We just never got around to attending the more social
events. Suddenly with the moderation of
the weather… it was time to go. We were
very nearly convinced to stay on a while.
The “season” is just beginning to get geared up. The morning net promised several intriguing
gatherings in the coming days… a big party at the Flip-Flop Shack, an
informative seminar on making your conch shell into a horn… Rake & Scrapes
we never attended… Where does the time
go?
We had a couple of days of really windy weather. The forecast had been for winds in the
30-knot range, but we never really saw that other than a few gusts. The squalls never found us although the skies
remained cloudy and ominous.
Temperatures plummeted into the 60s and although I was forced to get out
my favorite lap throw and snuggle up with the cat… I swear that I was feeling
truly sorry for the folks back in the US who were experiencing things like
blizzards and record low temperatures with a few tornados and ice storms thrown
in for good measure.
Our Bahamian “snow days” were long, welcome stretches of
forced inactivity. The only frustration
was that they kept our friends on Encore pinned down as well, and unable to
travel those last few miles to GT.
Finally the perfect weather window materialized to allow
Jerry and Sally to make their way here.
They joined us at Redshanks just in time to be whisked off to a party on
the beach!
Redshanks is kind of a little community within the larger
whole of Elizabeth Harbour. It is
further away from town and from the active social scene… so we have to make our
own fun. A beach bonfire is a great way
to get to know your new neighbors!
People brought food to share and some cooked their meat on
the open fire. We cooked ours on the
boat and so arrived a little late with the party already in full swing.
Cruiser Pot Lucks are the best! People bring their favorite specialty dish and
we get to try new things. There’s always
a great variety of dishes…it’s almost like a competition. Bruce made his Mom’s-recipe-baked-beans and
they disappeared!
We met people from several of the other boats in this more
intimate setting. Sometimes the vast
numbers of boats in the harbour tend to discourage meeting others… there are
just SO MANY of them. But this smaller
gathering is just right for meeting and greeting.
Having Jerry around is an awesome icebreaker… He’s never met
a stranger and picks up lifelong friends as if they were pieces of sea-glass on
the beach… Bruce and I just sit back and
watch… happy to be along for the ride!
Beach bonfires are among my favorite things… this is only my
second as Cruisers. It’s difficult to
get over my inhibitions and realized that it really is OK to just make a pit
and start a fire on the beach… must remember to do this more often…
 |
| Sally (us) and Jerry from Encore, and Ben from Seraide |
We made several dinghy runs to town during our stay at
Redshanks. Even with it being very
windy, our route along the shores and in between the many small cays was relatively
flat in comparison to how it was out in the Harbour.
There is the most amazing bridge (by Bahamian standards)
connecting Great Exuma to Crab Cay. Like
many other projects in the Bahamas, the one on Crab Cay started with so much
promise, only to end leaving partially built facilities to slowly fall to
ruin. I wonder how long this bridge will
remain passable before nature reclaims the space.
 |
| Looking for Browns Marina... |
One day we took our dinghies over to the small “town”
adjacent to the anchorage… I’m not sure if THIS is the actual Redshanks… or
not. But we found Brown’s Marina to be
an interesting diversion.
 |
| The entrance to the Marina |
They are more geared toward services for fishing boats,
their marina being very shallow and tight… but their marine supply store was
stocked will all manner of goodies that we could use. We fueled up our gas tanks for the generator
and left there in search of the Laundromat further up the shore.
 |
| That's IT??? That's Cheaters??? |
We parked our dinghies at a local restaurant that is
advertised often on the morning net… Cheaters.
I thought I had heard the name incorrectly but no… it’s really
Cheaters.
 |
| I'm guessing they're serving conch... |
 |
| It was a splashy ride back to the boat! |
We stopped in for a long lunch and to use their wi-fi, and
before we realized it, the afternoon was almost gone. No time to do laundry before our guests were
due to arrive back on the boat.
We had invited the crews of Seraide and Wright Away for
happy hour! And what fun we had laughing
and comparing stories. We celebrated the
arrival of Encore in proper fashion with champagne toasts! Cruisers are always happy to celebrate… well…
anything!
 |
| Congratulations Encore - on your Gulf Stream Crossing! |
The weather turned fine with light winds for a day and no
horrors in the near future. With Encore following, we left our cozy spot at
Redshanks and ventured back out into Elizabeth Harbour to our favorite spot at
Sand Dollar Beach.
After so many days on the boat, it was time to hit the
beach. Our bodies were longing to get
out and stretch for a walk, and you just never know what treasures a walk on
the shore will bring…
 |
| Sea Cucumber |
 |
| Some little burrowing creature made this trail |
 |
| Everybody's going somewhere... |
 |
| The cut between Stocking and Elizabeth Islands |
 |
| Jezabelle waits for our return. Must be dinnertime... |
Into every Cruiser’s Life… a little (a lot) of work must
come. Our plans to become a “sponsoring
vessel” for Chris Parker’s weather routing service have us scrambling to make
sure that our SSB radio is in good working order.
There have been some doubts about our ability to transmit
properly and after Anthony from Magnolia came over and gave us some pointers
about possible ways to increase our transmission power… we got to work on one
of his two suggestions. We need to
change out the 10-gage wire that brings power from our batteries to the radio
with larger 8-gage wire.
Bruce was able to find wire that would work at the Darville
Lumber Company here on Exuma.
Unfortunately he didn’t find red wire, so we needed to mark this “hot
wire” with red tape all along the way so that it would be clear some day down
the road when we forgot what we did…
 |
| We followed the red/black wire beneath the flooring |
After marking it and taping the hot and ground wires
together, we routed them beneath the floor.
It was about ten feet from battery to radio but we followed the existing
wire (you can see it there, it’s red with a black stripe) so it was pretty straightforward.
We crimped connectors onto the ends and included an in-line
30 amp fuse on the hot wire near the battery.
Instead of splicing the new wire to the one coming out of the radio we
used a buss strip and taped it all up really nicely to protect the connections
from contact or corrosion.
When we connected it all to the battery it actually
worked!!! Well, there is a little bit of
corrosion causing the speaker wire to cut out, but after cleaning it and applying
some dielectric grease, we’ve got that working again as well. We were proud of ourselves and feeling great
about one more job ticked off the list just in time for a Sundowner!
Back at our respective boats, we pulled up anchors and
shuffled back to town. Another weather “event”
was forecast in which there would be a strong westerly component… Being close to Exuma kept the waves to a
minimum and also made the trip to town in the dinghy very short.
We split up and went to work performing our final
preparations for departure. We made two
runs carrying diesel to the boat and topped off our tanks. We hit the bank for a bit of travellin’ money
and picked up a few things at the grocery store. We lunched at Redboone and updated all the
computer stuff…
We downloaded weather emails and found that Chris Parker had
been a bit vague about the forecast but we would listen again in the morning
and maybe our plans would firm up. We
were ready to leave our home of almost a month.
So many things left un-done… We will be back someday.
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