We’re as ready as we can be for the weather that’s coming. This morning I told Bud I thought I’d like to try to hike to a beach we’d been told about if he’d take me ashore. He said he’d been thinking he wanted to go to a beach, too. Today is probably the last day we’ll be able to take extra trips to shore for a while, and he thought it would be good to get off the boat. Also, with the wind from the south-southeast now and turning light and variable later in the day, it would be a good opportunity to try snorkeling on the Atlantic side. So after lunch we packed up our stuff, I put Fuzzy in the front pack and off we went.

Another cruising couple had told us about this beach. You walk north on the main road to Tryphena’s Club Thompson Bay. There you notice that the telephone poles switch sides of the road. At the 17th telephone pole on the east side of the road you’ll see a marker, that’s where the trail cuts east to the beach. It was just as they described. The trail was marked with two fishing floats on an aluminum pole and though narrow, was unmistakable. After about a half to three-quarters of a mile we came out at the beach in this photo. I put a couple of pictures of the trail in the gallery (now Season 2, Bahamas, Part 2).

I wanted to beach comb, but Fuzzy was insisting on staying with me and was hot and tired so I went back and sat in the shade of the palm trees while Bud snorkeled. Once he was done I asked him to stay with Fuzzy while he dried off so I could walk the beach. I really wanted to find one more hamburger bean. I took off down the beach and was disappointed to see no sea beans at all. I’d thought this would be a relatively untouched beach, but it didn’t seem like it. It was, of course, covered with bits of plastic. I tried to take a picture to show all the plastic that covers every beach. I put that in the album, too. I found one sea bean but decided to keep trying and walked all the way to the end of the strip of beach. Not far from the end I found one other really little sea bean, but it was a hamburger bean! Now I have three, the first one I found I’ll keep. One of the others is for our daughter and the other for our friend Tracy, who was with me when I found the first one.

We walked back to the beach at Thompson Bay (all together I think it was about a mile and a half). When we came out we were surprised at all the boats in the anchorage. When we left there were 11. When we got back there were 31! I think a few of them just moved down from the area around the town to this end which will be more sheltered from the northeast, from where the strong winds are supposed to blow. Some of the boats probably came back from the Jumentoes or other less sheltered anchorages. One boat arrived after sunset, just before it got completely dark, so now there are 32 boats waiting for the storm.

Right now there is almost no wind at all, and it’s just after midnight. By dawn there should be a pretty good wind from the north-northeast that build to 25 knots during the day. Tuesday through Thursday those winds are supposed to be 25 to 30 knots, with some squalls that could bring 35+knot winds. But all of the strong winds are supposed to be from the northeast, so we should all be secure in here. I’ll keep you posted.