We did take a dinghy ride yesterday and tried to fish but it was a little windy and our anchor wouldn't hold so we came home. We ate on the boat last night-a rare event! Today Oliver and Scott (MASCOT) went fishing and brought home 9 grunts. Marina and I spent a quiet day on the boat together-did a little laundry, caught up with email, etc. We're getting ready now to go to Dock 4 for cocktail hour. We try to split our time between Docks 4, 5 and 7-not that they care, I'm sure, but we like everybody and miss seeing them when we're at the other docks!

Here are Oliver and Scott with their catch

Back by popular demand, here's Marina! She continues to do well. We walk her for at least 30-60 minutes every morning and usually again in the afternoon. She gets to meet lots of other dogs and gets her fair share of petting. Her favorite thing is still to sit on the bridge in her Dad's lap.

No pictures but it's time to post so here goes. The weather remains beautiful, despite the passage of "cold" fronts every few days. We spent the morning at the beach on Friday, our first time doing that since we got here. It was a hot day but the onshore winds really made it comfortable. Friday night we enjoyed cocktails and a huge spread of appetizers at Dock 5 and then had dinner on board "Tomlin" with friends Tom and Linda from Vancouver, BC, CA. They are leaving here on Tuesday to return to Florida and we will miss them. They have been so hospitable to us. Yesterday we did some shopping in the morning-I wanted a tablecloth made on the island of Androsa and picked the wrong color the first time, so we had to make 2 trips-and did boat chores in the afternoon. Last night we had dinner at Wally's for the first time. It is probably the most upscale restaurant in Marsh Harbour, except for Angler's, and we both had an excellent meal. Today looks to be sunny and hot, so we will likely take a little dinghy ride early. The next few days we will be getting ready for guests. We plan to leave here arund March 26, so time is really flying now.

Hope all is well with our friends and family. Thanks for visiting us-come back soon.

Last night we were lucky enough to witness a unique Bahamian cultural event that most tourists don't see. Junkanoo is a music, dance and costume event that traditionally takes place the day after Christmas and New Years Day. The biggest parades take place in Nassau, where as many as 50,000 people attend - in spite of the fact that the parade STARTS at 2 AM and ends at 9 AM!! Fortunately, here in Marsh Harbour it started (supposedly) at 6:30 PM. We had an early dinner of fresh caught fish-see yesterday's blog - and walked to the site about a mile away with Scott and Mary, Wilma, and Andy. It was lucky that the parade didn't have to be canceled, as it was pouring down rain at 4:30. But the sun came out and it was beautiful by 6. As is true for much of the Bahamas, the timeline was merely an estimate. It was somewehhere around 7:30 when the officials began their speeches-there must have been 6 of them-the Minister of This and the Head of That-but finally the parade started. There are both Junior and Senior Junkanooers. The Junios came first-after 3 floats, everything stopped for about 45 minutes, but then we got to see the winning Senior and Junior units from Nassau. We finally left a little before 10, I think, because it looked like there was still a lot to go! It's a very colorful and happy event, very Bahamian, and we're glad we were able to see it.

Here's the first Junior group

The little kids take this seriously and they're incredibly cute

These is the Senior group from Nassau

This was the Junior group from Nassau

Well, another morning after the night before! If I had known that this trip was going to be so stressful, I'dve gone into training sooner. Yesterday was supposed to be a workday, but Wink came down on his bike and he and Oliver rode off to buy more fishing gear and several ounces of conch entrails for baot. They, and Scott, returned at 4 PM with a whole bunch of different fish, which I guess we will have for dinner before the Junkanoo tonight. After cleaning up, we went to Wink and Wilma's boat for pre-dinner cake-it was Jim's birthday today and he's returning home to New Jersey, so the party was last night. We all walked over to the Jib Room for ribs and beer and dancing and beer and moon-watching and beer.

Here are the guys cleaning their catch

Oliver picked up some chick at the bar

She was not a nice girl though-next thing we knew, she was coming on to Pat

The limbo guy lights his cigarette on the way under the burning limbo bar

The Electric Slide, like karaoke, always seems like such a good idea when you've had enough beer!

Last night was the lunar eclipse-the clouds cleared in time for us to get a wonderful view

And they say chivalry is dead!!

Andy, Scott, Jim, Pat, Oliver

No pictures today, although we had a wonderful day. We had planned for a quiet day-Oliver went out fishing at about 8 AM but at 9:15, Wink came to say it was a good day to get out to the reef. The reef off of Great Abaco Island is the third longest reef in the world but we had tried twice to get out there and it was too rough. I called Oliver on the vhf radio and he came in, we packed our gear, and off we went. We have snorkeled The Great Barrier Reef in Australia twice-THE longest reef in the world and it is spectacular but the reef here is also breathtaking. Beautiful fish of every color, bright colors of coral, huge reefs of coral and suddenly a deep hole down to the bottom. We dived three different places and each was as beautiful as the others. It's amazing how tiring swimming along on top of the water can be! The wind started to pick up and the clouds got heavier so we reluctantly went home-and a VERY bouncy ride it was! What a beautiful day though.

Tomorrow will be a work day - that's what we say everyday but somethingbetter always comes up! Our dear friends Joe & Rose and Paul & Sharon are coming next Thursday, so we really do have a few things to get done. Tomorrow night we will probably go to the Jib Room for ribs and then watch the lunar eclipse but THURSDAY night is a special treat. A JUNKANOO!!! (Not a jump-in-nude, as I have heard it called!) This is a parade of sorts, with street dancing, costumes, goat drums, singing, and who knows what all else. We'll surely get some wonderful pictures then, so stay tuned!!

Thanks for visiting. Come back soon.

Well, the internet is working at the moment, although who knows for how long, so I'll post all the pictures I can. Yesterday we spent most of the day at the Man-O-War flea market. We didn't buy anything but walked to the far end of the island with friends Pat and Pat, met a very nice man who invited us first onto his deck, then onto his patio, and finally into his house! Last night we were exhausted so walked up to Curly Tails for a fish dinner. This morning we took the ferry over to Guana Cay and had lunch at Nipper's. It's a very well known restaurant here in the Abacos and they have a wonderful pig roast on Sundays. We ran into our friends Scott and Mary, who had brought their boat over. We came home on the ferry and have been resting-we're still tired from Friday night!! Some rainy weather is predicted for Tuesday, so tomorrow I must walk my computer up to the Fed Ex place and ship it to Bunny, so the Hewlett Packard folks can pick it up and repair it. Good thing we travel with 3 computers!!

Happy Birthdays to my niece Sarah and brother-in-law Nick.

Here's Wink catching his lobster (the second one of the day)

A close up of the lobster

Oliver snorkeling

The Commodore's Ball-you can see it was a formal affair

Oliver and his potcake

Since I know you're all asking, what in the world is a potcake? There are many semi stray dogs on the island. People feed them the crust or "cake" from the bottom of pots of rice and peas (one of our favorite dishes here). Hence the name potcakes! This one walks around the marina and came in to the ball and laid down by our table.

Here's our friend Pat running away from he alligator that stole his lunch!

There were many very cute gates like this one

This is the view from the deck we were ivited to visit

This is a Bahamian trash can

And this is a Bahamian front loader

We love the Bahamian people-they are friendly, polite and always upbeat and cheerful. Lots of singing!

This is the famous Nipper's

The beach here is beautiful

We didn't bring our suits but will next time

After 2 nights of blowing, today was fairly calm and very bright and sunny. We took the dinghy out but it was a little too rough for snorkeling or fishing. Tonight we had a Valentine's dinner at the restaurant here at the marina. We don't much like this picture, but we haven't had many taken together, so....

We just got back from a little walkabout. Even though rain was predicted, neither one of us thought of taking an umbrella so of course we got pretty wet! Also didn't close the windows, so just spent some time wiping everything down. There's supposed to be quite a blow tonight and tomorrow, so we may not get out until Thursday. We can use the rest since this will be a busy weekend. Thursday night we're having a Valentine's dinner at Angler's Restaurant, Friday night is the yacht club dinner dance, Saturday we are going to the Man-O-War flea market and we may go to Guana Cay on Sunday, if we're not too tired!!

Here's a picture of our resident eel, Eli. He lives in a hole at the end of the dock and comes part way out at sunset. This is his house

And here's a close up of Eli. Isn't he handsome? As they say....that's a morey!!

Yesterday (Sunday) we had a quiet day at the boat. Last evening there was a "Jam" session with soem of the guys from Dock 7. It was a little windy, so the event was in the tent and there were a lot of people there-not just from Boat Harbour but from the other marinas and boats at anchor in the harbor.

A cold front came through last night-it was about 68 this morning-brrrr!!! One of the water pipes broke-maybe from the cold!!! It's been quite windy today and the weather is supposed to be nasty until Friday-some rain and more wind. Today Oliver cracked open a coconut for me and I grated it and tried to make macaroons. They didn't turn out-they won't stick together-but taste pretty good. Wilma has offered to take them and turn them into bon bons, with a few nuts and some chocolate and candy wax. She's a really good cook so I have every expectation that they'll be great.

Here's a picture of Andy, Denise, Wilma, Wink and Oliver at the jam session last night

The musicians from the session

A pretty good crowd. The chairs are for the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club meeting this Wednesday

We have had a most interesting day today. Sometimes adventure finds you instead of the other way around! Since the next few days are supposed to be windy, we decided to take the dinghy out for fishing or snorkeling or a trip to Man-O-War Cay. It was quite rough outside our harbor, so we followed the shoreline and ducked behind Matt Lowe's Cay where it was calm. Oliver fished for a bit and by the time we got out to the point, we decided to run across to Man-O-War. We had a nice time just trolling around the harbor but when we saw some clouds forming, we decided to head for home. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story!

As we were leaving the channel from Man-O-War, I saw these funny little clouds and asked my resident weather spotter if they were anything to be concerned about. He said it just looked like some rain - but suggested I take a picture or two. Hmmmmmm

Soon, we saw some activity at sea level and the cloud looked like this

Since we were just outside the harbor, I started snapping pictures like crazy and Oliver got on the radio and reported the waterspout. After that, someone else reported it but they thought it hadn't touched the water-we were in a perfect position to see that it was right down on the water. 

We were fascinated and watched until the spout started dissipating, which didn't take long

Soon it dissapeared and we could see it was raining hard, so we turned around and went back into Man-O-War

We found a spot to tie up right near the Hibiscus Cafe and had a nice snack while we waited for the rain to stop. After about 45 minutes, we decided to leave. Fortunate thing, as it turned out we had tied up in someone's "parking" place and they had just returned. We loaded up and headed home. Actually, the wind had died down but the rain was like needles on our faces. We're now warm and dry, and getting ready to go to the Jib Room for steaks. Wonder what excitement will find us tomorrow?!

After hiking all over town this morning to complete all our errands, we took the dinghy out for a little fishing and bucket-looking. A big cloud came over and a few drops of rain fell on us but it was otherwise quite a nice ride.

This big ray was napping on the bottom when we came along. Right after I took this picture, he woke up and went zooming away.

We came across this little coral reef

This beautiful boat from Baltimore came in a couple of days ago. We think it is the prettiest we've seen on the entire trip

We're thinking about going fishing in a little while. I spent the morning working on our route home while Oliver worked on a couple of coconuts. I think we're going to try making something-who knows what! Yesterday we shopped for a new wet suit for me and new flippers for Oliver before joining Dock 7 for their nightly cocktail party. Cooked brats on the boat and early to bed. Oliver doesn't like to eat in often so tonight we'll probably visit Curly Tails again.

Here's an update on our time and distance

Miles Traveled To Date - 2506

Hours Traveled To Date - 176

Miles To Go - 2518

He's got a lovely bunch of coconuts

Here they are getting cleaned up

We had a great day today. After a quick trip to the grocery and marine stores, we joined new friends Wilma and Wink in their skiff and set off for some snorkeling. We wanted to go out to the barrier reef but it was quite windy and so too rough. Instead we went behind Matt Lowe's Cay and found a very nice reef with thousands of fish, many starfish, a huge turtle, a big stingray and a few lobsters. Wink caught 2 lobsters and we all enjoyed the beautiful water. Visited a couple of other locations, had lunch and returned mid-afternoon. This evening we joined Wilma and Wink, along with their friends Denise from Australia and Andy from New York for a wonderful dinner of lobster bisque (from today's catch) and hogfish (their catch from yesterday). It's a delicious white fish, despite the somewhat unfortunate name! This was surely one of our most enjoyable days of the entire trip and we will join them for a trip to the big reef as soon as weather permits.

The water was beautiful today-as it is every day, actually

Wilma and I resting before going back in the water

Congratulations to all the Giants fans-not that I personally know any!! We had a nice time at the pool party last night. They set up a big TV over the pool and we all sat in the beautiful evening weather and watched the game, ate hamburgers and hot dogs, drank beer and mostly rooted for the Giants, except for our good frineds Scott and Mary, who are from Ipswich, MA. They were wonderfully good sports and took a LOT of ribbing.

Yesterday we took the dinghy down to Snake Cay, about 6 miles south of here. I saw a sting ray through my look and see bucket and we saw some lovely beaches. We're having a lot of fun with that dinghy-in spite of the $5 per gallon gas it takes. Looks like another week of beautiful weather, at least until Friday.

Hope all our family and friends are well. Best wishes and prayers for my mother's foot surgery tomorrow!

Thanks for visiting us. Come back often.

Here's looking out of the inlet at Snake Cay. It's a popular anchorage

These are our look and see buckets-Oliver did a little decorating

Super Bowl Sunday and we are feeling blue because our team won't be in it. But we will nonetheless go to the party at the pool and root for the Giants.

Yesterday was a spectacular day-blue skies, close to 80 but with a cooling breeze. We made our pilgramage to the bakery for the coconut bread we are now so addicted to and then I went to the beach. Marina and Oliver joined me for a while - we don't want her to get all sandy so she sunbathed on a beach towel on one of the grass hut covered tables. After we cleaned up, we walked over to the Jib Room for a wonderful steak dinner with Bob and Joyce and Galen and Connie. Oliver wore new shoes, got a blister and we had to take a taxi back to the boat but had a wonderful evening overall.

Happy Birthday to my dear friend Phyllis! 

Thanks for visiting with us.

Just a reminder-you can view our weather by just going to the Our Boat Weather tab and pressing Go. (In case you want to feel bad)!

Just another perfect day here in paradise! Wednesday night we went to the Jib Room with a large group. The ribs were fantastic and the entertainment was fun - a little rake and scrape as well as limbo. Rake and scrape involves a saw and some karaoke music and is the music of choice at every restaurant we've been to. Yesterday I actually did clean my boat while Oliver went to the hardware store for supplies-he made us 2 "look and see" buckets. Today we took them out to do a test drive-they work great! We also collected a few conch shells from the little island where the fishermen clean them and just throw the shells up on the shore. Every day at sunset we hear numerous conch shells being blown-not sure how they do that but I'm sure Oliver will be practicing tomorrow!

For our boating friends who might care, this is our Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club burgee

Here are a couple of start fish-I took these pictures through my bucket

These are 3 of the 4 conch shells we picked up

Today was supposed to be my cleaning day but I only got our bedroom done and 2 loads of wash before Oliver met up with old friends Bob and Joyce (from Charlevoix) and new friends Galen and Connie (from Ohio) and decided to take the dinghies to Hope Town, over on Elbow Cay, for lunch. It's only about 4 miles and today was another beautiful day. Hope Town is one of the most historic and beautiful old towns in the Abacos and is well recognized for it's barber shop pole lightouse. We enjoyed our lunch and then came back to look at Matt Lowe's Cay and then on to Mermaid Reef, before coming back to the marina. Tonight we're going to the Jib Room, at the Marsh Harbor Marina for ribs. Maybe tomorrow I'll do some cleaning!

This is the lighthouse in Hope Town

This is the restaurant where we had lunch

Love this boat name!!

Galen & Connie and Bob & Joyce leaving Hope Town

MAry and SCOTt and Bob & Joyce on Mermaid Reef. The buckets are for looking down at the fish-sort of a miniature glass bottom boat! Mary and Scott have the West Marine Professional Fish Viewers version-Bob and Joyce the ACE Hardware homemade version. As newbies here, we don't have either one. We are off to ACE Hardware tomorrow!

Looking down at part of the reef

We're pretty much settled in now. The past couple of days we've walked into town, on Sunday to the ONLY store open in the whole town, Maxwell's Market, to buy a bread pan so I could bake my frozen dough. Yesterday we found the bakery and bought some fantastic coconut bread. We've eaten at a couple of different restuarants - good food but very expensive, as is everything here. We are currently waiting for our Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht Club membership card to be delivered so we can receive some better rates from the marina on dockage and - more importantly - water! We pay for both electricity and water on a metered rate but with our yacht club membership, we can buy water for "only: $3.00/day. Never take the little things in life for granted!!

We have renewed some friendships we have made along the way and have met many other new friends in just the few days we've been here. Happy hour is a VERY important event every day, with each dock seeming to host a different cocktail party. We're lucky - Dock 6 doesn't have enough boaters to host our own happy hour so we have been told we may just wander from dock to dock and they will feel sorry for us and take us in!!  Kind of reminds me of the summer we didn't have a boat in Port Washington and we would just walk up and down looking sad until our friends invited us onto their boats!

Took a few more pictures today. Thanks for visiting with us and keep coming back!

This is one of two pools here

 And here is our beach, with some of the resort in the background

This is the anchorage in Marsh Harbor, which is actually across the island from where we are

Here comes the food!! Just over the top of the truck, you can see one of the boats which brings the supplies to the island

A little taste of home-Oliver just loves the little trucks here-here's a KFC delivery truck

The Bahamians have a wonderful perspective on things - note that you can call the liquor store on Channel 16 - just try THAT in the states! For our non-boating friends, Channel 16 is the international distress channel and at home, the Coast Guard will chastise you severely for using it for any other purpose. Here, they understand that if you are short of liquor, you ARE in distress!!

This is a pretty little park. The placques are dedicated to "everyday" heroes. My favorite is for a lady who was "the best chocolate cake baker in the Abacos".

We just returned from an excellent dinner at Curly Tails and we are so looking forward to a good night's sleep without having to think about the next day's travel! We spent a couple of hours washing the boat - the rails and windows were so caked with salt that it took several attempts to clean it off. Walked Marina a couple of times and chatted with our next door neighbors - they are from Chicago and had some other Chicagoans who just arrived for a visit today. I got a couple of sealife pictures but that was about it. More later.

Here's a jellyfish

A couple of turtles swam by - this was actually the smaller one

Just a quick note to let everybody know we have reached our destination of Marsh Harbor. We will now be here for the next 2 months. The day was fairly uneventful. We had to cross through the Whale Cay Channel and Passage, which at times is impassable because of the waves. Usually the procedure is to call for "Any Boat" on the VHF radio, hoping someone who just transited can give you information. Unfortunately, we WERE any boat-the first to make the passage this morning. Actually, there was a smallish - 27 foot - sailboat ahead of us but they had to turn back because their engine was not powerful enough to make any headway against the waves. The winds were supposed to be 10 kts but in actuality were closer to 20. The swells in the channel were 6-10 feet - and waves were breaking on the sandbars, rocks and Whale Cay, all of which surrounded us. I would like to have taken pictures but couldn't get down into the cabin to get the camera. Oliver and the boat performed flawlessly, I spent my time trying to work up a spit in my dry mouth, and Marina just sat on my lap and shook. The whole transit is only about 5 miles so we were through in a relatively short time and we were NEVER in any danger, but it was more adventure than I care to have on a daily basis! When I finally did make it down to the cabin, there was stuff everywhere! The worst was our box of 1000 staples, which hit the floor and broke open. Have you ever tried to pick up 1000 staples?!! Anyway, we're here, getting ready to wash the salt spray off the boat - spray over the top in the Channel!! - and I'll post what pictures I did manage a little later.

Hours traveled today - 3

Miles traveled - 45

Almost as fast as Oliver caught his snapper, Richard had it cleaned and cooked so we had a delicious lunch-definitely the freshest fish I've ever had! Tonight Richard made lobster bisque, seafood platter (for Oliver) and grouper (for me). We also had a private waitress tonight!! The weather still looks favorable for traveling to Marsh Harbor tomorrow.

Here's the work crew going home.

The houses here are SO typically Bahamian

This pier and gazebo belongs to the Spanish Cay Resort

Oliver walked the beach looking for conch shells

But they were all alive!!

We are currently in Spanish Cay, about 40 miles from our destination of Marsh Harbor. We had a very nice trip yesterday from Old Bahama Bay and should have continued to Marsh harbor, which is what Oliver wanted to do. I was tired and insisted we stop here, which was our original plan. (I really must learn to be more flexible!) Anyway, a cold front moved through last night and it was way too windy to move on today. Hopefully tomorrow morning it will calm down ansd we'll make a quick run to Marsh Harbor.

This is a most interesting island. It is very small-about 2 miles long and 1/2 mile wide and is privately owned. There is a 5000 foot runway, which a very few residents use to visit their week-end homes. There aren't more than 6 houses on the island and the resort consists of a handful of condos. This being the off-season, last night there were 4 of us transients in the 81 slip marina! The work boat crosses to Little Abaco Island in the morning and picks up the resort workers and then returns them late afternoon. After that, it's just a few people here. Last night there were the 8 of us boaters, the manager and his wife, and Richard, who is our "private" chef! We decided what we wanted for dinner at 3 PM and at 6 we went up to the restaurant, Richard fixed us a cocktail and then cooked dinner for Oliver and I, as well as Sue and Bill from one of the other transient boats. The meal was wonderful and Richard also fixed after dinner drinks, so we were cheerful by the time we went to bed!

This morning Oliver and I walked Marina to the end of the island, where it turns into the runway. Once we were able to connect to the internet, we spent a lot of time checking the weather and a little later we'll walk over to the ocean side of the island to see if it has calmed down any. Oliver and Richard are fishing for dinner right now.  In spite of the weather, this has turned into a most pleasant day!

Hours traveled yesterday - 5

Miles traveled yesterday - 92

The water was calm and beautiful yesterday

Here is a starfish laying on the bottom behind our boat

The sunset was beautiful last night

Here are Oliver and our private chef Richard looking for dinner

Uh Oh - this is a shark!

But Oliver caught this mangrove snapper, so we'll be able to eat after all!!