The start of another new month and while at home we would be in the midst of the deep chill, here we are in the Bahamas and enjoying the sunshine and cheap rum. Life is good. I can't bring the weather home with us in the spring but I can bring the rum. Today the rain that has been forecast for the last couple of days came all at once and the roads were covered with water; enough that Barry had to slow down as we came into the puddles when he drove us into town, but more about that later.

By the way, I found out how the Bahamas got its name - it is a derivation from Ba-Ha-Mar or shallow sea and if you look at a chart you'll understand that is a great name. Barry, our source of local knowledge, has told us that there is very little marine movement here at night since the shallow bits are coral and limestone and there are almost no nav aids. WE walked around the resort here and saw what they dug out to make the channels for the estates and I sure wouldn't want to run into any of it in the dark - solid limestone most of it and I'm pretty sure that the fibreglass hull would come out second best.

Oh, and before I forget; that photo accompanying yesterday's post? That was me lying on my side under the floorboards beside the engine working on the raw water pump - my new least favourite job aboard. Barb has a rather macabre idea for photo composition just as when she is somewhere else she always manages to phone me when I am stuck somewhere like that.

We had dinner aboard Troubadour last night and had a wonderful evening, but when we came back to Nelleke we were startled to find that the bow line had significantly loosened and the boat was lying at 45 degrees to the dock. Fortunately we hadn't hit anything and we lost no time in pulling her back into a parallel position, I can assure you. Every dockhand that works with piling fixed docks is a master at throwing clove hitches over the top of the pilings but I guess this one worked loose.

Today I pulled all the secondary anchor rode out of the chain locker and did my best to rebuild the small shelf that keeps it separate from the primary all chain rode which lies on the bottom. Our chain locker is sort of an apartment condo with the chain rode passing through a hawser to the bottom and the rope rode sitting above it on a shelf. Considering the amount of each that we have there is barely enough room for it so it has to be set up just right and if the shelf has collapsed, well, it simply isn't. The problem is that my present set up simply isn't strong enough so I will have to come up with a better idea. It'll be one of the summer projects once we are back in Canada.

Around 10h00 we clambered aboard the car that Barry and Marcia rented and we headed off into town. About 20 miles down the road are the twin communities of Freeport and Lycaya two spots obviously built with the tourist dollar in mind. We didn't stay anywhere for long since the weather was dreadful with water pouring from the sky. We did pop into a few stores though, one to buy stamps and another to buy some batteries for my digital camera so we can get back into photo mode; plus we stopped off at a nice little local restaurant for a light lunch. I had my old standby of ribs but Barb had a local specialty curried chicken and Barry and Marcia both had fried grouper. It was a nice introduction to the local cuisine.

After stopping off at a local grocery store we headed on home checking out some of the resort developments. Besides the cost, as I see it the one problem with buying property here is simply that other than your home and your boat there is no place to go either at sea for less than 100 miles other than Lacaya, or on land. The only type of person that this would suit would be a sport fisherman whose only interest would be to put out into the stream to troll for marlin or some other bill fish.

Tomorrow is calling for lighter winds from the south and we are planning to head out for Great Sale and anchor there for the night. We have found a channel through Indian Cay which is 1.3m deep at mean low but when we will be going through will be on a rising tide and the water should be about 2m plus. Then the next day will take us from there to Green Turtle Cay. As there is neither wifi nor cell coverage at Great Sale it is unlikely that I'll be able to make any posting until we get to Green Turtle so please be patient.