Getting Back to Blogging (March 6, 2012)

Ahhh—the Bahamas! There is nothing like the Bahamas! It’s the best sailing, lobstering, conching, swimming and just being we have ever experienced—it’s at the top of our list. We love it!

So why haven’t we been sharing all this wonderfulness with you on this blog? The answer is: NO INTERNET CONNECTIONS. We left Marathon, Florida on Friday, February 17—the day after John’s birthday—clearing customs and immigration in Alice Town, Bimini Saturday afternoon. We docked at Brown’s Marina to facilitate clearing customs and to use the internet. Contrary to our old cruising guide’s warnings that Brown’s Marina was in disrepair, we found new docks, a friendly dockmaster named Henry, a marina tiki bar, freshwater showers (cold but fresh) and free internet. We stayed at Brown’s for 3 ½ days. We first checked email and logged on to a variety of marine weather sites to plan our sail over to the Berry Islands and on to the Exumas. On the day I decided to post lots of pictures and get you caught up on our Bahama adventure, we discovered that our laptop was broken! Yikes! Our laptop is our main connection to our family, the marine weather forecasts and all of you.
The Bahamas, in all its wonderfulness, is not a good place to have broken things fixed. We asked dockmaster Henry to help us find someone in Bimini who could possibly fix our laptop. The good news was that he instantly came up with the name of a lady who does that sort of thing; the bad news was that he couldn’t get her to answer the phone number he had for her. After a day or so with no laptop, we were considering a trip up the island to Bailey Town where the computer lady had a shop even though she didn’t keep regular hours—had a job at a bank somewhere on the island too. Luckily, we were spared that trip. One morning Henry waved from the tiki bar on the beach then trotted down the dock to our boat to tell us that Marlena—the computer lady—just happened to be turning her car around in front of the marina. Henry went out and flagged her down. Marlena was waiting for us at the tiki bar! John grabbed up the computer and turned it over to Marlena who seemed confident that she could get it going again. It would be a few days, she said. We had the time and were content to wait if she could just get it fixed. This is soooo Bahamian—it seems to be the way things work—you make friends with the folks (very easy to do as most seem to be so nice) kick back and wait—no worries mon! Good ol’ Marlena not only fixed the laptop at a reasonable cost, but returned it that same day. We were immeasurably happy!
Checking the marine weather forecasts came first and then updating the blog was to come next. As it turned out, I out-did the catching-up-on-the-blog thing by trying to load about 20 pictures. Finally, I just gave up on the blog telling myself that we would find more internet connections in a few days. Well, that was February 22 and today is March 6. We have not connected with internet yet. In fact, these comments are being saved in a Word file and will be posted when we eventually get to internet in Staniel Cay or George Town, Exumas sometime. A huge weather system with winds up to 30+ knots, big waves, and squalls has stalled over this part of the Bahamas. We are safely anchored in the lee of Shroud Cay, Exumas and can monitor the weather via single side band (SSB) radio and our SkyMate satellite connection. The forecasts, however, tell us that we’re not likely to be sailing before Friday or Saturday, March 9 or 10.Our plan is to sail to GeorgeTown, Exumas and pick up our mail, get fresh water & fuel, and resupply groceries. Then we’ll head north making our way home to Beaufort. Meanwhile, I think I’ll draft some more blogs for posting when we get connected. The sailing has been fantastic and John has been catching big fish and fat lobsters!