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!

With a Little Help From Our Friends

 We're not singing out of tune (as per the Beatles), but Sea Change has hit a few sour notes recently, as you know from previous blog posts.

The good news is, we've had plenty of good local help. First, Norman, who cares for the boat when we're away, just repaired our leaking dinghy. Then two different mechanics worked on our diesel engine, and it's now purring like a kitten. Finally, before that, when we couldn't start the engine, we got a tow from our harbour "concierge" to a safe place to hide out from the huge windstorm that is currently passing through.

So, knocking on wood, everything's working for now, and with full water tanks, a provisioned larder and reasonably charged batteries, we're finally feeling more relaxed!

We just saw a picture of a snow-covered car in South Florida, so we still feel lucky to be here - especially on this howling day off. 

A Dramatic End to a Calm Day

Ok - I finally have a story to tell! We spent the last week at beautiful Emerald Bay - hot showers, free laundry, parties with new dock friends, days by the gorgeous infinity pool and great restaurant - all for a price, of course. 

It wasn't all fun and games, though - especially for Jeff. He tried to replace the zinc, and kept losing parts of the old disintegrating zinc in the engine. Then he removed the heat exchanger and couldn't put it back together. After 3 hard, hot days, he gave up and called a mechanic, who, 4.5 hours and $450.00 US later, fixed the problem. 

At least, that one. The dying batteries showed no sign of revival, even after a week of charging, so we bit the bullet and rented a car, drove on the left to George Town (25 minutes each way), only to find that the set of batteries Jeff had reserved were no good. At least we were able to stock up on groceries and booze (badly needed at this point!).

So today we finally left to return to George Town - a beautiful, blue-sky motor, as the wind was on our nose, so no sailing. All was calm, until we entered Red Shanks Harbour in what looked like 9 feet of water at high tide. Should have been fine, right? Wrong. Before we knew it, we were aground - deeply embedded in the sand and not moving. Low tide would be a disaster, if we couldn't move soon.

In moments, 3 dinghies from neighboring boats were busy pushing, pulling, and eventually releasing us from our watery prison! As we motored to deeper water for the night we started to taste the Bahama Mamas awaiting us in the fridge. Another exciting day in Paradise!

Finally Sailing Away!

 We made it - we left Elizabeth Harbour yesterday and had a rolly ride motorsailing to beautiful Emerald Bay - about three hours away. After 5 weeks of roughing it, with no hot water and dying batteries, we're plugged in, having hot showers and had our first dinner out last night beside an insfinity pool at a nearby resort. We feel like we're in the lap of luxury, for $2.25 per foot per night.

We're surrounded by huge boats that dwarf little Sea Change - definitely an upper class district. We won't do this often, but it sure feels good to be at a dock now and then - I even worked up the energy to clean the boat, inside and out!

Tonight we'll feast on fresh tuna, caught and gifted to us by our neighboring boat - Australians who have traveled the world in their 47 foot Macintosh. We meet the nicest people here.

This feels like a holiday!

Biding our time

Sorry for the long gap - we haven't gone anywhere, so there's not much to say.

We're still in Red Shanks  - something always gets in the way of leaving. The weather has been very windy,  and on the few calm days we've had,  we go by dinghy into George Town for water,  groceries,  laundry,  etc.

Recently,  Jeff's hip has been acting up - we think he's going to need a hip replacement.  So he hasn't wanted to go anywhere for that reason.

But it's still better in the Bahamas - I know Toronto had a huge snowstorm the other day - closed all the schools,  highways,  etc. Not missing that much!

When the hip and weather settle down we'd like to go to Emerald Bay to plug in for a few days,  as the battery needs a boost.  We'll probably have to invest in new batteries in the near future 🙁. And the dinghy has a leak that we can't find, and our foot pump has given up the ghost. On top of that, one of our friends here, who travelled to the USA recently has tested positive for Covid. We're staying away, of course, but it's upsetting. 

Not Jealous any more? Hope all of you are doing better - I feel like I need a holiday...sigh.