Feb. 2-6 I spent the week in the marina passing the time exploring the island, snorkeling for shells, and doing genealogy on the internet. Because of the big tides, the boat was aground and listing twice a day but the ground was soft and it got better as the week went on and the tided lessened due to the waning moon. I made friends with a couple on a trawler on the dock a few parking spots behind me and they were kind enough to have me for dinner one night. This was their first trip to the Bahamas and they had never snorkeled before. I showed them a cove we liked and then snorkeled with them showing them different things underwater which I love to do. I also took the wife snorkeling in the shallow water of Sampson Cay to look for shells and we were quite successful. Right before John got home, a sailboat came to the dock right behind our spot. The two crew were Italian which you don’t see alot around here. I talked to them a bit and they spoke English with wonderful thick accents. When John returned, we had them to dinner and they taught us how to play Baracco, which is similar to Biriba. It was a fun evening made better with Luciano Pavarotti singing in the background which we all loved. The wind was expected to pipe up over the weekend so we stayed safe and sound in the marina.

Feb. 7 The moment of truth had come to extricate ourselves from the marina. Of course the 20 knot winds were still blowing us on the dock, but John maneuvered us, pulsing the Z-drive and leaning on bow truster, straight sideways off the dock and then performed a perfect 180 degree half pirouette and, with a flourish of Windermere’s tutu, then left the marina. I was his eyes, running all over the deck to see if we were lined up right or going to hit anything. There was quite an audience watching and we almost got cheers. Once through the cut and out of the marina and in open water, John decided to deal with the dinghy which was still tied to our stern hip. John told me to take the helm and keep the boat in place while he retied the dinghy off the stern. We were only going around the corner back to the Big Majors anchorage but we still had three foot seas and rocked and rolled a bit but the dinghy rode well even with the big engine on it. We had no trouble anchoring in a good spot that partially blocked the wind and seas for the night (the next day was supposed to be calm). After we anchored, we looked “next door” and saw a boat name we recognized from our last trip a few years ago. After looking up his “boat card” we hailed him on the VHF radio and said “hi” and he invited us to join him and another couple from the sailboat on our other side for cocktails. As this couple were looking to move to a trawler we invited them over to see ours the next day.

Feb. 8 It was calm as planned, which was a welcome relief. We showed the couple the boat, had lunch, and then took our dinghy out to Sandy Cay for some snorkeling and shelling. It was a beautiful little spot about a mile off the Big Major’s beach, and, we had it all to ourselves! It really IS better in the Bahamas!

Feb. 9 John had gotten the latest weather report and learned more wind was coming. We decided to move while we had enough depth of tide to get by the shallows near Staniel Cay. Our destination was between the Majors again. This time we anchored even further up the cut in some nice sand. We learned via e-mail that our guests from Maine weren’t going to make it. Their flights had been canceled due to a big snow storm. This was very depressing as we had been planning this visit, for my upcoming 60th birthday celebration, with them since last summer! It was still calm, so at least we were able to go swimming in the afternoon.

Feb. 10 It was windy all day but we were tucked into a good spot. Our friend Steve and his guest Allen on ‘Black Swan’ invited us for cocktails on their boat. Doug from ‘Water Torture’ came too and we all had lots of laughs.

Feb. 11 The mail boat had come in so it was time for grocery hunting. We were also waiting for a new snubber to be sent from the States to Staniel Cay Y.C. The snubber hadn’t arrived but we were able to hunt down some needed fresh things. In the afternoon, we went by dinghy up to Sampson to round out the collection. You never know what you are going to find at any of these stores but you always find something.

Feb. 12 My birthday! We had invited the three guys from ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Water Torture’ for my birthday dinner. I decided to bake a chocolate cake in Windermere’s hi-tech GE Avantium oven that’s so complicated to work that I don’t use it much. The baking did not go well and the cake looked wavy and not evenly cooked - but maybe still edible. While this was going on, John went into one of the bilges to look for something he had stored there and noticed some oil had stained a few of the cardboard boxes that held our box wines. As he pulled out ALL of these boxes, I washed the plastic bags of wine and laid them on the counters. There were also Mona Vie juice boxes but they weren’t not as badly damaged. About an hour later, we had all of the wine bags clean and back in some empty drawers in the bunk room. Now, he started pumping the “oil” (which turned out to be hydraulic fluid that he had been looking for for a long time) into 5 gallon buckets buckets. We filled 4 buckets with the fluid (mostly water). The fluid had been floating on the water. Where this oil and water actually came from is still a mystery to be solved. Lunch with an old friend at Staniel Cay Y.C. was already planned (so “finding” the source of the oil and water leaks would have to wait for another day). We took the four huge bags of oily cardboard and garbage and the four filled 5 gallon buckets of oily water in with us. After a nice lunch, our friend loaned us her golf cart and we went, fully loaded, to the dump. How many people get to go to the dump on their 60th. birthday! Then it was back to the boat to get ready for my party. The guys came with their appetites and I fed them a Cuban “ropa vieja” dinner. Then we taught them Mexican Train dominos which they loved. We had lots of laughs and cake and ice cream. I cut the good parts of the cake into squares, frosted them and added ice cream, which is a treat down here. “If life deals you lemons, make lemonade”. All in all, we made pretty good lemonade that day!!