Relaxing ....

Jeff coming to play with us.

Jon snorkeling

the catch of the day

Nice place to swim

Lots of hiding places

Lion fish-they get killed first thing.

Fun in the Sun

Happy hour, Jon made conch fritters for all to try

Bush Tea

 We are having a great time here and as the locals say "life is very short mon so have fun while you are still movin". Yesterday we took a group of ten altogether and did some touring on foot this was fun and some of these cruiser have never been here so it was fun showing them around the old golf course and grounds, we even got to see some wild life......a gray snake and a beautiful humming bird. The day was filled with winds blowing 35 to 40 and cold so it was a good day for a walk. Later we went back to the marina and another boat asked us to join them at a fire they started. We went right over and noticed a huge cast iron pot on, which they explained it was aphrodisiac Bush Tea called 21 Gun Salute. ...  say no more. Well one thing I have learned is that when we travel we are here to explore and try new things sooooooo Jon and I had a few sips. The only thing we got from it was a visit to the bathrooms at about midnight but that's ok at least we can say we have tried it.

The caves

Overlook at the caves

Today I arranged two vans to come in and take us for a tour of the island and I made a deal with the guy that it would be five dollars a piece and that twelve of us would be going. This trip was great we were introduced to new places that we had not visited before and a little more history about the island.   

Great harbour Cay, Berry Islands

Finally we made it to our first and maybe only stop in the Bahamas this year. We love it here in Great Harbour Cay and feel it's like our home out of the country. We may stay around the Berry's and do some exploring which most people miss because they are so into getting farther south.
Amy and Jeremy will be flying in on the 31st of this month, so we will be here for that and  hope for some really nice weather while their here.

Looking for leak (Note the bloody right arm and can you feel the heat)

The crossing took place on the 31 instead of the 30th because once we got out the inlet at Lake Worth, Jon realized we had antifreeze leaking from somewhere, so we shut down the engine and drifted backwards even though we had our sails up for about an hour to try to find the problem with no luck.
At that point we made the decision to head back to Lake Worth and anchor the night while trying to find the problem. If he couldn't find it we would head back to Stuart and make a plan from there. Jon pulled all sorts of things apart and at about 7pm he realized that two bolts on the thermostat housing were loose. A much simpler problem than thought.

eating MRE's just before dark (Thanks Amy) YUK

We gathered our thoughts at that point, and then called our Friends Bud and Jill whom were in Lake Worth to see what way they were heading in the morning. They were heading to West End, so we would just meet them in GHC.
We ended up getting up before dawn to dingy ashore and let the dogs go pee and off once again out the channel. This time all the way over to GHC a total of 27 hours.

All tethered in and taking a nap
 Note the 1st sun rise of 2012 in front of us

We did have one causality which was just before dark of course, the AIS stopped working or rather it had a malfunction and could only let us know when ships were within a few miles of us and this doesn't help me much because I try to keep ships away by more miles than that, so when one shows up its too late. I find its always something that's broke when owning a boat............BOAT; you know the acronym!





Jon's morning catch but someone caught him too and tried to bite his tail off



Marina manatee coming to say hi

Bud and Jill arriving to sit with us before their crew show up in Nassau

Anyhow now we are in GHC and our friends are right next to us in Paradise.

We are in Lake Worth

We are in Lake Worth and will head out in the morning for the Bahamas. Keep an eye out on the "spot" in the morning for about twenty-four hours to see our crossing. If we start to head too far north you might want to do us a favor and call the Coast Guard after a day or so :). My worst fear is always the Cargo ships, because at night they are so much harder to tell how close they are. There are always a few of them showing up on our AIS and Radar at any time.

We are heading to Great Harbour Cay in the Berries and have decided to do some exploring there since we only stayed there last year while the engine was being repaired. GHC Marina is a great place to check in and if you look around there is a lot to do but you really need to explore and ask where to go to see the really cool stuff.

After that we may head back to Florida to do some cruising in the southern part of the state.
We really don't know and don't care this year so it will be exciting just to see where we end up.

Happy New Years to all and will write when we get to GHC.