Anchor down at 5:20 at Great Sale Cay, a low, flat, marshy & scrubby Cay but a good stop over provides good shelter in winds from W-SW. Hearty salad & Conch fritters for dinner. Wayne, on the fly bridge, in his recliner – me, I watched Sleepy Hollow starring the incomparable, Johnny Depp. Lightening in the E-NE but the stars were shining brightly over the boat. Thunderstorms sometime during the night with wind gusts and choppy seas.
Wednesday, June 13 - overcast, intermittent sun, wispy wind but no rain. Lazy morning. Wayne slept in as he was up & down all night worried about the anchor even though the anchor alarm was on. The girls & I slept like the dead! I made the coffee this morning but not as good as Wayne’s brew (shush, don’t tell him I said so).
Wayne was intent on connecting the new hard top with the bonding on the boat to make it be safer in a lightening storm. I just wanted off the boat. I took snorkel gear & the girls to shore. Uninhabited and shabby island not much to see. We wandered around a bit and it was good to stretch our legs -all 10 of them. The girls ran and; ran, got full of sand then wanted to rub
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| Molly |
all over me… Wayne managed to finish his project; we moved the boat a bit closer to the ‘crotch’ of the island then took the dinghy to another, nicer beach on the north tip of the island. Relaxing day. Nothing exciting to photograph.
Been dying for a cheeseburger hoagie (burger w/tomato, lettuce, onions, mayo)– Wayne, fire up the grill!
We played full game of Scrabble – Wayne made a noble effort of keeping up with me -but I still left with the winner’s trophy. Visions of Captain Ron danced in my head as I dozed off…
Thursday, June 14 - Ah...the dawn of another beautiful day (as Martin Short said in Captain Ron) – or so we thought until we woke up enough to realize that we were inundated by mosquitoes! Anchor up as fast as possible and headed north. After swooshing out most of the nasty bloodsuckers, we had to make a decision - where to go next?…Walker’s, Grand Cay, Double Breasted, or go a bit south to Stranger’s or Carter’s Cay. Give you one guess which one appealed the most to Wayne?? Double Breasted...here we come. Very, very tricky entrance to the anchorage, the tide was going out - almost at an ebb but the midday sun made it easier to do visual water readings…the girls were also on watch. Such a beautiful spot - difficult to capture the whole host of blues and color of the sand. We set 2 anchors as there are strong currents at tide change and not much swing room.
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Anchorage seen from top of our hard top
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Low tide exposed many sand bars so we were able to explore a large area on foot. The sand is almost pure white, soft and deep and was like walking in quick sand- that’s if anyone survives from walking in quick sand – some places we sunk up to our knees. Great exercise for the whole body, which is something I sorely need after working in an office for almost 12 years! Yeah, yeah, I’ll exercise tomorrow; I floated in the channels between the sandbars back to the dinghy. The dogs were full of sand – they rolled, they dug holes, they ran after the seagulls, they swam –and me without my camera. They’re gonna sleep good tonight. Returned to the boat for a rest – yes, a rest, we worked hard today.
About 4:00, Wayne decided he wanted to put the teak handholds up under the hard top – now? You’re going to start a new project now? Normally I wouldn’t care, but these projects always require my help too. We managed to get one installed – looks great – let’s rest.
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| Cap't Wayne blowing sunset horn |
Beautiful sunset. Boaters usually celebrate sunset by blowing conch shells – Wayne uses a ‘fake’ conch shell almost sounds the same. It was his dads and he called it an Italian bugle.
Salad, fresh Mahi, (that’s Dolphin - not Flipper), leftover cracked conch (yum) and rice for dinner. I fried up a few bananas (from home) with brown sugar, French cream and Chombord – WOW!
Movie time; we watched,” Are we there yet?” cute, funny family movie.
Opening and closing hatches all night as rainstorms passed through – again.
Friday, June 15; overcast; threatening to rain, heavy clouds all around us. Not a pretty day. We were going to dinghy over to Grand Cay but decided to wait for better weather. Didn’t do much of anything but managed to install both the handholds under the hard top. I was the lucky one to be perched on top of the hard top (about 16’ above the water line). I carted my camera along and took pictures - awesome views.
It cleared up - the sun came out late in the afternoon. Unsuccessful attempts to get bait fish so we went to the ‘spa’. Everyone calls it that, but no one knows why. I was hoping for warm, swirling water and a 25-year-old muscled blond guy to give me a full body massage. (in my dreams!) I made Stroganoff for dinner. I never had this until a few months ago and now I’m hooked. Watched – “Bad Boys II”. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence they always give you a good show. Big time thunder, lightening and heavy rain all night.
Saturday, June 16; Heavy rain, no clearing in sight. No reason to get up from my warm, toasty, cozy bed so the girls and I stayed in till 10:00! I had to literally push the dogs out on deck and close the door so they would ‘go’. Weird – they swim all day, get full of sand and all of a sudden they don’t want to get their feet wet from the rain– go figure!
Lazy, lazy day; I worked on the log, started my home study course for Case Management credits, Wayne read magazines. He had been playing with organizing a maintenance log or something that would document repairs, additions, changes, upgrades, preventative maintenance etc. He asked for my help – gladly. About 3:00 pm we emerged from the forward cabin to find the rain finally stopped, the sun was out and turned into a gorgeous day. Packed up the beach chairs,umbrella, Molly, Scupper & headed for the beach.
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| Another perfect day at the beach |
I’m reading “The Perfect Storm”. If you saw the movie you figure that I have to be really nuts to read a story about a fishing trawler that looks somewhat like Blue Max with stabilizers (Paravanes and birds) like we have; who get caught in the convergence of 3 freak storms and never to be heard from again. The book is a real page-turner.
schooner William H. Albury. She represented the Bahamas in the Tall Ships Race and Operation Sail in 1976. The marina owners are planning to build 23 upscale, turnkey Villas, ($595,000/$695,000) 4 hotel suites, restaurant, upgraded marina and pool on their site. The renderings of the resort are nice but what a shame to screw up one of the most peaceful harbor/settlement in the Bahamas. It was late in the afternoon and soon everything will shut down. The ‘blacks’ (hey, not my term-that's what the locals call them) were already heading for home on the water 
taxis. It was still drizzling which made exploring a bit tough and we’re glad we didn’t bring the dogs. I needed garlic for my pasta dinner so we headed to the grocery before they closed at 5:30. A little salad, pasta, Italian sausage and wine for dinner. Watched The Mask of Zorro with sexy Antonio Bandaras and the beautiful Katherine Zeta Jones. Laurel fell asleep again.
