Happy Easter! I hope you are spending the day with friends and family. No chocolate bunnies or eggs here but we do have Robin's egg blue water and lots of sunshine.
We had a lovely surprise yesterday afternoon our friends on Otter II (Fred and Karen) pulled into the anchorage. Scott saw them approaching and recognized the boat. We hailed them on the radio and sure enough they had heard us on Chris Parker's weather inquiring about our plans to move from Shroud to Staniel. They were currently in Staniel with plans to head north to Eleuthera and thought they would stop and surprise us. How fun is that?!
We invited them over for cocktails and nibbles. We had a grand visit getting caught up with each other's adventures. They had been to most of the places we have plans to visit, making it as far south as Georgetown on Grand Exuma. We're not sure we'll go that far. If the weather settles a bit we may but like all plans on a sailboat that's written in sand. It was good seeing them again.
I thought they might stay here the day with us and go ashore but Fred hailed us on the VHF around 8:00 and said they planned to leave and go to Highbourne for the night and then head across the Northeast Providence channel to Eleuthera the next day with a final destination of Spanish Wells. ( A long trip if they go directly there.) We were unsure if they planned any other stops in Eleuthera or not. They plan to go up the Abaco chain before heading back to the states. Otter II is a 45 ft Island Packet and she sails much faster than Light Reach. We wished them safe travels as they pulled out and disappeared over the horizon.
Scott started up the water maker and I did laundry. The handy laundry plunger and Home Depot bucket are working our well. It does take a fair amount of water to wash and rinse and we are both being conservative with changing outfits. Being in the out islands is no place for a clothes horse!
The winds are still up in the 20 to 25 knot range pretty much directly from the east. We're hoping for some abatement tomorrow but will leave regardless. There are several places to bail out if the travel gets too snotty. We are pretty much set to go and plan to leave early morning. It is about 32 nm to Staniel and should take us 6 to 7 hours. We expect we might fly with this wind!
The picture was taken from the smaller of the two beaches we can see from Light Reach. Much of the shoreline looks like this quite inhospitable don't you agree?