While poop-am-bulating the noble hound this morning we collected a bunch of small land snail shells that Barb has been coveting for some of her craft work once we get home. That brings our shell collection for repatriation to the frozen north almost to completion. We have several conch shells as well, plus one or two other unknown species. We will continue to look on our beach combing jaunts during the rest of the cruise. We are also trying to consider what exactly we are going to do once we have gone as far south as we intend to. From Staniel Cay it would be just as easy to come up the west side of Abaco Island and hop over to Grand Bahama Island, neither of which we have ever seen. Of course we could always just go to the Berrys and head over in a weather window. The good thing about being to the west of Abaco is that we should be picking up the US weather forecasts, which will give me a lot more confidence. I must confess to a desire to head off from here. We love the place and will be back next year but we have not left the harbour since December and next time we will be traveling more during our visit. Now we need to get back to North America and start thinking about home.

This morning we did the final steps of our provisioning with a trip on the marina launch over to the settlement and the grocery store, followed by some banking. Then we dropped in on SeaLeggs and Barry and Marcia to determine the final planning for the start date. I am very much of the mind that if we don't go tomorrow we shouldn't go until next week as it would mean a long run on Thursday. The other two boats can leave almost any time since they are shoal draft and draw 3' and 3.5' but we have to go on the rising tide with our 5.5' keel so we are limited in our timings. If we don't get out of the Sea of Abaco tomorrow we will probably have to wait until the weekend. Our meeting with Barry and Marcia was informative but not definitive as we have two different weather apps that give slightly different forecasts. We will check again this afternoon and then tomorrow AM to decide what we will be doing. Today the wind really is significant and no one should be going anywhere. Wednesday it would be ok to get the first leg done but then the second leg would no wind to speak of so it would be under power and then Friday would be back to crappy again. The long term forecast shows that if we can't make the Wednesday departure work then we will be here until Saturday.

Sigh!

Oh well. Maybe if we stay until Saturday I can go out for dinner with Barb for Valentines Day on Thursday night.