25 February 2015

Day 5 of Exuma portion of the cruise

I was up at six this morning after another good night's sleep, eager for our trip over to Black Settlement and finally access to a wifi so we can post the last five days of entries. Something made me have another look at the course I had initially plotted for the trip and I am really glad it did. Turns out there are two market paths from here to there but one of them, of course the shorter one, is for shoal draft vessels only. I was changing waypoints as the sun came up and now instead of a 7 mile trip we now have on that is 10 miles but we have a much better chance of not running aground or bumping into a coral head.

Meanwhile yesterday's excursions have managed to get all of my shorts wet and since there is a fair amount of condensation during the nights, this morning none of them are dry. Oh dear. Nude romping until we can get to a laundromat. What's that, Barb. We can wear our swim suits? Where's the fun in that? On well.

At the eleventh hour, or should I be more accurate and say at 05h00 in his morning I decided that since we will be in Black Settlement by close to noon, Peri, the long suffering pooch who won't use the little green mat acquired expressly for his use, would have to forego his early morning poopambulation and wait till then. This gave us a more relaxing AM, to get the dink up in the davits ( I had briefly toyed with the idea of towing it since the trip should be less than two hours, but the vision of it breaking away and us chasing it through the coral heads didn't appeal), do my first parade, have breakfast and be ready for a 09h00 departure.

At the appointed hour we were off and two hours later we were in Black Point and the work day is as over, or was it? For the first time in ages our CQR failed us and I was able to see what was happening. The sandy bottom was so hard packed that after the first couple of inches the plot just slid along the bottom. No problem. We will just use the claw anchor. Sigh. The line jumped off the lead and jammed up. What a mess! I had to pry it loose with a screwdriver much to the amusement of all the boats in the vicinity. Finally. Finally. Finally, we were anchored and we could get in to the town and check the place out.

Black Point Settlement. This is how these communities should deal with the cruising tourist. Free wifi in every business all you have to do is be a customer. Interesting little businesses and restaurants all very glad to see you. Prices not too high. We are interested in finding out how people do their banking in these places since there don't seem to be any banks in evidence. We intend to come in for dinner tonight as a personal treat.