Several other boats started getting ready to leave this morning. Wanting to take advantage of their exodus, I asked one of them to call back with conditions on 'the outside'. After hearing his report of 2-3 foot seas, we decided that we would also leave. At 9:30 AM EST, I headed over to check us out of the marina. After I got back to the boat, we started getting ready to leave. Just before we started undoing lines, another boat pulled in to the slip beside us. We had to chase their cat off our boat! At 1530 GMT, we pulled out of our slip and headed out of West End. At 1619, we spotted our first flying fish of the trip. This inspired Mike to do his Flipper call at 1622. We were greeted with seas larger than we expected, at 4 to 7 feet, and the wind a steady 15 knots out of the south. We traveled on, knowing that we would come into the lee of the Grand Bahama Bank. We made our turn down the North West Providence channel at 1840 GMT. The seas calmed down, and the wind stayed in our sail area, as we put out additional sails. At 1847, we cut the engines off and we sailed! At 1900, I deployed the fishing rod in hopes of catching dinner. We sailed from 1847 GMT to almost 0000 GMT. Not only did we sail, but I also fixed dinner during all of this! Unfortunately, the wind dropped below 10 knots at 0000 GMT, so the sails were no longer supportable so we had to put them away. We fired up the engines and motored at about 800 RPMs for the rest of the night. We could not go any faster or we would get there too early. As the best time to arrive is with the sun high overhead so you can if there are any coral heads ahead of you. At 1400 GMT, we talked with the vessel Lady Simco. I recognized them from the Cruisehiemers net. We hailed them on the VHF and chatted for a bit about getting into Royal Island, and the usual stuff. At the end of our conversation, the Little Woody hailed us to give us his information on Royal Island. Both sets of information confirmed our thoughts, and made us feel much better about heading there. Right after I got off the radio, I heard what sounded like a cat meowing. I looked up at the bow, and there was a black cat! We had a stow away! We dropped anchor at Royal Island at 1556 GMT. After making sure everything was settled on the boat, we pumped up Spot, the new dinghy and Sandra and I took him for a spin. First we checked the water depths around the boat, and then we wandered around the anchorage and met the folks off of two of the other boats. When we came back, I took Mike out so he could get a picture of the boat at anchor in Royal Island. Next we turned our attention to the cat. He was firmly ensconced in Rover (the big dinghy). We tried to make sure he had some water. Since he continued yowling, we gave him some tuna fish. That quieted him down. We were expecting him to need to go to the bathroom, so we moved him out of the dinghy and onto our back deck. He would be leashed there, and we hoped quieter. Just as we completed this, folks from a motor-sailor that anchored close to us came over to see if we had any information on weather for tomorrow. They are planning to head up to the Abacos, and their SSB Receiver is on the fritz. I gave them the weather we had and we spent some time chatting with them. After they left, Sandra and I took the cat to the island so he could do his business. We debated for a few minutes, and decided he was probably feral and would do just fine on the island, so, instead of 'walking' him, we set him free, and returned to the boat. Around 5:30 PM EST, we heard him yowling at the docks, so Sandra and I went to fetch him. We will have to hand him over to Spanish Wells authorities tomorrow, since technically, it is illegal to have him on our boat. Mike insists that the cat is mine and I am responsible for it, since the first time we saw him hop on the boat I told mike that he would leave. Since he did not Mike says it's my cat.

February 2, 2001 -- Work and Explorations This morning, we had several things on our to do list. Anytime you are off shore, there always seems to be things to add to the to do list. While I worked on putting a coat of sealer on the hatch screen, Mike worked on our tach problem that had re-occured. I laid out my drop cloth and after cleaning up the new wood, applied a coat of sealer. It took some time, mostly because it was intricate work. Mike had the much more difficult time. He had to crawl outboard of the port engine to investigate the alternators on our port engine. He couldn't see anything wrong with them, so he crawled out and went up to the bridge where he again dropped the gauge panel to do further investigation. The only change he made was to remove the old step-down converter that was bad, and add a second ground wire to the gauge ground point. However, that seemed to fix the problem when we test fired the engines. Next we moved outside to address the sail related problems. Originally, I hoisted Mike up the Jib to tighten the shackles that hold the jib sheets on. As it turns out, one of them was suffering some metal fatigue! I lowered him back down and we went in search of a new shackle. Which means we had to remember where we had the spares, a feat into it's self. After locating one, we were able to pull the jib out since there was very little wind and replace the shackle from the deck before furling the jib back. Next, we turned our attention to tightening the luff on the stay sail. We pulled out the stay sail, and tightened the pull string so that, hopefully, our sail will not luff when we use it. Once that was over, we decided to head for the island to check out the ruins. They were pretty cool. The majority of the buildings still had walls, though the roofs had caved in. We wandered around there for some time before heading back to the boat. Finally, we rounded out the day by finding a home for our stow away cat!

February 3, 2001 -- A Day On Board Today, we spent the day aboard the boat relaxing and enjoying the warmth and sun. I also put a coat of varnish on the hatch screen and vacuumed. Infact, at the time I started all of this, Mike was sitting outside and had to come in to find out what that strange sound was; it was me, vacuuming. Mike hopped in the dinghy and scrubbed the side of the boat that had darkened because of the generator. Other than that, we spent a quiet day. In the afternoon, since several other boats had arrived, Sandra and I hopped in Spot, the little dinghy, and did a boat tour of the anchorage. We wandered around and chatted with everyone that was out on deck. We met Bob & Doris, Bob & Rose Mary, and Bill &Mike. After we got back to the boat, we watched a sailboat head toward the wrong side of the entrance to Royal Island. We radioed them to let them know that they were using the wrong entrance. He let us know that he had entered and exited there the previous day and knew how to come in. We watched as he stopped, turned around and headed toward the 'correct' entrance. The entrance to Royal Island is an interesting one. The entrance is approximately 200 yards across. About 75 yards from one side is a rock formation. On the other side of the rock formation (in the other 125 yards of the entrance) is a submerged rock head that makes the wider portion of the entrance virtually impossible.

February 4, 2001 -- Where Do We Go From Here After discussing our various options for moving on this morning, we settled on one that we truly like. One of the boats that we met yesterday told us how to avoid Current Cut by using Flemming Channel to head into Eluthera. We reviewed the charts and discussed several options, and came to the conclusion that if we had a good weather window we would do the 16 hour run to Little San Salvadore; otherwise, we would see if we could buddy boat with them to Governor's Harbour in central Eluthera. This is perfered as it gives us the chance to explore other areas. Sandra and I headed over to the Gold Rush, a 32 foot Bombay, to talk with Mike and Bill. They were happy to show us their trick to get to Governor's Harbour. They don't expect to leave here before tomorrow, and it will probably be another few days before they leave. This was fine with us! Sandra received her first dinghy lesson today on the way back from Gold Rush. She did quite well from starting the boat to handling it on its approach to Nightwinds. After we got back, I set right to work on putting a second coat of varnish on the hatch screen. It is starting to look nice, though I will have to sand it before a third coat is put on. At one point, Frank from The Vamp stopped by. He was on the boat that we warned yesterday. He stopped by to apologize if he sounded a bit snappy on the radio yesterday. We assured him that there was absolutely no problem, and we didn't think he sounded short at all. We chatted a bit about where each of us was headed and reviewed the charts of the area for additional information. After he left, we decided today would be a nap day! We were up late last night watching a movie!

February 5, 2001 -- Our Last Day in Royal Island Today, we spent the morning doing some boat chores. While we were in Fernandina Beach, we purchased two floats to help mark our anchors when we have them down. While we were in West Palm Beach, we purchased the line to go with them. Since we had some time, we cut the line into 15, 25 and 35 foot lengths. We are now set to have anchor floats the next time we anchor! In the afternoon, Sandra and I decided to go find the big house ruins on the island while Mike stayed aboard to read and nap (he says he has napping down to a science). As we were walking along the original set of ruins contemplating how to get there, we discovered a path that we had not seen the last time we were on the island. We followed the path, and found the two story house ruins that we could see from the boat. We also found what appears to have been some kind of barn or garage as well as a boat house. As we wandered through first the garage and then the boat house, we found several old refrigerators (doors off of course) as well as a large outboard. Based on the size, I would hazard to guess it was probably 200+ horse power. There wasn't much to see in the boat house, other than a large winch. Our next stop was the two story house. We wandered through the ground floor of the house admiring the tile floor, and the general layout. I braved the upstairs, but only around the actual stairwell. I looked in virtually all of the rooms. Sandra took her turn after I came back downstairs. We weren't ready to go back to the boat yet, so we headed for the beach that we had seen the last time we were there. The path we were following opened to a beautiful and picturesque setting. The water was simply magnificent in all its hues. The original owner of the island had scooped out an area and made a cement retaining wall that formed almost a 'C'. We walked around the top of the C, where the stone work had started to crumble. We were treated to the sight of several crabs, a couple of large reef fish, as well as several schools of small ones. We wandered around the rest of the top admiring the view as well as looking for other marine life. We then walked around to the bottom half of the C. This area is still in relatively good shape, so there wasn't nearly as much to see. However, I did see two large crabs. Finally, we headed back to the boat. We arrived there just in time since five minutes later we were deluged with a heavy rain! We spent the rest of the day listening to the rain fall and reading our books.

February 6, 2001 -- Royal Island to Governor's Harbour Eleuthera We raised anchor at 1200 GMT (0700 EST) to head to Governor's Harbour. We were making the passage with Gold Run, who had graciously agreed to show us the way they go. At 1307, we turned the engines off and moved under stay sail and main alone maintaining speeds of 4.8 to 5.1 knots! At 1312, Sandra had a tea incident. She was heating water in the microwave when a wave rocked us and her tea wound up leaning up against the door! There was nothing that could be done. When the door opened, her tea went on the floor. At 1315, Mike made his flipper call. It is truly a passage! At 1346, Sandra and I started doing sail trimming. We managed to get the speed up to 5.3 knots! At 1353, I put the fishing line out. Sandra logged this as, "Captain Nemo is going fishing." Mike suggested that we set something down for dinner, I insisted that I was going to catch dinner. It was a good thing we sat something down. At 1459, we entered Flemming Channel. It is a relatively deep entrance to the back end of Rose Island and Nassau. It is also a convenient and easy way to get to Porgee Rocks which is the jump point for heading to Allan's Cay in the Exumas. We also found out that Gold Run's engine had developed a problem so they were going to have to sail to Governor's Harbour. At some point in the next hour and 17 minutes, we made our turn to head for Governor's Harbour and then held that course (101 magnetic) for 6 hours. It wasn't terribly exciting. Unfortunately, the wind was not in our sail area so we had to motor sail. The high points of the day included the fact that everyone was able to read underway and I didn't take Dramamine! With the exception of the 20 minutes or so right after we turned to port out of Flemming channel, we never saw less than 20 feet of water the entire rest of the trip! We dropped anchor at 2045 GMT (1545 EST). We heard a boat conversation on the VHF about a good restaurant and bakery in town. Someone also mentioned a big blow (alot of wind) headed our way. I was slightly confused about that since I hadn't seen anything on the weather charts to indicate a problem! I hailed Skoals and we discussed what he had heard from Herb. Herb is an amateur weather forecaster who hosts a net on 12359 every afternoon at 2000 GMT (1500 EST). Between 1930 GMT (1430 EST) and 2000 GMT, he takes checkins from those boats that are seeking guidance on the weather conditions and an appropriate time to leave their current location. Anyway, Herb predicted 25 knots of wind blowing out of the East or North East for the next four to five days. We all agreed to come up on VHF after the next set of weather faxes at 0130 GMT (2030 EST). The next set of weather faxes did indeed show 20 - 25 knots of wind forecast for the next 72 hours. However, there was a slim chance that we would not see wind that high. We called it a day and went to bed! For those that are interested, the GPS coordinates we used for this treck are as follows: 25 15.7 76 55.5 -- Flemming channel NW side 25 14.3 76 54.4 -- Flemming channel SE side 25 11.750 76 15.006 -- inside Governor's harbour Of course the standard cautions and advice apply: Never rely on only one aid to navigation. An autopilot and GPS do not absolve you of maintaining a proper watch for your vessel, etc. The last way point inside Governor's harbour was a touch close to the sea wall for us, so we hand steered around it. Other than that, we found this to be an excellent and comfortable course.

February 7-8, 2001 -- Governor's Harbour, Oh What a Sight! After we were conscious enough to review the weather faxes we received last night, we discovered that the High that was reported to be dissipating and moving extremely fast wasn't. It looks like we will be winded in until after the weekend. We dropped the little dinghy over the side of the boat, and prepared to head into town for fresh pastries for breakfast. On the way, we stopped by Gold Run to find out how their trip was. As it turns out, the lift pump on their engine had gone bad. They finally arrived around 2300 EST. We motored on into town, and had breakfast. Then we stopped by the grocery store and toured a couple of the small shops. We returned to the boat. After stowing our purchases, we set a second anchor to help reduce the amount of yawing we did and to help hold us better for the coming winds. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading books. On February 8, the wind had, indeed, kicked up. We experienced winds between 15 and 20 knots with higher gusts. We all opted to stay aboard the boat. After breakfast, Mike and I set out the list of items we wanted to complete. I would work on installing the two new salt pumps for the Lectra-Sans, while Mike worked on installing our new AC monitors. The new monitors are combined Volts, Amps and Hertz monitors. To make a long story short, I wound up helping Mike instead of installing the salt pumps. We worked for the majority of the day wiring in the monitoring shunts, and then installing the two new panels. But, it was worth it. The new panels not only look good, they provide us with better monitoring tools for our generators! After we completed that, Mike cleaned up the pilot house while I installed the salt pump in the aft stateroom. Since we found fresh tomatoes at the grocery store yesterday, we had Bruschetta and Spaghetti for dinner. Both were excellent. We spent the rest of the evening lounging, reading and writing logs.

February 9-10, 2001 -- Governor's Harbour We didn't have much on our to do list today. We focused on troubleshooting our on again off again anchor wash down pump. We first tried removing the faucet to see if the faucet was the problem, since that is what it was last time. After I got stuck in the anchor locker, Sandra took pity on me and volunteered to work in the anchor locker for me. We tested the pump, and it still didn't work! Our on again off again pump now looks like it is off permanently! We got about 6 months of use out of our Groco pump. We will never buy another one! We took a nap, then went into town. This was Sandra's second dinghy lesson. She handled the dinghy from start to finish! At the dinghy landing, we met Jim and Lorraine off of Skoals. We chatted with them for a bit before heading to the post office, the library and bakery. Our final stop was the market where we picked up a few things and headed back to the boat. We had dinner, and then went to a fish fry that was being held on the beach. This is more of a social event every Friday night; most folks come to socialize. We meet up with Jim and Lorraine and had a nice evening. On February 10, we had read that there was going to be another cookout at the beach. Unfortunately, we found out later that the beach it was held at was almost 10 miles south of us! Around 4:00 PM EST, Skoals called us on the VHF to let us know that they would be getting underway for Powel Point in the morning. Since we wanted to buddy boat with them, we reviewed weather and agreed that Sunday would be a good day to leave. We spent the day quietly, as is our custom before traveling.

At 1202 GMT (0702 EST), we raised anchor along with Skoals. We decided that for this trip, while we could sail, we would not so that we would have good maneuvering capability in case we needed to dodge coral heads. We would be traveling through the shallowest waters we have been through where coral heads are known to grow. It would have been a good day to sail. The winds stayed out of the South East all day at a steady 10 knots. There were a few moments of trepidation. Once, we thought we had mislaid our course based on one chart, that chart indicated we were headed for 1.8 meters of water (at low tide). However, when we compared that with a different one, and what our eyes told us, we calmed down and resumed our course. We made it through with only a few 'pucker moments' as Sandra says. In fact, at one point, she teased me by suggesting the reason I was standing was so I wouldn't get stuck suctioned to the helm seat! Once our depth dropped below 11 feet, Mike stood on the bow of the boat watching for coral heads. We avoided a few dark patches, a few of which proved to be coral heads (low ones), but most were simply sea grass. At 1704 GMT, we arrived at our designated anchor spot. Mators Cove is a small indentation on the western coast of Eleuthera that would offer protection from the North East, East and South East. Unfortunately, there was a surge effect from a combination of wind and current that caused us to rock back and forth. This made for a long afternoon and a long night!

At 1233 GMT (0733 EST), we raised the anchor and headed for Black Point in the Exumas, or at least planned to. The winds indicated that we would be in winds of 15 knots with sees of two to four feet. The wind was nicely in our sail area, so we decided to sail. We went fully under sail at 1301 GMT. However, I watched the wind climb and the boat heel over until I was very uncomfortable with it. I appealed to Mike and we decided to reduce sail further and motor sail. About the time the wind hit a steady twenty knots, and we were seeing solid six foot waves, we decided it was the better part of discretion to turn around and go back to the Cape Eleuthera Marina at Powell Point. We had been underway for approximately an hour and a half. Once we turned around, we headed closer in to shore before turning North. Thanks to the wind break that Eleuthera gave, the seas quickly subsided from six down to less than three feet. We tied up at the marina at 1700 GMT. Instead of the wind being 15 knots, it was steadily blowing 18 with gusts as high as 25! After a suitable rest, and lunch, Mike and I again worked on the recurring problem with the tach. We ran a new power feed to it and removed both of the step-down converters from use. We will see if that makes any difference. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and reading.

Today Sandra announced that she wanted to tour Deep Creek. We thought that sounded like fun and decided to go along. She went up to the dock office to investigate the price of a taxi. She returned and let us know that she had rented a car, since the price of the taxi would come close to the cost of the car for 24 hours. So, off we went! Our first stop was Deep Creek. We stopped at the little marine store there in search of a new cooling fan/blower for our soda system area. There isn't enough natural ventilation so the fan helps draw air across the heat exchanging coils. We didn't have any luck there, so we continued on our tour. We passed through Green Castle, but there really wasn't any place that we wanted to stop. We did however look for the castle, but never found it. Onward we traveled to Rock Sound. Rock Sound is a friendly community. This is a good thing since we had to ask directions several times! We wandered through the two hardware stores and the grocery store, but still did not find our fan/blower! We did, however, pick up a few other things. We dropped off our laundry at the local Laundromat and headed to Sammy's for lunch. The restaurant came highly recommended. After we had been seated, Sandra exclaimed that she had been here before. This was the same restaurant she had eaten in when she visited 6 years before! One thing we found here is that you don't go to the Bahamas for fast service. We were sitting for almost 15 minutes before our menus arrived, and another 20 minutes before the waitress took our order! However, once we did place the order, our food was prepared quickly and was quite tasty. After lunch, we returned to collect our laundry and head back to the marina. On the way, of course, we passed through Green Castle; where we still did not find the castle (there really is supposed to be one, or at least a house that is shaped like one). We passed through Deep Creek and returned to a quiet afternoon on the boat. On February 14, Sandra woke up with an ear ache. We found out that the clinic in Deep Creek, and in Green Castle were both closed so we had to travel to Rock Sound so Sandra could see a doctor. She waited almost 2 hours (a few minutes Bahamas time) to see him, but the price was right. It cost $30.00 for the doctor's visit and $18.00 in medication. Unfortunately, the medication she needed was not stocked at the Rock Sound clinic, so we had to go to Weimyss-Bight. It wasn't too far out of our way; and in fact, we were able to make a straight shot back to the Marina from there! We spent the rest of the day reading. Odd Man Out, a sport fish, that was tied up next to us returned that evening with a good catch of fish. We were pleasantly surprised to be given two huge sized mahi-mahi fillets! Each fillet made 2 meals for the 3 of us!

We woke up this morning to relatively good winds for making a crossing to Great Guana Island and the settlement of Black Point. I chatted with Freddie from the Odd Man Out and he confirmed that he thought today would be a fine day for the crossing. So, while Mike started taking power down and removing unneeded lines, I headed up to the dock office to pay for our dockage and power. We pulled out of the dock at 1300 GMT (0800 EST). We made pretty good time to Great Guana, but missed catching the rising tide by about 15 minutes. With the wind blowing out of the East South East, it was blowing right into the mouth of Dotham cut. When the wind is blowing in the same direction as the current, the cuts are relatively easy, or at the very least easier! When the wind is blowing opposite the current, a short steep chop kicks up. The higher the wind climbs, the higher the chop! We were facing almost a three foot chop by the time we went through Dotham cut, and we had watched it form, literally! We made it through, and the chop smoothed down to nothing within 50 feet of passing through the cut. We motored around the Black Point settlement and anchored in the southern cove of Great Guana. Rick and Evelen on Annual Hope hailed us and then came by to visit. It was great seeing them again. We haven't seen them since November of 1999 while we were both in Beaufort. On February 16, I listened in on a conversation occurring between Providenza and Windom. Britt and Ilana were attempting to troubleshoot Providenza's problem with JV-Comm long distance while underway! After they finished, I called Providenza and attempted to troubleshoot the problem as well. We walked through several items, until I came to the conclusion that I would have to see the set up before we could continue further. They said that they were happy to move around to the where we were and would see us in the afternoon. We headed out to the island and wandered around for a bit. We climbed up to the top of the hill to the beach, and found we were looking out across the cliffs that we had seen while coming in. This is another place where words can not adequately state how intensely beautiful it truly was. Sandra, thankfully remembered to bring her camera so we were able to get a few pictures. We spent some time crawling on the rocks before setting off to find a different trail down to the beach. Actually, we started off trying to find a path to another set of hills, but couldn't. We then headed back to the boat. I called Providenza and let them know we were back aboard and they headed over. After they got their anchor down and settled, I headed over to their boat. It is a Brewer 46 sailboat, and a very nicely designed and laid out one at that. We worked on the weather fax for an hour or so, and finally after reinstalling the sound drivers and replacing the patch chord between their radio and the computer, it worked! Sharon told me that she would like to have us over for dinner, but they needed to head back to the other side of the island. Instead she sent me back to Nightwinds with a plate of home made cookies. They were delicious. We sat talking for a few minutes after we got the weather fax program working again and she mentioned that they would be heading to Georgetown in the morning. I told her that we might be interested in tagging along with a more experienced boat since we wanted to go to Georgetown as well. After I got back to Nightwinds, we discussed our options and decided to tag along. We let them know, then readied the boat to get underway. Instead of tying Spot to the cabin top, we deflated him since we knew we would be using Rover at Georgetown.

We raised anchor at 1200 GMT (0700 EST) in order to meet up with the convoy of boats headed to George Town from Blackpoint today. The winds, unfortunately, were not going to be condusive to sailing, but it promised to be a smooth trip none the less. We met up with everyone outside the cut, and the convoy consisted of Concert, Bahati, Providenza, Cocopelli and us. It was a relatively quiet passage. The seas were nearly calm and the winds were never above 10 knots. It was a very comfortable trip! Along the way, we discovered that we had met Bahati before. They are the Canadian boat that had some problems at Fernandina Beach in December. They had traveled to far inside the marina and became pinned against the inner dock in 30 knots of wind. We helped tend lines and fend them off of another boat while they worked to get back to where they were supposed to be tie up. It was nice to make their acquaintance again. The last part of the trip was the most nerve racking. Conch Cay Cut is touted as one of the most difficult cuts in the Exumas, and with good reason. There is a reef at the entrance off one of Conch Cay, and there is a second reef inside the cut about ¼ of a mile that runs parallel to Conch Cay. In addition, there are numerous sand bars and coral heads inside that you have to dodge around. Mike took his position up on the bow of the boat while I followed our course, the other boats, and his directions to avoid anything that would present an unhappy surprise for the boat. After we cleared the cut, we were greated by Mike and Dawn from Just Desserts and Ron and Karen from Sea Dancer. They came out in their dinghies to say hey and to welcome us to George Town. We dropped anchor off of Volley Ball Beach, and after doing some clean up, we dropped the dinghy. Later on, the folks from Second Sally stopped by to give us a little bit of the scoop about George Town. We have completed the first leg of our trip south.

I am going to depart from my usual format for this log entry. I won't go into great detail about what we did, though I will mention some highlights. But first, I want to talk about something else. For two years, we have heard about George Town. We have heard differing accounts of the place, both good and bad. The one thing everyone has said is that you have to go to George Town atleast once. It is nice to be able to say that we have 'done' George Town. I can also say, truthfully, I hope we will not do it again. The town itself is wonderful. The people are friendly and the shop keepers wonderful to deal with. While we enjoyed seeing many friends that we haven't seen in a long time, it was very crowded (400+ boats) and overly organized. As I look back on it, I remember many fun times; ultimately, I think it is these memories that will persuade me not to avoid George Town in the future. After having heard them on the radio for so long, it was great meeting Jeff and Terri on Ariel and Stephanie and Neil on Rhapsody. Rhapsody stopped by in the morning to introduce themselves and we loaned Ariel our dinghy so they could pick up Paul and Lise from Effie (they flew down from Maine to spend a week in George Town). Ron and Karen on Sea Dancer had a going away cocktail party for Sue and Leon on Masade since they are headed to Trinidad. They invited us as well, and so we shared cocktails with Sea Twist, Daisy Bee, Windswept, Poco Loco, Taj Muha and Just Desserts on Sea Dancer. The next night, we had cocktails on Sand Dollar beach was another highlight that was great. Windom arrived, and despite dinghy engine problems, Britt and Illana were able to attend. They are also planning to head south this year, so hopefully we will travel with them. Just so you don't think that George Town is all drinking, we did manage to fit in some snorkeling. While it was too rough to dive the exterior reefs, we did snorkel in a shallow cut looking for shells, then moved on to a reef in Elizabeth harbour. That gathering included Taj Muha, Wanderer, Daisy Bee and Southern Wine. A boat was lost in the entrance to the Conch Cay Cut. A J-30 racing boat was attempting to enter the cut at 2:00 AM EST when they struck the inner reef. The boat partially submerged, but everyone was able to get to shore safely. The cruisers of George Town reacted quickly to get the three men to safety as well as gathering donated clothing and necessities for them from people willing to donate. It truly shows the cruising spirit that in the face of tragedy, the cruising community does pull together and take care of its own. That afternoon, we attended a 'going south' discussion which was informative. Afterwards, the cruisers at Hamburger Beach had a cocktail party to thank the organizer of the rescue, as well as those who went out on dinghies to help. Finally that night, Ron and Karen on Sea Dancer organized a 'Death By Chocolate' night. We gathered at the "Chat and Chill" on Volleyball beach and dished up some delectible, and highly fattening desserts. That brings us to February 26. Our last day in George Town was spent scrambling around to get all of the last minute things done we wanted to do before heading to stage at Fowl Cay at the southern entrance to Elizabeth Harbour and George Town. After spending 10 days there, I can understand how George Town can be the end point destination for some cruisers. It is certainly an experience that I would never trade. The friendships renewed and the friendships developed only served to enrich our lives and our cruising. So, my bottom line is simple. If you ask me about places to stop, I would include George Town. You have to do it once, stay a week or so, but not during Regatta unless you really like crowds. On a bad note many of the cruisers have placed structure around this harbor and over organized it. Apparently whenever you have that many boats together it brings out the Type A personalties and they try to take over and control & regiment life. This is not something you want on the high seas, in fact this type of attitude can get you trouble real fast as you need to be able to flow with sea and weather conditions. Bryan and I have fought our Type A personalties since starting this voyage and to find an out island where it's rampant is disgusting. We along with a lot of other boaters, thumbed our nose at this and would make jokes about them having synchronized toe nail painting groups. When the locals can only make announcements about their businesses on the boaters morning net on this day if their business starts with the proper letter and using channel 68 as a calling channel until 9:30 then we should use 16 after that, etc., etc., etc. You would really think that these folks should have their own life to worry about, instead of worrying about what everyone else is doing. These type of people give boaters everywhere a bad name and only piss off other boaters and the locals that have their own way to do things in their own country! These folks should just go back home and live in a development where they can be happy on the neighborhood committee controlling the type of porch light thier neighbor puts up!

On February 27, we left Fowl Cay, the staging point out of George Town, for Conception Island. The trip out the cut wasn't difficult, just nerve racking! However, we made it comfortably and the 'pucker factor' wasn't that great. As we were traveling along, a dolphin swam with us, almost escorting us out the cut! We tried fishing again. Alas, or is that thankfully, nothing was caught. The trip was uneventful, though we had to motor all the way there. At 1715 GMT, we dropped anchor. As we read more about Conception Island, Stephen Pavlidis mentioned cavorting turtles that gathered on the inside of Conception Island. We decided that we would absolutely have to see these creatures. As the day progressed, several other boats came in, among them were Puffin, Wyvern and Lady Simco. We were invited over to Puffin for cocktails along with the other boats and had a great time! February 28 started with a great laugh! One of the other boats did a 'Conception Island Cruiser's Net for those in withdrawel from George Town. We had the thought for the day, and activities which included Toe nail painting at 2:00 PM, Nose Picking at 3:00 PM and Hair Pulling at 5:00 PM. Of course, for those that needed instruction and demonstrations, those would be provided at midnight! After that, we dropped Spot, and headed inland looking for the cavorting turtles. Unfortunately, we only saw one. They can certainly move fast in the water! As we headed back out, we passed over a patch of coral where a turtle was enjoying the reef. We stopped, donned our snorkel gear and viewed the turtle and the surrounding reef. I grabbed the camera, and I either got a picture of a piece of coral that looked like a turtle, or I got a picture of the turtle. We will find out when we take the film in to get developed. Next we explored the reef at the north end of the island before returning to the boat for lunch and a relaxing afternoon. Lady Simco and Wyvern stopped by to compare notes on what everyone did. Wyvern had circumnavigated Conception Island and discovered that the water depths in the northern reef went from 20 feet to about 2 inches in numerous places! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves!