We've already been here 6 weeks - how can that be??!!

I’ve again been reminded that it is time to make an entry to the blog. We got one especially lengthy complaint – “I would like to log a formal complaint in that the people in the real world would like to see how you are managing your terrible situation. I personally feel that one update per month is not meeting expectations. Due to this sub-par performance, the blogging frequency should be increased to at least a bi-monthly status and monitored for effectiveness. Given the current lack of feedback to the real world, you may not even know what day of the week or even what month it is, so it may be helpful to periodically look at a calendar to ensure that you are meeting the new increased blogging frequency. “  Thanks Brian!



One of the beaches the dogs make us walk - what a pain!



We’ve been traveling around the Abacos and moving every few days from one anchorage to another as the wind moves or our mood changes. This is a little more troublesome than moving your chair on the beach and takes a little more time than that, but we’re trying to cope with the many demands on our time. There are numerous beaches we have to walk and scavenge for ‘beach treasures’, as well as happy hours aboard other boats that we ‘must’ attend. Days like yesterday when we had to go in and drop off our laundry (and go back and pick it up later in the day), as well as a trip to the liquor store, and then the dogs made us take them for a long walk on the beach, PLUS we had a happy hour to attend aboard ‘Sojourner’ – that was a particularly taxing day for us – so much to do in one day – we dropped into bed at 10:00pm totally exhausted and it was past our bedtime!!! Days like that kinda make us think we’re really pushing ourselves too far. I know all y’all that are reading this can sympathize. We’ll try to start slowing down a bit and enjoy ourselves.


Lunch @ Grabbers with friends



Man-O-War Anchorage



I'll try to tell you about a few of the places we’ve been lately and ‘try’ to post a few pictures. Pictures seem to be especially troublesome to post for some reason.  I'm not sure if they will be in the correct places or not - all I can say is that there will be pictures. 

We watched this ship go aground - it was no easy task to push & pull it back into deeper water!

We finally had sufficient good weather and winds out of the east so that we could make it down to Lynyard Cay – one of the sea glass beaches that we like to visit. And yes we finally found some sea glass, but not a lot. And certainly not any big pieces. We spent a pleasant 4 days down there, with only one other boat in sight. I take that back – there were several others that came in late one day and left early the next morning, heading out of Little Harbour Cut for Eleuthera and the Exumas. We watched them go through the cut with 4 – 5 foot rollers and waves pretty much breaking all the way across. We would lose site of the boats and only see their masts when they would go down between the swells. It was making me seasick to watch!


While we were at Lynyard Cay we dinghied over to Little Harbour and Pete’s Pub, the only place at Little Harbour, and were reminded of their slogan – “Where the Elite Meet to Eat in their Barefeet”. That will be ‘the place to be’ on Feb 5, as it is Pete’s birthday party and it is an annual ‘event’.

Happy Hour aboard 'Sojourner'

We spent a few days at Snake Cay with two other boats, ‘Wingspread – Chris & Charlie’, whom we met three years ago and really enjoy spending time with, as well as some new friends Jim & Beth on ‘Mad Cap’. ‘Mad Cap’ has since gone south, heading towards Cuba. Chris & Charlie led all of us on a dinghy tour through the river/creek at Snake Cay. It was very pretty back there – we saw Rays, large sea turtles and it seems to be a great place for conch hunting.

We’ve been back to Guana Cay, for the Sunday afternoon Pig Roast, Treasure Cay, and Man-O-War Cay. We anchored on the north end of Man-O-War where we had just a little bit of land between us and the Atlantic Ocean – we could look off the bow of our boat across the little piece of land and watch the waves break on the other side – pretty cool.

Today we are heading south again with ‘Civil Twilight’, Alan & Jeri, and will each try to remember how to fly our spinnakers. We had a long discussion/laugh last night about how long it had been since our spinnakers had been out of their bags – we’ll see how we do. Civil Twilight is a far faster boat than us so they will no doubt be waaay ahead of us in no time. Hopefully we can each get some good pictures of the other on the way.



Sunset @ Lynyard Cay

 We make no promises at this point to post any more frequently than we have been – as it has been pointed out to us we are slackers, and proud of it!! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

  

 We sincerely hope everyone of you had a great Christmas and New Year’s.

 

As we said in our last post, the next best thing to being with our family at Christmas is being able to spend it with friends, and we’ve been surrounded by friends since we got to the Bahamas, both old and new. Christmas day was spent with about 40 or so other cruisers as we had a pot luck lunch. One of the local dive shops, ‘Brendall’s’, sets up table in their yard for us to sprea out our goodies, and what an assortment there was!! – from lobster chowder to turkey & dressing to Cajun sausage to run buttered bananas. I say tables loosely, very loosely – an old L-shaped countertop and a couple of 2 x 10’s propped up. But once they were covered with tablecloths nobody was the wiser. I almost forgot – the dessert table was set up across the back of a golf cart. We sat on old dinghies, the ground, each other, and wherever we could find a place, or just stood up! Santa even joined us for lunch!

We endured a seriously strong cold the Sunday and Monday after Christmas, with wind up to 40 knots. Nobody left their boats for fear of their anchors dragging. A big sigh of relief was heard when it was over, although no one wanted to trade it for the snow at home.

We spent several days last week at anchor off Manjack Cay, one of our favorite places here. We took long beach walks every day and found many sea beans that had washed up in the storm.  No sea glass yet.


New Year’s Day is Junkanoo on Green Turtle Cay (GTC) and Elbow Cay (Hopetown). We attended in GTC and what a colorful parade they have. All the costumes are hand made by the participants. Some even make shoes! This was our second Junkanoo on GTC and it was not as large a parade as before or were there as many spectators, but just as much fun! No Junkanoo is complete without eating and drinking the local fare and we certainly did our part! There were locals set up on the front porch of the Miracle Church of God, outside the jail, in side yards and just about anywhere they could fit a few tables, grills, and cookers. There BBQ Chicken, BBQ Ribs, Fried Chicken, Conch Fritters, Conch & Rice, Conch Salad, Mac & Cheese to die for, Coconut Ice Cream and much more!!! Plus all kinds of drinks – most especially Goombay Smash! The day was topped off with beautiful fireworks. The residents on GTC are celebrating the fact that they now have a public water supply. It was just completed and they finished smoothing (not paving) the road across the island on Christmas Eve day. We don’t know how lucky we are in the USA – we take everything for granted. Imagine having to build a cistern and catch rainwater – that’s what they used to do – you can see why they’re celebrating!  If you want to see more Junkanoo pictures you can go to our Facebook page @ Cindy'nJeffRinne.  It's way easier to post pictures on there.

 





  

Today we are chilling on the boat and nothing more. Savannah is totally exhausted from running around the boat barking at the fireworks and chasing other boats as they zip by us. Chloe is in chill mode all the time.

Tomorrow we will leave the northern area and head around Whale Cay, which is a very short ocean hop around to the southern area of the Abacos. We are looking forward to meeting up with cruisers we’ve only been able to talk with on the radio – some we haven’t seen in a year or more.