We don't get out much

Junkanoo parade

We're usually back on the boat before dark for dinner and bedtime. Cruising in remote areas where not much is going on helps promote that kind of behavior.

Putting the kids to work

Now that they're 5 and 6, it's about time the kids started to pull their own weight around here. To that end, we are starting to give them some jobs on the boat.

Birthdays and bottoming out

Hope Town Lighthouse before the rains came.

On my (Jen's) birthday, we had an eventful day. They say bad things come in threes.

Elbow Cay

Hope Town Fire and Rescue (volunteer)

Here are some shots near Elbow Cay (the island where scenic Hope Town resides), where we anchored for a couple nights. There seems to be no end to how much the boys can entertain themselves by digging at the beach. We plan to return to Elbow Cay Thursday for the Goombay festival.

Remoras like moldy pita bread

We worked our way towards Marsh Harbour with easy day sails. We bought some produce, met up with our friends Brit and Sandy on Halcyon, and have been having a great time hanging out with them. We did some diving at Man-O-War Cay and biked to Hope Town (they allow only a few cars on the island). There is a great sand bar at Baker's Rock near Hope Town where Brit has been having a great time kite boarding. I know Matt is itching to try it.

Little Harbour

We moved up to the middle of Abaco island, which is the start of the 'real' cruising grounds. Behind the outer islands the Sea of Abaco is usually calm and serene, and packed full of anchorages to explore.  The trip up from Sandy Point took the full day. Again, our wind died so it took a couple (ermm, maybe 4) hours longer than we thought it would be, but we resisted the urge to crank up the engines and instead put up the spinnaker for the first time. At least it was all downwind and no one got sick, so we had that going for us.

Fix, fix, fix your boat...

The local club scene.  No cover charge.

Many of our mornings are spent doing school with the boys (Jen) and fixing the boat (Matt). Good thing we didn't buy a fixer upper. Here's Matt fixing those escape hatch corners that broke on the way over. He's sitting in the dinghy underneath the boat.

What a difference a day makes

Jazz Fest in Ft. Lauderdale on the Sunday before we left.

We set sail for the Bahamas on Tuesday. We had made one final call to our no-show boat side fuel pump out guy, who eventually called us back just as we started the engines to move to the marina to top off our diesel tank. Against all odds, he had someone meet us at the dock and we got our tank cleaned out.

Groundhog Day (the movie) - Day 33

We have officially been at Lake Sylvia for more than month. The anchorage is ringed with about 25 multi-million dollar properties. In all the time we have been here, I can count less than a dozen instances where I have seen the occupants using their beautiful back yards. Most of the people we see appear to be gardeners or caretakers. It seems like a waste. Maybe it's all the anchored boats cluttering up the scenery.

Hitchhiker

Taken by Peter on Transition.

This was the chain of our friend's boat as he tried to pull up anchor. The anchor chain was really twisted around this rusty old bike. Matt went over on the dinghy to help get it untangled and it took at least 15 minutes to get it undone. The chain had managed to get a knot around the bike and had wrapped around it at least 10 times. We'll see what we get on our chain when we finally get out of here.