On To Eleuthera

    It has been so long since we have had enough internet to post  that I disremember  the last one.   Please forgive me if I repeat myself on some or forget to put in others.  I will start with our (happily, we are still traveling with good friends Barb and Bill Pike on Wishbone) trip to Little Farmers Cay for the 5 F’s Festival (First Friday in February Family Festival) and Regatta. 

  We sailed from Black Point to Little Farmers on Feb 4 and took a mooring with Roosevelt Nixon at Farmers Cay Yacht Club (FCYC) for 5 nights.   We toured the Cay and sampled the cooking and local color while waiting for the C class Regatta.   It was also a day for food and craft booths.There were even a few cruiser events such as a wet Tee shirt contest (not for Barb or Francie )and a Buns contest for the Men (no, neither Ken nor Bill took part) as well.  The race on Saturday, the great meals and race parties completed the festival.  One of our high lights came from Hallan Rolle, the local fisherman, water taxi operator, propane distributor, and all round great man.  I had helped him fix a window on his boat one day and he stopped over on Saturday before the race and said let’s go fishing.  Francie and I were amazed.  Grabbing our fish poles and getting aboard the boat I had helped him fix, he said we might want to bring the camera as well for some shots of the race.  We not only caught fish, but he knew where to be for the good shots of the race.  On Sunday AM I dropped him off some VT Maple Sugar, and VT Maple Syrup.  We got an email from the local nurse writing for Hallan, as he does not have a computer, telling us how much his family enjoyed it.

  

The Regatta and Festival started on Friday with racers coming in from other cays and having trial races.

   On Sunday we sailed north to a little cove by ”the castle” on Black Point and enjoyed the beautiful beach and clear water.  We even used the Hooka to dive and change anodes on our output shaft and Wishbone’s. It was so peaceful that we stayed another day. We then learned of some foul weather coming, fueled up at Staniel Cay and headed for Pipe Creek to wait out the storms.  There is good all around protection there and good spot for dogs, turned out to be another new favorite!  We returned to Staniel Cay on Friday to resupply in anticipation of daughter Wendy’s arrival on Monday the 17^th.

     We had a fantastic week with Wendy, taking her around to some of the places we enjoy.   She did some snorkeling, swimming, hiking and a little bar hopping.  I rented a golf cart at Black Point, as did Bill, to go to the beach and explore the island and Wendy even had the opportunity to help push ours back.  This was to prove that it isn’t all fun here, (if it wasn’t fun why were we all laughing??!) but we did make it back in time for Happy Hour at Scorpio’s.  Wendy was very disappointed that there was no place to buy grated coconut for Francie’s Birthday cake,  so after due diligence we located a couple of coconuts and with the help of a machete, cleaned off the outer shell, drilled a hole in the inner shell and drained the coconut milk for the cake.  We then used the machete to break open the coconut and harvest the meat for grating.  Wendy baked a beautiful cake with pineapple slices on top and the grated coconut for frosting.   Wendy’s plane arrangements got messed up and she had to leave a day early, so Francie took the opportunity to fly to Nassau with her to spend her last day in the country.

     While Francie was in Nassau I filled the tanks with water, fuel in the fuel tanks and topped off the dinghy gas tanks.   I picked Francie up at the airport with the dinghy, we did a little more shopping and prepared for a 50 nm trip to Eleuthera.  We left at 0700 with an outgoing tide, put up our sails and had a very good sail for a few hours.  It then became a little too calm so we started the engine and motor- sailed to Powell Point.  By then we decided to drop the main and roll in the jib as we had no wind.  We had been fishing most of the way across with no luck, but caught a large Barracuda on the way to Rock Sound.

  We arrived around 1630 and had boats in the anchorage hailing us to tell of Happy Hour at the local bar.  We each settled our boats, fed Skipper and April, made sure  our anchors were well set, before going ashore  to give Skipper and April their time ashore and meet other boaters over a drink.