There is only one thing anybody is talking about in Spanish Wells and the surrounding anchorages right now. Everyone wants to head to the Abacos but all the entrances are raging! The seas have huge waves which are only really a problem when you are getting close to land. Someone got on the radio and said that the dive company in the Abacos has asked that no one come into the cuts today because they had to rescue a number of people yesterday. So, we are heading there anyhow, but we are doing it differently than anyone else. We are going to the Abacos, but we are going to go to the Bight of Abaco which is on the west side of the island and isn't affected by the swells. No one goes there because all the towns and fun things to do are on the east side. They also don't go there because the water is shallow and there are no beaches. They are all going to sit and wait until next weekend before they get underway again. We've never been to any of these places, and we don't care if no one else is around. We have only a few weeks left to stay in the Bahamas and we don't really want to sit and wait for five or six more days if there is a viable alternative.

With our rented golf cart on Sunday we went to talk to this fascinating sailor who has a house on the island over the bridge from the marina. We met him at the happy hour on Saturday and it seemed to us that he has sailed over every inch of the Bahamas. We had a little trouble finding his house, we were looking for a boat with the pink stripe on it. Finally we found it, and him. Turns out besides being a very accomplished sailor he is also a boat and house builder and an incredible artist. His house has the best view of any in the area. We sat with him for a long while and told him our idea for getting around the swell problem. He thought it was a great idea and told us a lot of places to go check out.

We finished the day with a pot luck dinner with all the people from the marina we were still staying at. The food was great and there were a lot of really nice people there. All people who wanted to go to the Abacos and didn't want to do it the way we were going to. No problem, I've been looking forward to exploring places and not having to worry about whether there would be room in the anchorage. We haven't had much opportunity to snorkel and we are hoping that we will be able to do more of that too.

So today we head out for a very long day. We are hoping to sail most of the way. Tomorrow we need to head right back out and get to the anchorage that will protect us from the next strong winds they are predicting for Wednesday night. We have heard that the weather in the Bahamas this year is worse than it's been in a long time. We don't know - it's all new to us. It's certainly an education on wind and wave protection though!