We arrived in Marsh Harbor, Bahamas on Thursday, June 20th. After going grocery shopping, our taxi driver, who only took cash, drove us the 25 miles to Treasure Cay where we took the ferry to Green Turtle Cay.  Ken, Danielle and Kaylee were on their boat in the harbor waiting for us and Kaylee waved the minute she saw the ferry.  

We drove about a mile in a golf cart to our cottage. The unpaved road would not be considered acceptable even in a third world country. Parts of it were carved out of coral but never paved. The view from our from our front porch was amazing. That evening, we had dinner at the Green Turtle Club and had our first taste of conch in the form of fritters. Molly arrived  just as we were finishing dinner. She had hitched a boat ride from Treasure Cay with someone she met at the airport.  

On Friday, we went snorkeling on the reef that was right in front of our cottage. It would have been easier if we had fins. This was the first time either of us had snorkeled over a reef. The water was clear and warm and the fish and coral were beautiful. Going out our back door it was just a short walk to Coco Bay where we looked for sea biscuits and sea stars. Kaylee is really good at finding both.  That evening, we took the golf cart over to New Plymouth for dinner. We watched them clean conch and make conch salad which was delicious.

Unfortunately, Saturday was our rain day which we spent reading and talking. Late afternoon, the rain stopped and we went to the Lion Fish Festival at the Green Turtle Club. The lion fish is an invasive species that they are promoting as a fish for restaurants in order to keep them under control. When lightly breaded and deep fried, they are delicious.

Sunday was a wonderful day. We boarded Ken and Danielle's boat and sailed to Manjack Cay. The weather was beautiful and Manjack Cay was gorgeous with a beautiful white sand beach where where you could walk out 100 ft and still be only waste deep.

After anchoring, we snorkeled along a coral bluff where we saw very colorful fish, lobsters, and red sea stars. We continued up to the beach where the the rays and the nurse sharks circled our feet. The sharks I can do without, but the rays would swim right up to you and you could pet them as they brushed your ankles. We then set sail back to Green Turtle Cay. The wind was perfect and we where under full sail for about an hour.  It was perfect!

Unfortunately, we had to leave on Monday. It would have been fun to spend a few more days. I envy Ken, Danielle and Kaylee for having so much time for this adventure.

Thanks to all three of you for such a great time.

View from our front porch and backyard.

We returned to Hope Town yesterday after a three day excursion south to explore the bays north of Little Harbor. We did some great snorkeling and even saw a blue hole.

The adventure was the trip back north yesterday. We ran in to our first real thunderstorm with all our sails up. We were having some rain, but no wind or lightening, then all of a sudden the lightening started cracking and the winds went from 5 to 25 in an instant (and changed directions completely). Of course all this happened in the narrowest section of our course for the day, where we didn't have a whole lot of room to maneuver. After about 30 minutes of jibing and fighting the wind gusts, we finally got the head sail in and could motor through the wind. We were soaked and exhausted. Kaylee had gone below decks as soon as it started raining long before the storm and was excited about being allowed some iPad time. After everything was under control and the weather clearing, she poked her head up and said, "has it finally stopped raining?" totally oblivious to the storm and tribulations we had just encountered.

Today we are at Man-O-War Cay enjoying beautiful weather. Kaylee swam to the boat next us to play with the little boy there.

This was about a week ago at Guana Cay. Kaylee dove 9-10 feet down to pick this guy up. He is a little heavy so she had some trouble getting it back to the boat. I finally had to jump in and 'save' them.

We have enjoyed spending time in Hope Town on Elbow Cay for the last four days. We are on a mooring ball in the harbor with very short dinghy rides to many restaurants, stores, pools and beaches. We also took a nice dive/snorkel trip south of here to Sandy Cay, Little Harbor (Pete's Pub and Gallery) and Tilloo Sand bank. Here is photo today at the Hopetown Harbor Lodge pool.

Couldn't get the photos to go up in the last post.

I will start this post with a huge THANK YOU to Janet (and Stacey for moral support). When she agreed to dog sit for 4 months, making life and death decisions was not supposed to be part of the deal.

A little over a week ago, I noticed a missed phone call from Stacey which I thought was strange because no one was calling anymore. Then I checked emails and saw Janet sent something about not good news from the vet. With cell coverage going in and out, we cobbled together enough communication over the next few hours to determine Nugget had swallowed a nut that was now lodged in her intestine and it was not going to free itself. The choice was to put her down or have a few thousand dollars of emergency surgery. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the prognosis was very good, making it just a money decision. I always said I wouldn't pay that much for a dog, but when faced with the reality, I caved - after a sleepless and buggy night.

Now that Kaylee's birthday has passed (I caught her telling someone today she was 'four, no five' today when they asked how old she was), I will try to recap the time since we entered the Bahamas on May 20th. Internet connection is still pretty finicky, so I am uploading pictures in chunks and have not really sorted, edited or filtered them. I'll try to clean it up a bit and add comments when I can, but I know it's been a while since photos were put up so I'm just throwing 'em out there.

Sorry - running out of time and internet connection. I got some photo captions put in, the map and calendar updated, but still no narrative. Be back when I can. We are leaving Green Turtle now and headed south to Guana Cay across the Whale Cay passage. You can still reach us by email at [email protected] or through the 'WhatsAp' texting application on the phone.

Whew! Ten days without internet. It was great until we were supposed to have it and it didn't work, then it is just frustrating. Even now it is a pretty tenuous connection, so we will see how uploading of pictures goes. We are currently docked at the Green Turtle Club on Green Turtle Cay and are not sure exactly when we will leave. Possibly tomorrow (Friday), but the winds are still forecast to be 30+, so we will make decisions tomorrow. As always, we battle too little or too much wind.

I'll start with today and then recap our last week and half in another post. Today is Kaylee's 5th Birthday! Thank you to everyone for all the email and blog birthday wishes and little gifts. She jumped on our bed this morning and said, "It's my birthday and I'm 5 years old! I'm so excited!" She has been counting down the days for the last week. She has also been a little worried about whether her birthday would be fun, and to be honest we were a little worried about where we would be and whether we would be able to make it special for her. The day came together beautifully. We started the morning with cards and a couple presents that we brought with us, then a very special treat of Skype phone calls to grandparents. Those were our first phone calls in about 2 weeks (well, except one to Janet related to Nugget - get to that later). Kaylee watched a new movie she got while we prepped to dinghy in to New Plymouth, the town on Green Turtle Cay. Ken also went to the little convenience store here at the Green Turtle Club to confirm the cake he ordered from the mother of the store manager was on schedule to be delivered later in the afternoon. The mother runs a bakery in town. 

We then took a bit of a wet dinghy ride to town - that's the problem with 30 knot winds. In town we had a wonderful conch and fish lunch at the Wrecking Tree with our dock neighbors Norm and Jaye, walked around town and picked up a few groceries. Kaylee learned quickly that if she told everyone today was her birthday, many would give her something. Norm and Jaye presented her with Nemo card first thing this morning and the grocery store owners gave her M&M's.

We rushed back to the boat so Kaylee could go to the pool and hopefully meet up with two kids she met this morning. She, Nicholas (5) and Samantha (6) wore themselves silly diving for torpedoes, racing and doing handstands. We invited Nicholas, Samantha and their parents Stacy and Paul to the boat for cake later. We were so full from a late lunch, we skipped dinner and just had cake when everyone showed up at the boat this evening.

The kids had a blast playing down in the boat while we visited and exchanged boat stories with Norm and Jaye and Paul and Stacy up in the cockpit. We learn so much from the people we meet who are full time live-aboards and seasoned cruisers. Listening to everyone's stories of passages and boat woes teaches us something new all the time and gives us ideas of new places to go.

We motored in to West End this morning, crossing the Gulf Stream last night. Other than lack of sleep and having to motor, it was pretty easy. We started out sailing, but with only an east wind and the current pulling us 30 to 60 degrees off our point, there was no way to make easterly progress. We could have made it to Georgia, but not the Bahamas.

We have cleared customs and immigration, had a nice lunch at the resort here, topped off with fuel and are going to stay here tonight. Tomorrow we will go to Great Sale Cay to anchor, then on to the Abacos.