We move Tuesday evening back to Highbourne Cay to save an hour on the trip to Staniel Cay on Wednesday. Anchor up at 0700 and we motor sail for an hour then sail for an hour and a half before we have to make a turn towards Staniel Cay which is too close to sail so we motor the rest of the way in. This trip is much better than last year when it was blowing 25-30 with 5 foot waves. This year the wind is 10-15 and the waves are about 1 foot, just the angle is not quite right. Sailors always complain about something. Back to last year, this is where our engine cut out due to water and debris in the Racor filter choking the system and we had to sail 18 nm into Big Majors Spot. We tacked about 18 times in four and half hours and finally dropped the sail and the anchor at the same time. The next day several people asked if we were the boat hot dogging it by sailing into the anchorage and our reply was yes we sailed in but it was not hot dogging as we were nearly scared sh%$less. Always the perspective of the beholder. This year's trip was more casual and relaxing. I read about half of the latest Lee Child Jack Reacher novel The Midnight Line.

We anchor near SEA JULES and WHITEBIRD and then do a couple hours of work before happy hour on SEA JULES to catch up on stories and plans. The next day is work for me (with lunch at Staniel Cay yacht club) and the rest will head to Staniel Cay for light groceries at the Blue store, then the Pink store and also Isles Groceries. It sounds like a bunch of groceries but the Blue and the Pink have a selection about like the grocery part of a Quik Trip or 7-11. One or two gallons of milk in half gallons and quarts, some canned goods and some greens that have seen better days. All the eggs are outside of refrigeration which is common in the islands. The common theme is as long as they have not been refrigerated at any time in the past they will still be good. I meet them for lunch at the yacht club and watch the nurse sharks at the dock for bit before returning to work.

The pigs at Big Majors Spot are a big attraction and we zoom past the beach where the pigs are as it is quite crowded with visitors. Last year we stopped and Julie got bit on the butt. The pigs get a steady stream of food from cruisers and tour boats alike. Here Lana is stating that she is out of bread, see my hands are empty, just before jumping in the dinghy to get away from the more agressive pigs. Last year, a month after we left, Lana saw on Facebook that several pigs had been found dead. At first it was thought to be a cruel joke of cruisers feeding the pigs alcohol but later it was determined that the food is normally thrown on the sand and the pigs do not differentiate between sand and food and an autopsy showed they had ingested so much sand it had shut down their digestive system. Shortly after there were feed troughs installed to minimize the amount of sand.

Tech Note: Most of the evening is spent working on the watermaker. The techs at the factory in California think the low voltage is caused by splices in the power and pump wires so I remove all of them and reconfigure the control box to allow the large 6 and 8 gauge wires directly in whereas I had spliced in short runs of smaller wire to pass through the cable grommets. This is about a 10 hour exercise so it will take few days. They also get me the contact numbers for local factory representatives in Nassau and Spanish Wells. No answer to the call or the message from Spanish Wells but I do get to talk to the tech in Nassau. He is not quite on board with what the factory tech is saying and thinks it is the breaker or the wiring itself so I keep on unsplicing.