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.