Happy news, we are going to have another daughter!

We were very excited to hear that Brian proposed to Almendra on Monday night! So we are going to have a new daughter! Almendra has been a part of the family for over 6 years; this will just make her an official family member. They have not set a wedding date. Almendra is in the Army National Guard and is being deployed after the training she is currently doing in Texas. Please keep her and all of all those in service to our country in your thoughts and prayers.

3/23/09 We moved from White Sound at Green Turtle Cay over to Manjack Cay. On our trip over we noticed a boat coming our way that looked like our friends Bill and Bettie Sue on Teamwork. It was!!! We hailed them about the time they realized that it was us. We stopped and chatted at sea for a few minutes. They were headed out to the reef to go fishing and invited us to join them after we got settled.

We anchored at Manjack, tucked up close to a rock known as Rat Cay. The tank for the dinghy fuel needed to be filled up if we were going out to the reef. It was pretty windy. When Wayne finished putting fuel in the tank he could not find the little yellow disk that fills the hole in the cap for the gas can. We saw it floating in the water. We quickly launched a kayak and Wayne rescued it as it was floating away.

After lunch we headed out to find Teamwork. Wayne decided the best way to go was the shallow passage between Manjack and Crab Cay. Well, it was REALLY shallow! We ended up pulling the dinghy as much as we rode in it and in the end determined that we could not get through that way to get out to the reef. As long as we were there we decided to walk the beach on Crab Cay. It was covered in sea glass!!! So while I picked up sea glass Wayne did some exploring and found a path that went from the beach where we found the sea glass out to a beach on the Sea of Abaco side of the island.

As we were headed back to the boat we saw Teamwork anchored not far from where Born to Cruise was anchored. We stopped to talk and catch up with what they had been doing since we last saw them. The cruising community by nature is always moving, so you make friends and then go your separate ways. The wonderful thing is that chances are really good that your paths will cross again. After you catch up for a few minutes it is like you had never parted. We talked for hours.

It was great to have a strong WiFii signal again to check emails and make a few phone calls. The word is getting out about Bill and Leslie sharing their WiFi at Manjack, it is really nice of them to share with the cruising community.

3/24/09 The anchorage at Manjack was filling up with boats looking for protection from the wind that was expected for the next few days. Temptation and Whisper both came into the anchorage. Karen enjoys sea glass as much as I do, so we offered to show them the great spot we had found. Earl needed to do boat work, but Karen joined us. Whisper also came in their dinghy. We planned a long outing in hopes of catching the tide so we did not have to pull the dinghy. We took sandwiches and lots of drinking water. Again we found lots of sea glass on the beach. Wayne and Ray explored further in the rocks and found pockets of sea glass in the sandy crevices between the rocks. Much of what they found was actually "black glass" also known as "Pirate Glass" because of its age. The tide was coming in so we had to leave before we could do much searching in the rocks, but I was already making plans to come back the next day.

We still had time before the tide was high enough to get back to the anchorage so we crossed over the inlet and walked on the end of Manjack Cay. There were not many shells and no sea glass on this side. There are some pretty rock formations that we will need to take pictures of next time we walk that beach. The tide was finally high enough and we were able to get back to the boat.

Temptation and Whisper joined us after dinner for an enjoyable evening of dominoes and Farkle on Born to Cruise.

3/25/09 Sea glass hunting would have to wait, we spent a windy day aboard Born to Cruise. Wayne helped Earl finish up his repair work. We had a nice dinner on Temptation followed by dominoes and Farkle.

3/26/09 Happy Birthday to Steve!!!
The wind was shifting, so we moved Born to Cruise closer to Crab Cay to have a smoother anchorage. After lunch it was time to search for more sea glass. The plan was to dinghy around through the Sea of Abaco so we did not have to wait on the tides, and we would cross over to the beach using the path Wayne had discovered earlier. It was a wet dinghy ride over but we did not have to pull the dinghy. Today we were joined by Temptation, Sweet Chariot and Celtic Cross. There was more sea glass on the beach but we immediately headed for the rocks. Wayne and I found almost a ½ gallon of sea glass: many of the pieces were Pirate Glass! As the tide was coming in it was time to head back to the boat.

We invited Temptation over for dinner. We had game night on Born to Cruise with Temptation, Celtic Cross and Sweet Chariot all playing Mexican Train Dominoes.

3/27/09 The wind was predicted to pick up and be clocking so we moved back to White Sound at Green Turtle Cay. It was too windy to dinghy over to New Plymouth for groceries so Temptation suggested we share a golf cart rental and make a provisioning run to town. After stopping at all three grocery stores and the liquor store we had found everything that was on our list. Each of the grocery stores offers slightly different items, but for a small island they have nice stores. We were told that there are approximately 300 permanent residents of Green Turtle Cay and that increases to 700 when the seasonal residents are here. I should have asked if "cruisers" are counted as seasonal residents. After putting the food away there was still time remaining on our golf cart rental so we headed to the beach. The three beaches we walked had no sea glass and only a few small shells. They were still pretty beaches and we were able to get a little exercise. The evening was spent on Temptation playing dominoes and Farkle.

3/27/09 Another blustery day. Two boats drug on their anchors this morning, so we decided it was a good day to stay on the boat. We are confident of our anchor but you need to watch out for the other boats. Our fuel was getting low. Wayne decided to dump the fuel from the jerry jugs into the tank. He then got fuel in the jugs and also added those to the tank. He filled up the jugs one more time to be stored for later use.

Tonight Temptation taught us how to play the card game, Euchre. We always enjoy learning new games. It was the girls against the guys. The girls won by one point!

3/28/09 Oil change day. Wayne changed the oil and filters on both engines and also changed the fuel filters. It took him all morning and he is happy to have the task behind him. Wayne also checked the sail drive oil. We were both excited to see that the sail drive oil was PERFECT with no water!

We joined Earl and Karen for lunch at the Green Turtle Club. They then invited us back to Temptation to play Euchre. The guys won this time. We went back to Born to Cruise to have dinner and shower. The Euchre competition was tied 1-1. We went back to Temptation and played Mexican Train and two games of Euchre. Euchre now stands at 3-1. The guys will have to get their revenge over the summer. Temptation will be heading back to the US tomorrow, the weather window was too good to pass up. We will be leaving White Sound and going up to Powell, Allan-Pensacola, Manjack and maybe Moraine to walk some beaches and snorkel. We had an email from friends who have been back in the US for a week after being in the Bahamas for the winter. They were already missing the peace and beauty of the Bahamas. We will take their advice and enjoy every minute while we are here.

North through the Don’t Rock Passage to White Sound, Green Turtle Cay

Us in our sun hats. Picture taken near the deck of the Bluff House on Green Turtle Cay.

North through the Don’t Rock Passage to White Sound, Green Turtle Cay

3/13/09 - The wind direction was changing and would make the water choppy at Lynyard Cay so it was time to move and head north towards Hopetown. It was bumpy crossing the entrance to North Bar Channel. Anytime you cross a cut (space between the islands) where the Atlantic is on one side there is a possibility that you have a bumpy ride. We have crossed this cut 4 times this year and it has been bumpy each time. However, it is worth the bumps to get over to Lynyard and Little Harbor.

We decided to put the hook down just north of White Sound on Elbow Cay to check out the beach at White Sound. After lunch we changed our minds about going to the beach so we pulled up the anchor and headed for Hope Town. Our favorite anchorage outside the entrance to Hope Town was crowded, so we anchored in front of the light house where our charts showed it to be a good anchorage. Well, that anchorage is located very near the marked channel on the chart. It was a beautiful day to be on the water, so everyone was out in their boat. After we had been “wake” countless times in the first hour that we were there and we could also not get a good internet signal, I decided that was enough, we had to move. We decided to go to Marsh Harbor to get internet and fresh produce. We had a nice sail over to Marsh Harbor. My brother, Jay had sent an email saying he and his girl friend, Ginger, had scheduled their flights and will be visiting April 12th through the 22nd. We are looking forward to their visit.

3/14/09 Saturday morning we went to the grocery store and Standard Hardware. Another clocking front was predicted. The wind was perfect for a nice sail over to Treasure Cay, which is a great place to ride out a clocking front. We found a nice place to anchor very near our friends on Temptation. After dinner we went over to Temptation for a night of Dominos and Farkle with Karen and Earl who were heading to Green Turtle in the morning.

3/15/09 Pattie and Ray on Whisper dinghied up and introduced themselves. They have a Gemini Catamaran. They invited us over that evening to learn a new game of Dominos. We spent the afternoon walking the Treasure Cay Beach. On several occasions we had walked north to the point where all the sand dollars are. This time we decided to walk to the other end toward where the Carlton Settlement used to be. It is a LONG way to the other end of the beach. We went at mid tide and did not find a single shell. I guess the exercise was good for us but I sure needed a rest when we were done. While walking the beach we saw Dan and Deb from Freedom who we had met our first week over in the Abacos.

After dinner we went over to Whisper and learned a new game of dominos, I’m not sure how you spell the name but my best guess is “schmutzski”. It was fun and we enjoyed getting to know Ray and Pattie who are from Boston. During the middle of our game we had to stop to see if we could see the space shuttle launch which goes directly over the Abacos. Unfortunately it was cloudy. We could see the golden vapor trail before it disappeared into the clouds. Then the strangest thing, we saw a white vapor cloud above the cloud cover. It was eerie looking, almost like there was a spotlight pointed on it. It was later explained that ice crystals formed from the water evaporating off the shuttle and the sun was still high enough to light it up. I found a setting on our camera to take night pictures, we had never tried it before. All of the pictures we took of the “launch” are fuzzy; I guess we need to stand a little stiller while taking night shots. Even through the fuzz, you can see the vapor trail and the strange cloud.

3/16/09 The wind had laid down and the tide was right. We wanted to try taking the Don’t Rock Passage to get north of the Whale. Don’t Rock is an alternate route to going through the Whale Cay Passage. We had gotten the GPS coordinates for the Don’t Rock Channel, and Wayne had them all programmed into the GPS Map. It worked great! We went an hour before high tide. The Don’t Rock Channel is VERY shallow; with our four foot draft we saw flashes of four and a half feet of water. It saved us 4 miles on our trip by taking this short cut. When your average speed is around five and a half miles an hour, saving four miles is significant. We will definitely do this route again if the tides are right. We anchored in White Sound at Green Turtle Cay. Karen and Earl on Temptation came over and we taught them the “schmutzski” dominos game.

3/17/09 I decided BBQ chicken sounded good for dinner. We do not carry a grill on Born to Cruise even though we have several grills in storage. We stopped at Temptation to see if Earl would be willing to cook the chicken if we brought it over with coleslaw and potato salad. He readily agreed. We dinghied over to New Plymouth, in search of chicken. There are 3 small grocery stores in New Plymouth and we went to all three. We also checked out all of the gift shops. When we were here in December it was the “off” season. Peak season for tourists in the Bahamas is April, May, June and July so all of the gift shops are stocking up. There are currently also a lot of students here for spring break. We ate lunch at Harvey’s Grill. The fishing season for lobster ends March 31. At the Green Turtle Fish House we were able to purchase some lobster to put in the freezer so Jay and Ginger can have steamed lobster while they are here. We had a nice dinner of BBQ chicken, German potato salad, Chinese Coleslaw and a nice Flan that Karen had made. Dinner was followed by Rummy Cube and Farkle.

3/18/09 Cloudy, Windy and Rainy. The Bahamians are desperate for rain and they got some today. We spent the day on the boat. Wayne gave me a haircut. He is improving his skills as my beautician and did a good job. Wayne took advantage of a day on the boat to sand and put Cetol varnish on some places that needed touching up around the door. It looks so much better. While we were at Mangoes Marina Wayne noticed that the boat beside us had a really good set up on their main sail furling lines. To copy their set up he needed to add two blocks to the outhaul line, he did that today. This should make it work much better. Temptation braved the elements and came over to play Mexican Train Dominos after dinner.

3/19/09 Once again it was a rainy, cloudy, windy day. We are catching up on our reading. We also watched the Steve Martin version of “The Pink Panther”.

3/20/09 Today was still windy but the sun was shining and it was time to get off of the boat. Temptation wanted us to show them where sand dollars could be found in Gillam Bay. We got to Gillam Bay just after low tide but the tide was a little above normal and with the winds from the north, the beach was not a good place to walk. We tried to walk on the Sea of Abaco side but could not really find a beach to walk. It was a disappointing treasure hunt, but the walk was nice and it was good to get a little exercise and get off the boat. Earl and Karen stopped at the Fish House to get lobster. Before coming back to the anchorage in White Sound we dinghied around Black Sound. We stopped and talked to Jack on Breaking Wind. We had met Jack on the Mega dock in Charleston, SC on our trip south. He, like many others, is looking for a weather window to head back to the US. We will look for our window after Jay and Ginger leave April 22nd.

After lunch we went over to the Bluff House to look in their gift shop and see how long they would be offering special docking rates. Their special rates will end at the end of March. We talked to Chanceux and met a few other cruisers. We also dinghied over to the Green Turtle Club to check out their gift shop and rates.

Just before sunset, three huge green parrots flew over the boat. Green Turtle Cay is famous for their green parrots. They were big and they were NOISEY!!! They were not close enough to get a good picture of them but we will keep trying. Karen and Earl came over for an evening of games.

3/21/09 Yet another squally, windy day spent on the boat. We had decided yesterday that we would wash a load of clothes this morning. About the time the washer was spinning the sky started to cloud up. We still hung out the clothes but had to bring them in early as a squall was approaching. I enjoyed spending part of the day sorting sea glass. The book Mom bought me as an early Birthday present is called Pure Sea Glass. It tells you how to grade sea glass it is either A, B, C or D. I was trying to sort out the class A glass. I only made it through the brown, aqua and teal glass. For game night tonight we taught Karen and Earl how to play Mille Bourne.

3/22/09 After spending the day on the boat yesterday we needed to get off the boat today. Temptation suggested walking the beach over by the Bluff House. There was not much to find much on the beach. Bluff House Restaurant is high on the bluff and has a deck overlooking the water. We went up to check out the view, which was wonderful. Earl used our camera to take our picture. We visited the Bluff House gift shop and the Green Turtle Club gift shop before returning to the boat.

Our favorite restaurant in the Abacos is the Green Turtle Club. We decided to splurge and have a belated anniversary/Valentines dinner at the Green Turtle Club. My favorite rack of lamb was not on the menu so I asked if it would be possible to get it. Since I had asked so early in the day they were able to fix it for me and it was wonderful. Wayne enjoyed Grouper almandine. Temptation joined us for dinner followed by a game of Farkle on Born to Cruise.

3/23/09 The winds were changing and coming from another direction so we could leave White Sound. At 8:00 AM we decided to move to one of our favorite anchorages at Manjack Cay and by 9:20 we were underway. More on Manjack Cay in my next update.

Chamber of Commerce Weather

This is a Juvenile French Angel Fish - he was too young to be scared and acted like he was posing for us on the small reef we snorkeled at Lynyard Cay.

3/7/09 With the prediction of “Chamber of Commerce Weather” it was time to find a beach to walk. “Chamber of Commerce Weather” is what Patti on the morning Abaco Cruisers net calls it when we are going to have PERFECT weather, highs in the upper 70’s and light wind, because it is what the Chamber of Commerce advertises in their brochures. We decided to head to Lynyard Cay which is basically a deserted island with nice beaches for sea glass collecting, Temptation decided to join us. After anchoring at Lynyard we had lunch and went to the beach. We found LOTS of sea glass. We invited Temptation over for dinner and enjoyed an evening of Triominos and Uno.

3/8/09 A perfect day as predicted! The morning was spent on the beach picking up sea glass. After lunch was low tide. At low tide you can walk around the south end of the island. We found some sea glass and a few shells. After our walk Wayne decided to get in the water and check out the bottom of Born to Cruise. He cleaned a little on the bottom of the boat and said it looked great!

3/9/09 Another perfect day! The morning was once again spent walking the beach looking for sea glass. After lunch, Wayne and Earl decided to go on a hunting trip on the reef between Lynyard and Little Harbor to look for lobster. They took the dinghy and snorkeled for hours. We had heard that there were lobster in the reef at the end of the island. . They returned empty handed but did find a small reef on the inside of Lynyard that had some nice fish, which made it a nice place to snorkel. Wayne had taken some underwater pictures, a few turned out pretty good. I sorted sea glass and wrote a blog entry.

We were surprised to see our Northwest Creek friends on Chanceux pull into the anchorage. We took the dingy over for a visit and to see how they had enjoyed the Exumas. Today was Karen and Earl’s 35th anniversary, they invited Chanceux and us over to Temptation after dinner for champagne and cake to help them celebrate. It was an enjoyable evening catching up with friends.

3/10/09 Another Chamber of Commerce Day! Karen, Wayne and I went sea glass collecting in the morning. After lunch Wayne and I snorkeled on the reef that he found. It is a little reef on the inside of the south end of Lynyard Cay. To be such a small reef it was amazing to see such a variety of fish. We took lots of underwater pictures. The problem is the fish don’t pose very well, they tend to swim off. We were able to get a few good shots, but we also took a lot of pictures of coral where the fish used to be before they swam away. One problem with all underwater cameras is that unless you have the sun at your back you cannot see the view finder to see exactly what you are taking a picture of, so you just kind of aim and shoot the best you can. We are really enjoying the underwater case for our camera and the few good shots you get each time always make it worth trying again the next time. Temptation came over for an evening of Farkle and Mexican Train Dominoes.

3/11/09 Temptation headed for Marsh Harbor in the morning but we decided to stay and take advantage of yet another perfect day. We decided to wait and walk the beach after lunch at low tide to see if the sea glass hunting was any better. We have decided that the best time to find sea glass at Lynyard is at mid tide while it is falling. The space shuttle launch was scheduled for 9:20 and would go over the Abacos so we enjoyed the fabulous full moon and watched for the shuttle. We never saw the shuttle, later we found out the launch had been postponed until Sunday night, so we will try watching again on Sunday.

3/12/09 Should I mention that it was another perfect day? Once again we searched for sea glass in the morning and snorkeled with the underwater camera in the afternoon. There was not as much sea glass, maybe because we had already found so much! I am not complaining because my guess is that over the past week I had collected close to a gallon to sea glass! I have been sorting it by color. There are lots of colors of glass Kelly green, brown and clear being the most common, but we also have light blue, navy, lime green, gray, pirate black glass, lavender, aqua and teal. Next I will sort it by quality to see how well we did. No matter what the quality, it was fun collecting it.

Barefoot Man

This is the Barefoot Man and his band at Nippers on Great Guana, Cay. And yes he really did have bare feet! His band members had on flip flops

3/3/09 We had ridden out the mild front snug in Treasure Cay, but the weather was improving and it was time to head back to Marsh Harbor. We were able to sail part of the way to Marsh Harbor but the wind was not blowing enough to keep the sails full. After anchoring at Marsh Harbor, we walked over to the Customs office to renew our fishing permit. Our cruising permit was good for a year but they had only given us 3 months for our fishing permit. When we got there the Customs officials explained
that it would be $20 a month to renew our fishing permit. Since we had not caught any fish since we had been here, we decided we could buy a lot of fish and lobster for $20 a month and decided to let our fishing permit expire. We stopped at the store for fresh produce and bread.

3/4/09 Happy Birthday Mom!
It was a chilly, windy, overcast day and we had good internet reception so it was a good day to tackle our income taxes. We had done our taxes online last year and it worked great and online is the ideal way to do taxes from the Bahamas. After all was said and done we get a nice refund from the fed and owe a little to NC so it was a good day. While Wayne was busy double checking our tax numbers, I worked a little on sand dollars. Sand dollars are very brittle. We had been told that "painting"
them with a solution of ½ water and ½ white glue would make them stronger. I can't tell yet if they are less brittle but they are shinier. After calling Mom to wish her a Happy Birthday, we spent the evening playing Farkle and Mexican Train Dominoes with Karen and Earl on Temptation.

3/5/09 Born to Cruise carries three 20 pound propane tanks. We had tapped into the 3rd tank while we were at Treasure Cay and did not think that one tank would be enough to last us until we got back to the US. In Marsh Harbor you can take your tank to the hardware store before 9:00 AM and they will fill it and have it back before noon. Wayne took one tank in to be filled and as promised, it was ready before 11:00. We had lunch and decided to head over to Great Guana to find a good anchoring
spot before the crowd arrived. The 6th, 7th and 8th were going to be busy days on Great Guana; the Barefoot Man was going to be in town! Everyone was SO excited; we had to see what all the fuss was about. We had heard his music, thanks to Sunspot Baby, but we had never heard him live. We were able to get our favorite place to anchor in Fishers Bay, but it was already getting crowded.

3/6/09 The concert started at noon. We packed a bag and headed to shore at 11:30. Karen and Earl on Temptation pulled up as we were getting out of our dinghy. We headed to Nippers where the concert was being held. Stone McEwan and his band were the first to play. They were ok. Nippers was a little crowded and also smoky. Cuban cigars are legal in the Bahamas, and it seemed like all of the male students who were there for spring break had to try a Cuban Cigar. I personally think they stink.
We decided a good place to sit was on the beach, where there was no smoke and the music was at a nice volume. Wayne had to see if there were any more messages in bottles on the beach so we took a walk. There were no messages and no shells, but the walk was nice. Flash II joined us on the beach. The Barefoot Man finally started to play around 3:00, so we all moved from the beach back to Nippers because it was getting chilly on the beach. His music is kind of like Jimmy Buffet but with a Bahamian/Caribbean
type twist. His latest CD contains all of his songs that mention the Bahamas. We enjoyed his music but again the cigar smoke was too much so we left. On the way back to the boat we stopped by Milo's Fresh Produce for zucchini, avocado and bananas. We had an enjoyable evening on Temptation. Karen fixed a new recipe for dinner, which was very good and then we played games. We were tired after a full day.

Great to have Otto working again!

Yes, the sails do work on Born to Cruise! We are enjoying sailing now that Otto is working again.


Monday 2/23 - It is always fun to have compnay but it is amazing how big the boat feels after they leave. After doing two loads of laundry we left Mangoes Marina and anchored in Marsh Harbor. Wayne had installed Otto’s rebuilt linear drive but we were still getting the same error message when he turned on the autopilot. Wayne tested what he knew to test and was still getting the message. It was not looking good.

Tuesday 2/24 - The first order of business was to talk to Pat at Merlin’s Marine Electronics to see what he thought about our autopilot problem. Pat ran through a long list of tests and Wayne had tried them all. Pat then said to try one more test before we did anything else. Wayne tried that test and it worked !!!! We visited Pat again to give him a tip as a consulting fee to thank him for his excellent advice and for saving us the money we would have spent on a new brain for our autopilot. Ann and Pat are both great and we highly recommend Merlin’s Marine Electronics. We ran into Flash II while going to Merlins. We had not seen Bryan and Sonya for a while. We enjoyed catching up and made plans to get together to do some beach walking when the weather allowed for anchoring near shore.

Wednesday 2/25 – With Otto showing no error messages, it was time to test him underway. We decided to go to Great Guana for the Wednesday night Pot Luck. The wind was perfect for a sail from Marsh Harbor over to Great Guana. We had a wonderful sail over, seeing a high speed of 6.6 knots under sail. The best part was that Otto was back and working well!!! Welcome home Otto, we missed you and glad you are well again!

There is a Pot Luck on Great Guana every Wednesday night at Grabbers Grill. Grabbers lets everyone use their tables, and people buy their beverages from Grabbers. It works out well. There were over 120 people that showed up, which was their largest turn out for a Pot Luck this season. Everyone brings a dish to share; the food was good. We sat with Cypraea, Celtic Cross and Temptation and had an enjoyable evening.

Thursday 2/26 – It was a windy day, so we hung around the boat. It was time for another game night on Born to Cruise. At the Pot Luck we had invited Cypraea, Celtic Cross and Temptation to come over for an evening of Mexican Train Dominoes. Eight people are a tight fit around our salon table, but we managed to get everyone in and had a wonderful time.

Friday 2/27 – Happy Birthday to Leta Poston, Wayne’s Mom.

They were predicting a front on Sunday night so we decided to go to Treasure Cay and find a good spot to anchor before the rest of the crowd came in. Once again we were able to sail! Having Otto, our 3rd crew member, back sure makes it easier. After anchoring we headed to the beach to look for shells and sand dollars at low tide. We found a lot of auger shells and various sizes of sand dollars. We spent a quiet evening on the boat.

Saturday, 2/28 – It was the calm before the storm, so Wayne took advantage of the flat harbor to climb the mast to tighten the screw on the wind indicator. While he was there he took some pictures of the harbor. Temptation took pictures of Wayne while he was up the mast. When Mom and Sandy were here and we were exploring the little shops, we noticed that the conch horns that they were selling in the shops had been varnished on the outside to make them shiny. So Wayne varnished the conch horns that he had made. They really look nice.

At low tide we decide to explore the beach at the entrance to Treasure Cay. We did not find much on the beach itself but found LOTS of sand dollars just off shore. We picked up 37 sand dollars and stopped because my collection bags were full.

After dinner, Karen and Earl, from Temptation, came over to play Farkle and Dominoes.

Sunday, 3/1 – Treasure Cay Harbor filled up on Sunday with people looking for a protected anchorage for the cold front. We were happy that we already had a good spot and our anchor was well set. It was interesting to watch the different anchoring techniques of the boats coming in. Russ and Pat on Consort had invited us over for sundowners , with the front approaching we went over early in the afternoon and left just after sunset. We had an enjoyable afternoon getting to know Russ and Pat.

The front came through as predicted on Sunday night but we didn’t think it was as bad as they were predicting. We got a little rain and the wind blew. The only bad part was that it was a COLD front, the same one that had brought so much cold and snow to the US east coast, it dropped our temperatures from highs in the upper 70’s to highs only in the lower 60’s, brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Monday 3/2 – Chilly day with a high of only 62! The good news is it should be back in the upper 70’s by the weekend. Sandi and Donn on Cypraea love to play games. So we invited them over for games and dinner. They came over at 2:00. Wayne and I learned a new game “Apples to Apples” it was a lot of fun. Then we taught them Quiddler and Farkle and ended the evening at 9:30 after several games of Dominoes. It was a great way to spend a chilly afternoon and evening and we look forward to doing it again.

Once again we have changed our plans….we had thought that when Otto was fixed we would head further south to Eleuthera and then on to the Exumas. We have relaxed and are enjoying the ease of cruising in the Abacos, so we have decided to stay in the Abacos for the rest of the cruising season. We let my brother, Jay, know that he should make his airline reservations to fly into Treasure Cay and we will show Jay and his girlfriend, Ginger the beautiful islands north of the Whale.