Paying it Forward

We’ve had so much help from other cruisers since we’ve been in the Bahamas, that we were hoping some day to be able to start “paying it forward”.

Well, today was the day. As we ate our poached egg breakfast in the cockpit, I was thinking: “You know you’re really relaxed when you can be entertained for an hour by watching your neighbour try to unsnag his anchor”.

By the time we’d finished eating, they still hadn’t managed to get free, despite attempts with wet suits and snorkel gear, and all manner of gymnastics from their dinghy. So my Captain took our dinghy and his new rescue knife over to the neighbour’s boat, with an offer of help. After another half hour, they had cut the anchor chain free from a line wrapped around it, and attached to a stray piece of 7 foot-long fiberglass from a wrecked boat on the ocean floor! Many “thank you’s” later, the neighbour’s boat departed and we dinghied over to Staniel Cay Yacht Club for lunch in their gorgeous new dining room.

The rest of the afternoon was spent watching the nurse sharks who hang around the Yacht Club being fed by fishermen cleaning 4-foot long Grouper, lobsters and Mahi Mahi; strolling the 8-foot wide “highway” around the central part of town; and chatting with two cruisers who offered to dinghy me back to our boat, since Jeff had left earlier.

As the sun was setting and we looked off the side of Sea Change, we could see another boat that had made a bad decision when anchoring, and was stranded aground on the low tide. We just wished him luck and went below to make dinner.

All in all, quite a day!