civilization there: groceries, Laundromat, restaurants. We had a great sail but about half way here we were heading right into the wind so decided to motor the rest of the way. When we got here Bill called the general store on the VHF to check to see if we could buy some propane. One of our tanks is empty. She told him she has no propane, and no food, until Wednesday. That’s when the mail boat comes with all the supplies for the island. We had heard that there wasn’t much in the way of food to purchase, but we didn’t realize there would be no propane either. We went to scope out the rest of the town and poked our heads into the yacht club. There is a restaurant there but it is outrageously expensive. We saw another cruiser with a loaf of bread and asked where she got it. It was at the “Blue Store”. We were able to buy a couple of things there, eggs, bread, some fresh fruit and vegetables. It was also expensive, but not too bad. We spoke to a cruising friend on the VHF tonight who is not far away at another island, the place we intend to go tomorrow afternoon. She told us there is a great Laundromat there so we will hold all our laundry and do it there.

Tomorrow we will snorkel in Thunderball Grotto. This is where the James Bond movie Thunderball was filmed, and also some scenes from Splash. After that we will head to Black Point to do our laundry!