Quite a Scene

 Imagine this ....

A white powder sand beach, covered in Casuerina trees and a few palms. Under them sits a beach bar called Chat n Chill, filled with t-shirts people have contributed with their boat names and bits of ironic humor. The area is surrounded by picnic tables, around which are people eating, drinking, playing cards or chess. Nearby, kids are swinging from ropes attached to the trees, and others are digging in the sand, or cracking open coconuts with small machetes.

Partway along the beach, there's a jam session happening, with all kinds of instruments, and a little further away, there's a ukulele lesson in progress. Still further along, there's a conch hut where fresh conch salads are being deftly produced by Rinaldo, who dives for the conch on calm days.

A game of beach volleyball is underway in another area, and a beach yoga class has just ended.

The sky is a perfect cerulean blue, and the sea is turquoise, with dinghies tied up and boats anchored all along the shore. Sting rays are gathering to eat the conch innards being tossed into the water by Rinaldo, and they rub up against delighted swimmers like pet cats.

This is the scene we encounter every day as we visit Volleyball Beach for one reason or another. Certainly hard to be bored here!

Fun and Games

 The last few days have been fun and games here in Elizabeth Harbour.

Yesterday, we dinghied over to February Point resort, and had an exquisite lunch at the Rusty Anchor Restaurant. We then filled up our jugs with their free RO water, and returned to the boat to make an appetizer for the 4:00 ARG meeting - that's Alcohol Research Group - otherwise known as a beach party 🥳. There must have been 150 sailors there - dinghies lining the whole beach!

Today, Jeff needed to check in with the clinic again for his ailing hip. So I attended a yoga class, and then browsed a sailor's flea market on a different beach, and bought a hand-held drum for musical jam sessions. We may not be traveling, but there's lots to entertain us here. Tomorrow it's water aerobics at another beach - life is good.

A Safe Harbour

 I hope everyone had a happy Valentine's day 💕.

We're now hiding out from a wicked windstorm in our hurricane hole. Despite the protection of this very safe harbour, we're rolling around as if we were on the open ocean! 

But we had a lovely day, despite all that. It started with an hour yoga class, and then a pancake breakfast, shared with a friend who was helping Jeff with our bilge pump.  After a relaxing afternoon, we went out for a gorgeous dinner at St. Francis Resort - a 2-minute dinghy ride from our boat. We both opened cards and a gift (for me, a lovely locally-made bracelet, for Jeff, a bottle of his favorite tequilla).

Today we're puttering on the boat, and staying out of the weather. I just finished two watercolor paintings to submit for consideration as the t-shirt design for the 2023 Sailing Regatta. The designs get voted on by the community, and the winning one is printed on all the t-shirts - quite an honor! I don't expect to win, but it was a fun project for a rainy, windy day at the "cottage".

The Excitement Never Stops!

Now we're anchored at Monument - close to all the activities in this amazing community. Yoga, water aerobics, ecstatic dance, ukulele lessons and jamming - all provided free of charge by our fellow cruisers.

The other day, while I did a yoga class, my Captain tried to fix the wayward bilge pump, without success. As he was about to give up, I arrived with Lee, who had offered me a lift back in his dinghy. I'm a good mechanic, Lee announced, and quickly joined Jeff with his head in the bilge.

Suddenly we hear a voice from outside saying, "there's a boat floating down on you!". Yikes!! A huge Catamaran was adrift, with 6 dinghies surrounding it, trying to prevent it from colliding with nearby boats.

As we watched helplessly, with fenders at hand, the owners raced down from the top of Monument, jumped in their dinghy, and were soon aboard their runaway boat and reanchoring. Disaster averted! They had spotted their boat adrift from the top of the mountain - enough excitement  for everyone for one day!

An Eventful Few Days

 The last few days have been eventful, beginning with a touch and go exit from very shallow Red Shanks. At high tide, we had .9 feet of water, according to our depth sounder. But we made it safely back to the harbour at George Town, where we anchored last night.

Jeff has had a persistent skin rash which seemed to be getting worse, despite being treated with an ointment suggested by the local pharmacist. So we made an appointment at the Exuma Family Medical Clinic - an absolutely gorgeous 3 year old facility. Jeff was seen by a doctor, who gave him a prescription for a drug and a different ointment, and the rash seems to be healing - yay!

So today we moved the boat to Sand Dollar Beach, where I took an ecstatic dance class for an hour. Then we moved the boat again to our favorite harbour at Monument Beach, where we'll await the arrival of David, who is bringing us new batteries, among a myriad of other items from Florida. Maybe he can help us figure out why our bilge pump has stopped working 😞.

But all in all, we're having a good time now - yoga on the beach tomorrow, and then maybe a hike to the monument. The weather is beautiful and we're surrounded by gin clear turquoise water - life is good.

Drowning in a dinghy

 We've spent the last week sitting out the big blow in a hidden corner of Red Shanks. Several times, we needed to go George Town for food and water, so we braved the wind and HUGE waves in our little dinghy. But the most challenging day was when I went with friends in their dinghy all the way across the Bay to the beach at Chat and Chill- a 45 minute trip. My friend, Dale, was offering a ukulele class, which I joined. Then we traveled across the bay to George Town for supplies, and headed back to the big boats.

Suddenly, we noticed that there was 8 inches of water in the dinghy - it looked like we were sinking! Fortunately, those inflatable dinghies don't sink so easily - we bailed, and pulled the bung-hole plug, and eventually emptied the boat. We figured the extreme turbulence in the cut into town caused the flood, and we didn't notice because we were focused on the crazy waves and walls of seawater splashing us constantly. I was very happy to put my foot down on Sea Change - which felt like terra firma!

We had a calmer day yesterday, and spent the evening with Dale and Kris, who made us a barbque dinner, followed by a jam session with all of us playing. Jeff had an amplifier on his guitar, and sounded great. Their little dog didn't even howl!