One last Kalik before Rose and Steve head to the airport after spending Regatta week aboard Troubadour.(See pictures from their visit on the side links, "Link to ...")

So for those of you who haven't received the play-by-play on facebook, Albert didn't find anything wrong with the transmission. He shipped it back, I put it back in, and it slipped just like before. Another cruiser helped out by calling him and reinforcing that it wasn't working right. He said "huh, sorry" and I pulled the transmission and shipped it back to Nassau (as Forrest would say) again. Albert talked to ZF Hurth in Ft Lauderdale and this time replaced thrust washers and cup springs, then shipped it back. I reinstalled it and it appears to be working well this time (knock on wood).

While the transmission was vacationing in Nassau, we got a visit from Linda's cousin Rose and her husband Steve. They came just in time for the start of Cruiser's Regatta, the highlight of the year for those who lives revolve around cruising here in the winter. It came with some bennies like free food and booze at the opening party, but in general we just did the stuff we like to do; hike the island, enjoy the sun, snorkel, eat the cracked conch at the Fish Fry, jam at the Sand Bar. We enjoyed showing them the area, and having them aboard as gracious guests, and really enjoyed playing dominoes with the set they brought us!

There were actually two races during Regatta; since Troubadour was immobile we (all four of us) crewed on Star during the in-harbor race. This was a nice horseshoe race until someone got fancy and tried to jibe astern of us and took out Star's pulpit/davit/solar panel. They didn't much feel like racing the next race after that.

There's been some Flu going around with all the tourists flying in and out of Georgetown; Steve picked up a cough and sniffles towards the end of their stay and Chris was under the weather for a few days right after meeting the mailboat for the (hopefully) last time to pick up the transmission. Chris was feeling good enough to jam some for the final cruiser's farewell on Sunday, a pretty big event since the other Regatta events were done and it got heavy attendance.

About 30 of the boats took off today for Long Island to do their group stuff there for a week or so. We will be filling the water, propane, and diesel tanks, stock up on food, and wait for weather to start heading to the far islands. The winds look like they're howling from the direction we want to head for the next week or so, so it looks like we'll be here for a little bit longer.