Mom's Here!

Tuesday, March 9 - Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Please welcome our first (and only, considering we're leaving in two weeks) visitor to the Bahamas: Stacy's mom!! Mom flew in to Treasure Cay on Tuesday afternoon to join us for a week in the beautiful Abacos. We'd met a local cab driver through Ron a few weeks back, and hired him for the round trip to Treasure Cay airport to pick up Mom. We were back on the boat by 4pm and had the chance to introduce her to a few of our friends on neighboring boats. We had happy hour on the boat, taught Mom how to play Mexican Train (dominoes), and called it a fairly early night. We had a busy schedule planned for the week and wanted to get an early start!

Wednesday began with Happy Birthday wishes to Rene, along with the best cinnamon rolls in the Abacos at Florence's Bakery & Cafe. Breakfast was followed by a beach walk along Treasure Cay, where we ran into Linda from Sojourner doing her daily walk and was happy to take a few group shots of us. We went further down the beach than we'd planned, and were surprised to find it nearly 1:30 before we got back. We still needed to shower, shop for groceries, call Rene's mom, and bake a birthday rum cake, all before setting sail for Guana Cay and the Wednesday night potluck at Grabbers. How were we ever going to get all of this done?!

We finally left the anchorage around 3pm to begin the 2-hour trip to Guana. Between the late start, the rum cake prep, figuring out what to make for the potluck, and what looked like an oncoming squall, Stacy was getting a wee bit stressed out. (Author's note: now that the only real stress in my life involves anchoring, weather, and hitting/being hit by other boats, I go a little crazy when pressed into a tight schedule!) But of course, the black storm clouds eventually turned away from us, the rum cake baked en route to Guana, and the winds even let us do some motor sailing for the first hour. Mom got to see Pipe with the jib up, and we had an easy trip across the Sea of Abaco. Stacy went a little crazy again trying to figure out what to make in a 30-minute window once we reached Fisher Bay, but a simple pasta dish and a sundowner eventually cured all. We made it to the potluck, met a few second homeowners and Spring Break-ers, and had a fantastic night.

Thursday brought a 3-day run of lousy weather, so we made a mad dash to Marsh Harbor to hunker down. We debated where to hide out - Marsh vs. Hope Town - and decided we'd rather show Mom Hope Town at its best once the sun came out again. We found a good spot with plenty of swing room in anticipation of the high and clocking winds, and later joined Art (Destiny) and John & Ginger (Be Leaving) at the cruiser happy hour at the Jib Room. Mom had a lot of fun meeting more fellow cruisers, and we made plans to get everyone together for the Jib Room's steak night on Saturday.

We managed to show Mom the highlights of Marsh Harbor on Friday morning before it began to rain...and rain...and rain. We've never seen so much water in our dinghy! Unfortunately, Mom realized Saturday morning that she'd left a porthole in her bedroom open overnight. She thought the water had only pooled on the shelf under the window, and asked us to do a quick check. Rene began to get worried when he found more water at the far end of the shelf...and more so when he opened the first locker to find wet clothes. Nooooo!! The rain water managed to drip from the shelf above to the locker floor below, and kept running backwards through the next two lockers. Anything on the locker floor was soaked, and clothes that were hanging but touching the bottom of the locker acted like sponges. Even the mattress, sheets, Mom's purse, and some of her clothes got wet. What a mess! Thank god Saturday was a beautiful sunny, windy day, and we quickly hung EVERYTHING out to dry. There wasn't an empty spot anywhere on our clothesline and lifelines. By that night, we were more than ready for a good dinner at the Jib Room and a bottle of wine!

Sunday we left bright and early for the hour-plus trip to Hope Town. The winds let us motor sail again, and we arrived near high tide to make it across the shoals outside of Hope Town Harbor. Hope Town is always busy during bad weather, so we were relieved to spot an open mooring ball in the back corner of the harbor. As (bad) luck would have it, the winds had the boats turned toward us, so we had to make a nerve-wracking circle through the mooring field to get ourselves pointed in the right direction for the approach. We were within a few feet of other boats more than once, and we all breathed a huge sigh of relief when we finally got secured to the mooring ball.

Hope Town was as charming as ever, and we made sure Mom got to see some of the highlights: a walking tour of the village, a stop at the beach, lunch at Harbor's Edge, and breakfast the next morning at the Hope Town Coffee House. We also thought it would be fun to rent a golf cart for the day to see the rest of Elbow Cay, and made our way to Tahiti Beach on Monday morning. What a gorgeous spot! Rated one of the top 10 beaches in the Bahamas, Tahiti Beach is fringed by palm trees and extends into a long sandy spit at low tide. We watched kite boarders do jumps and flips in the shallows, and hunted for shells and sea glass on the Atlantic side of the beach. After a beer stop at Sea Spray Resort's tiki bar, we enjoyed a picnic on the beach near White Sound. The only other person on the beach was a woman waiting for her lobster-hunting hubby. We soon spotted him near the reef with a mutton fish and lobster tail in hand, holding both up and yelling frantically while he backed up toward the beach. A juvenile black tip shark had been attracted by the blood from the speared mutton fish and thought it would enjoy an easy lunch. No such luck, as the guy managed to make it back to the beach with his dinner in hand (after nearly losing his swim trunks).

Tuesday morning we got up early to sail back to Marsh Harbor. Rick & Linda's kids were also visiting, and they were on the same flight as Mom. We piled the three of them back into Sidney's taxi for the hour-long trip to the airport. We hated saying good-bye and wished Mom could've stayed longer. She promises to come back next year when we're in the Exumas...this time with Ken!

Three sets of posted pictures with this chapter:

1) Pictures recovered from our now defunct underwater camera
http://picasaweb.google.com/Rene.Foree/2010BahamasIV?feat=directlink

2) Pictures from the Barefoot Man concert weekend
http://picasaweb.google.com/Rene.Foree/2010BahamasIII?feat=directlink

3) Pictures from the week with Stacy's mom
http://picasaweb.google.com/Rene.Foree/2010BahamasIV02?feat=directlink

Barefoot Man Concert, Great Guana Cay

Friday, March 5 - Sunday, March 7, 2010
Welcome to Barefoot Man Weekend! Barefoot Man is the Caribbean's answer to Jimmy Buffet. Having immortalized Nippers Bar in at least three of his songs, Barefoot Man also hosts concerts there during Spring Break in March and the Abacos sailing regatta in July. The signs go up at Nippers inviting you back for Barefoot Man 2-3 months in advance, and people literally plan their Bahamas vacations around the event. (A cruising couple's daughter arrived yesterday for her annual week-long visit. The best part? "She finally made it for Barefoot Man!") We've heard stories of years past when Nippers used to have a palm tree in the middle of the deck. "They had to take it out because college girls used it as a stripper pole during the Barefoot Man concert." Uhhh...yeah. Lest you think Barefoot Man Weekend is all about bikini-clad co-eds soaking in the sun imbibing a few frozen Nippers (that's certainly part of it), it's also a chance for the more "mature" cruising crowd to go a little crazy. Believe it or not, the 40-to-60 crowd was a LOT rowdier than the college kids could ever hope to be. Remember: we cruisers have made happy hours on other boats a daily ritual. We have a lot more practice!

So Barefoot Man Weekend is set up like this...get to Guana Cay by noon on Friday, because the free concert starts at Nippers around 12:30. The concert typically lasts until just before sunset, at which point everyone high-tails it to west-facing Grabbers Sunset Bar (www.grabbersatsunset.com) on Fisher Bay. After enjoying a few gorgeous sunset shots and a couple of frozen Grabbers, most people either a) go to someone's boat for happy hour, b) go back to continue the party at Nippers, or c) pass out. Saturday is typically a recovery day until 5-ish when everyone heads back to watch the sunset at Grabbers. The agenda? Visit with friends, have a couple of Grabbers, and head back to Nippers for the evening concert. Sunday is the traditional day of rest, as long as "rest" includes another party! Barefoot Man finally gets to take a break, but Bahamas-native, Brown Tip, brings his "Rake & Scrape" music to Grabbers from 1pm 'til sunset. Nippers also has their usual Sunday pig roast, so people feeling really adventurous are welcome to do a little bar-hopping.

Ideally, cruisers get to Guana Cay a day or two before the concert to stake out a spot in the anchorage at Fisher Bay. Unfortunately 2010's crazy weather brought high westerly winds, meaning anyone anchored in Fisher Bay would be in for a wild ride. We decided to splurge on a slip at the Orchid Bay Marina and enjoyed the extravagance of leaving our dinghy in the raised position for a change. (Not having to take a cold, wet dinghy ride to a public dock...priceless!) John and Ginger from Be Leaving were on the next dock over, so we all headed up the hill to Nippers where their friend, Ron, was holding a table for us. Brendal brought a boat-load of people over from Green Turtle Cay, which meant we got to see Nicki and her kids, dive master Jack, and of course, Brendal. (Side note: Nippers is actually very kid-friendly, even during Barefoot Man. There are two swimming pools and a gorgeous beach that the kids love, and we all help keep an eye on them.) The frozen Nippers started flowing, and we were soon singing along to Barefoot favorites such as "When They Cut You Off at Nippers", "If You See Kay" (listen as you say it out loud), and "Living Next Door to Alice" (imagine 300 party-goers screaming out the chorus, "Who the F*** is Alice?"). The real charm of the Barefoot Man is that so many of his songs are about the Abacos. Anyone who has spent time here will listen to his songs and recognize the places he sings about: the Fig Tree on Guana Cay (as in "Hang Me at..."), the Conch Inn in Marsh Harbor ("Conched Out at the Conch Inn"), "Hopetown Ferry" (which takes people between Hope Town and Marsh Harbor), and, of course, Nippers Bar. His songs are like a travelogue of the Bahamas, and make us grin even more now that we've spent three months here.

Brendal, Jack, and Nicki headed back to Green Turtle at 4pm, so we wandered back down the hill to Grabbers soon after. There we found Rick and Linda from Sojourner, along with their friends, Vince and Monica. Grabbers was beginning to fill up as people got tired of the Nippers craziness and came in for more low-key fun. We all stuck around for a Grabber or two and then made our way to Be Leaving. John and Ginger had invited us to their boat for an after-Nippers happy hour; tradition says everyone brings an appetizer to share, which can be tricky after spending the day at the concert. Let's just say there were plenty of chips and dips bought at the local grocery that night. We were back on our boat by 10pm and in bed by 10:05. This partying stuff is hard work!

We got up Saturday morning intending to move out of the marina in favor of the free anchorage. The wind was still howling like crazy from the west, so we decided to stay in the marina for another night. (Stacy was soon accused of being a "dock princess".) After an early morning coffee on Be Leaving, we joined Ron, John, and Ginger for breakfast at the Art Cafe & Bakery. We had loved this place the last time we were here, but this time they were a bit overwhelmed by the volume of patrons. They ran out of both ham and sausage by the time we got there, and the resulting bacon omelet didn't quite make the grade. We should've gone for the local fare, as we were told their chicken sous and fish stew were both fantastic. Not feeling particularly energetic, we decided to take advantage of the marina's pool and deck chairs. Being in the lee of the hotel, the pool area was deceptively warm - it got COLD as soon as you stepped into the wind! We eventually made it back to Grabbers for sunset, and made a last-minute decision to attend the Barefoot Man concert at Nippers that night. The Saturday night concert was originally touted as a reservations-required "Dinner and Dancing Under the Stars" event, and initially carried a not-so-cruiser-friendly price tag ($100 a plate was the rumor). At some point Nippers must not have had the expected turnout, because the evening concert soon became a "$10 cover, no-reservations-required" show. We arrived at Nippers soon before the 7pm start time, and were surprised when they waved us in without even collecting the $10 cover. This was getting better all the time! The only downside was that the 20+ knot winds had clocked to the north, meaning if you weren't sitting inside (no luck - it was full) or behind the protective plastic, you got blown out of your shorts. Poor Barefoot Man - his stage was front and center to the blowing winds, and clad in shorts and flip flops, he was barely kept warm by a portable heater he'd brought! We had a fun time at the show, and had quite the people-watching experience as Nippers-infused co-eds danced on the picnic tables.

After a final night at the marina, we moved the boat over to the Fisher Bay anchorage Sunday morning in time for the Brown Tip concert at Grabbers. We stayed at Grabbers until sunset, and finally managed a quiet night on the boat. Monday we'll head to Treasure Cay to try to rest up and do some major boat cleaning before Stacy's mom arrives on Tuesday. Til next time...

P.S. In case you need a glossary:
Nipper (noun): the signature rum drink of Nippers Bar. Its recipe is a secret, but we know it has 5 kinds of rum and a Hawaiian Punch-like fruit juice. Get it frozen (our preference) or on the rocks.
Nipper (verb): the effect brought on by the signature rum drink of Nippers Bar, as in "you've been Nippered"
Grabber (noun): the signature rum drink of Grabbers Bar. This recipe is also a secret, but we think it also has 5 kinds of rum and a grapefruit juice base. We like it better than the Nipper, because the tanginess means you can drink more of them. Get it frozen (our preference) or on the rocks.
Barefoot Man: Check out his website at www.barefootman.com for info and CDs.
Chicken sous (rhymes with "house"): a chicken broth-based dish containing bone-in chicken pieces, lime juice, hot peppers, potatoes, and allspice berries. Whatever the recipe (and everyone has their own version), this dish is always served in the morning as a cure-all for the night before.

Back to Hope Town & Marsh Harbor

Sunday, February 21 - Sunday, February 28, 2010
Can you say "gun-shy"? We've taken the long way (i.e. the 20nm "deep draft" route) from Little Harbor to Hope Town. There's a shorter route (only 16nm) to Hope Town on the east side of Lubbers, and it's probably fine for our draft at high tide. Still, we know that the area outside of the Hope Town channel is also extremely shallow, and want to be there near high tide as well. Rather than risk yet another grounding, we're going with the extra 4 miles. We were able to motor-sail for part of the trip, and were hailed by Rick & Linda on Sojourner a couple miles outside of Hope Town. Linda's mom, Mary, and her friend, Peggy, are visiting for the week; they were both flight attendants for Braniff in the 1940s, and have been best friends ever since. After lunch with the four of them and some much-needed wi-fi, we all joined Jim and Linda on Winsome. They have a beautiful boat and we always have fun with them. (Jim & Linda - thank you for hosting!) We spent the next morning at the Hope Town Coffee Shop, enjoying breakfast, coffee, and more internet. Besides being a beautiful spot, Hope Town's restaurants have some of the best wi-fi (free to patrons) in the Abacos. All the more reason to go!

Tuesday afternoon we're back in Marsh Harbor. There are THREE strong fronts forecasted to blow through in the next week - it must be a record! The first one comes through on Wednesday night, the next on Saturday, and a third on Tuesday. All are forecasting gale-force winds (34-40kts), with Tuesday's front bringing "strong-gale" winds (40-45kts). We've followed Winsome over from Hope Town and anchored near them in our favorite spot near the Jib Room. It offers good protection, being farther from the inlet and incoming swells. Gary on Breakaway is still here, too, and the five of us get together on Pipe muh Bligh for chili dinner and Mexican Train dominoes.

Thursday night the Bahamas government holds a "People to People" event at the Commissioner's House to thank second homeowners, cruisers, and other repeat visitors for their contributions to the local economy. They serve hors d'oeuvres and drinks, local artists sell arts & crafts, a band plays island favorites, and best of all, they have a mini Junkanoo! The troup is decked out in their finest festival wear, and Stacy even gets to wear a Junkanoo hat and shake the cowbells. What a night! Jerry on Free Spirit, Carrie & Alex on Knot Now, and Bill & Tike on Skylark are also at the party, and we realize they're all anchored nearby. Friday we reconnect with Art on Destiny, who joins us at Snappa's Friday evening. The weekend is a quiet one, since we're all riding out the weather on our boats. We see 35kts during Saturday's storm and stop looking after that. Sometimes it's better not to know! Monday we'll be off to Treasure Cay to settle in for the next blow. Gee...is it just us, or has the weather completely taken over our lives? :-)

Marsh Harbor, Lubbers Quarters, & Little Harbor

Monday, February 15 - Saturday, February 20, 2010
We're baaa-aaack. As you've probably figured out by now, Marsh Harbor is a popular stopping point in the Abacos. It's got good shopping, restaurants, bars, and laundry facilities (a big draw for most cruisers), and it's a 2-3 hour sail from just about anywhere on this side of the Whale Passage. Babette, Nicki, and the kids took the ferry from GTC for a shopping trip, so we got to meet up with them for lunch and some major shopping of our own. We hit Abaco Groceries (kinda like Sam's Club), a produce shop, Save A Lot, and Price Right, and the trunk was filled to the brim. It's such a nice change to do a major shopping run like that - normally we only buy what we can carry back to the boat.

We ended up staying in Marsh for an extra day thanks to strong winds, but finally began our journey south on Thursday morning. We arrived at Cracker P's off Lubbers Quarters at lunch time, and were blown away by the incredible view. Cracker P's sits on a low hill, and the extra elevation gives you a gorgeous view of the sea of Abaco, Tahiti Beach on Elbow Cay, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. The food at Cracker P's also makes it worth the trip; if you ever visit, you've got to try the hot fish dip! As we left Lubbers, we passed a Moorings catamaran that had grounded off the southern point of Lubbers. Unfortunately our motor isn't strong enough to tow another boat off a shoal, but maybe we should've taken this as a sign... After a nice sail down to Little Harbor, we anchored off Bridges Cay (a mile from Little Harbor) Thursday night to await high tide the next morning. Little Harbor has a very shallow entrance channel, with only 3-3.5' at MLW; being 2 weeks before the next full moon, we only get two extra feet of water at high tide. We debated whether to enter the channel or anchor outside of it, and finally decided to go for it when a passing catamaran told us they'd seen 6'8" depths in the channel. Granted, that seemed a little too good to be true, but our confidence was bolstered when a local fishing boat told us that there were good depths, "but be sure to hug the green markers". Okay, the cruising guide says to stay in the middle of the channel, but local knowledge is always best...right?? In we went, and were doing okay until we reached the last green marker. Rene kept the speed down so he could back off if we began to touch bottom, but sometimes our wing keel works against us. Right off the last buoy, we hit bottom and stuck fast. Rene gunned the engine to get us loose, and we even put out the jib to try to use the wind. No luck; all we did was pivot to the left and right on our wing keel, making no real traction. All we managed to do was to turn our boat sideways so that we were directly across the entrance channel. Perfect! This was bad...REALLY bad. Since we couldn't get free by high tide (30 minutes after we grounded), we were stuck here until the next high tide...12 hours away! Adding insult to injury, another local boat came by later to tell us that a speedboat had hit the last green buoy the day before; the buoy had been moved about 30' outside of the channel into the shallows. Could things get any worse? Of course! A Moorings catamaran soon entered the channel, saw that we were stopped, and thought the marker buoys were mooring balls. Before we could tell them to pass in the channel between us and the red buoy, they veered out of the channel to snag a "mooring". And another one bites the dust... Lucky bugger. Fortunately for its crew, the cat had two powerful engines and was able to get loose pretty quickly.

One thing about being grounded, it's a great way to provide entertainment for the masses and meet a few of your fellow cruisers. The motor vessel Red Head came out to try to pull us off the shoal, but we'd already lost too much water. A few other cruisers came out in their dinghies to see if they could help, snapping pictures all the while. :-) At this point, we decided we'd have to try to leave close to the 11pm high tide; that high tide was supposed to have 4 inches more water than the 11am high tide, and would hopefully be enough. A little note about tides: high and low tides occur roughly every 6 hours. Tide times typically shift by 30 minutes to an hour each day, depending on how close you are to a full moon. Since we grounded 10 days before the full moon, the daylight high tide was getting more and more shallow with each passing day, while the overnight high tide had more water. What did this mean for us? If we waited until the next daylight high tide, we'd have even less water than we did when we first grounded. Two of our dinghy visitors were Dick and Debbie from Ar Sgral ("our shearwater" in Gaelic), who graciously offered to come out at 10pm to help us out. We hoped that between our 75hp boat engine and their 15hp dinghy engine, we'd have enough power to get loose once the water returned. The gods finally smiled on us, and we started getting some real water around 9:30pm. Rene had put out an anchor earlier in the day, and we began taking in the slack to pivot the boat in the channel. By the time Dick and Deb arrived to help us out, we were pointing towards the channel exit and were nearly afloat! We didn't even need the extra 15hp, but sure appreciated Dick and Deb's spotlights that helped guide us out of the channel (not to mention their moral support). After a couple of shallow-water scares in the dark, we were finally back in deep water and headed to our previous night's anchorage. We didn't want to anchor in a new spot in the dark, and knew our Bridges Cay waypoint would lead us safely home.

The next morning we moved the boat to a spot outside of the channel and dinghied into Little Harbor. We took a beach walk on the Atlantic side and enjoyed a great lunch at Pete's Pub. Pete's gallery was also open, displaying beautiful bronze sculptures made by Pete and his father before him. R&B Haven and Celtic Cross came in that morning as well, so we joined them along with Ar Sgral for happy hour after a dinghy tour around the Bight of Robinson. Pete's Pub is definitely a nice place and a fun hang-out spot, and we'd recommend it to other cruisers. However, it's more trouble than it's worth if you have a deep draft and are on a tighter schedule - we probably won't be taking Stacy's mom to Little Harbor!

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/Rene.Foree/2010BahamasII?feat=directlink

Treasure Cay, Abacos...with a little taste of Green Turtle

Friday, February 5 - Monday, February 15, 2010
What a fantastic sail! We left Hope Town this morning for the 17nm trip to Treasure Cay. The weather gurus were trying to scare everyone with forecasts of 25kt winds, but the reality was closer to 9-12kts. A lone voice on the VHF said it all: "If I don't see AT LEAST 15kts, I'm demanding my money back!" We crept along at 3kts for a couple of hours until the wind picked up to 15-20kts; with the wind in our backs, we found ourselves flying along at 6-7kts. Gorgeous!

There's something about coming into an anchorage and spotting familiar faces, or in our case, familiar boat names. We made it to Treasure Cay in a little over 4 hours and were surprised at how empty the anchorage was. With a storm on the way, we expected to see 15-20 boats; imagine our surprise when we only found 8 other boats, 3 of which are permanently moored there. As luck would have it, there was plenty of room for us to anchor right along side Jim & Linda on Winsome and Dennis & Susie on Tate Wata. Within a few minutes of anchoring, Tate Wata invited us to join them and Winsome for happy hour. Rick & Linda on Sojourner showed up an hour later, and we knew we were in for a great stay.

After an overnight storm that brought squalls and caused the wind to howl through the rigging, it finally calmed down enough Saturday afternoon for us to take the ferry to Green Turtle. We were scheduled to attend the 7th Annual Island Roots Heritage Festival Wine Tasting, a fund-raiser for the May event that celebrates Green Turtle's Loyalist heritage and African roots. We spent the afternoon with friends, Nicki & Babette, and finally got to meet Ba's boyfriend. That night we all went to the wine tasting, where we enjoyed great food and generous pours. They had a good turnout and the Prime Minister of the Bahamas even showed up, taking pictures with the guests. (We'll post pics once we get copies from Nicki.) We spent the night at the girls' cottage, and Sunday morning arrived way too soon for all of us. We grabbed some much-needed cheeseburgers at the Green Turtle Club, and then headed home in time for a nap and the big Super Bowl party at the Tipsy Turtle in Treasure Cay.

We ended up staying in Treasure Cay for a week, thanks to two strong cold fronts that passed through the area on Tuesday and the following Friday. Each one brought 30-40kt winds to the anchorage, and we were thankful to be in a protected harbor. After being one of only 5 boats in the anchorage, we were joined by 10-15 boats ahead of first front. We knew most of our new neighbors, who included John & Ginger on Be Leaving, Jan & Cam on Te Amor, Jerry on Free Spirit, Rob & Bev on R&B Haven, and Bill & Tike on Skylark. Unfortunately the blow also brought in a few charter boats that apparently had little sailing experience. One Sunsail boat came too close to us and motored over our anchor chain; we felt a huge jolt in the boat and ran topside to find our anchor snubber broken ($55 at West Marine, thank you). The next day, another Sunsail boat nearly ran into the stern of our neighbor boat while pulling up anchor; there could've been some major damage if the skipper hadn't run forward and jumped over the bow sprit in time to push off of our neighbor's stern. In all fairness, Rene and I have chartered boats before, and accidents can happen. Still, were we ever THIS bad as charters?? It makes you want to run for another anchorage when you see a bunch of Sunsails and Moorings boats coming into the harbor!

Wednesday night a budding entrepreneur tried his hand at "Movie Night in Treasure Cay", setting up a trailer and projector in the parking lot across from the marina. For $5 a head, we got to see the movie "Avatar", without the 3-D glasses. (Interesting concept, but best picture nominee? Really??) Wouldn't you know it, the cold front brought 60-degree temperatures and not-so-gentle breezes; we really can't complain when you consider the snow blanketing much of the US, but it's still damn cold when you're sitting in the wind chill for 3 hours! We all sat bundled up in the parking lot with three layers of clothing and fuzzy blankets, and ran like crazy back to the boat as soon as the credits started rolling.

Friday morning we headed to Treasure Cay's gorgeous crescent beach with John and Ginger, hoping to catch some of the nice weather ahead of the next front. Their friend, Ron, flew in that day from his home in St. Augustine. He owns a lot with a 3-slip pier near the anchorage, and keeps his sailboat and motor boat here. Ron had some errands to run in Marsh Harbor and invited us to tag along; what a day! We were introduced to our first "Wally's", the punch from the restaurant of the same name; next was a stop at the stall of George the conch man, famous for his fresh conch salad; Ron then took us all to a little roadside bar between Marsh and Treasure, followed by dinner at Touch of Class. We ended the night at the marina bar, until the horizontal rain reminded us that we'd left the windows open on the boat. We jumped in the dinghy as fast as we could, but some major cleanup was necessary on board. Oh, well...we had a terrific day! The next morning we learned that John and Ginger's anchor had dragged overnight, causing them to take 2-hour watches for the rest of the storm. We made it through without any problems, but everyone in the anchorage was wiped out from a lack of sleep. John and Ginger invited us to dinner Saturday night, and we joined them on Ron's fast boat for a run to Nipper's pig roast on Sunday. Nipper's is always a fun time, and the good weather brought a bunch of our cruiser friends to the party. There's already talk of the upcoming "Barefoot Man" concert at Nipper's on March 5th; this will definitely be the place to be!

Monday morning it's finally time to leave Treasure Cay. We've had a fantastic visit with John and Ginger, and enjoyed meeting Ron. As much as we hate to leave, we want to scout out some other spots in the Abacos so we can be better tour guides when Stacy's mom visits us in March. We've heard good things about Lubbers Quarters and Little Harbor, so we're off to Marsh Harbor this morning for a stopover before heading south.