Have Another Day's Great Loop

I was a little sad last week to be heading back north.  We made the decision that worked for our schedule this time around and really both felt strongly that our current boat is not the right boat to head further south in.  However, heading north meant repeating places we’d already been and I just wasn’t super excited about it.  But our first repeat was heading back to Treasure Cay for a few nights.  And who can be sad there.  The beach is amazing.  The entire area is beautiful.

And our friends on Trawler Life pulled into the slip right next to us.  And Monday night the marina had Bingo night! We had tried to go to Bingo night in Hopetown the previous Monday and it was so packed we couldn’t get in.  The kids begged to go.  They each won a round.  Another kid won two rounds.  This was somewhat comical since the prize for each round was a bottle of wine.  So, 4 out of 5 rounds involved kids winning wine.  We walked away with a white and a red that we have ready for visitors.  Warning – it’s probably not very good wine.

Hello crazy eyes

Oh the beach.  It’s just so beautiful.  The wind returned so the kids didn’t swim much but they had fun in the sand.  They took turns burying each other – Maddy was a mermaid and Molly was a dolphin.  Molly blogged about this as well and I need to get that posted for her (our lack of internet this past week has really gotten us behind in blog posts).

Mermaid

Dolphin

You may remember that months ago way back in Green Turtle Bay, Grand Rivers, KY, Michael from Trawler Life taught the girls how to fish.  Well they got to fish with him again in Treasure.  The girls and Ben and Michael fished at sunset off our dock.  It was another amazing sunset and the kids had so much fun.  Michael was using fresh mahi scraps (that he and Cathy caught) as bait.  They had a big fish waiting and then Ben dropped his fishing pole in the water!  Oops!  Ben then had to fish out his fishing pole and after all that activity the fish were kind of scared away.  But that doesn’t matter.  They had a lot of fun.

Ben fishing for his fishing pole

Back in business

The next day we headed down to the Treasure Sands Club.    It was this random discovery by Michael and Cathy.  A stand alone pool on the beach with a nice restaurant and bar.  But no resort.  Nothing else around.  It was a beautiful day.  We hung at the pool for  a bit and then had a delicious lunch and walked back to the marina a couple of miles down the beach.

After three nights at Treasure and two more trips into the bakery for cinnamon rolls, we headed out to continue back tracking north.  We pulled into Great Guana for two nights.  We found out there was a Junkanoo parade that night.  Unfortunately on Bahamas time everything starts late.  9 PM for this one.  Junkanoo is a street parade with music, dance and costumes in many towns across the Bahamas.  We had missed a couple of larger ones because it was just too late at night.  Madelyn wasn’t interested so we decided one of us would take Molly.  Then of course Madelyn wanted in as well!  Molly loved it.  It was like a big marching band wearing crazy colorful awesome costumes.  She thanked us so many times for taking her.  It was a unique cultural experience for her and one we are happy we attended.  She was even handed a cowbell by one of the people marching and got to join in for a bit.  The people in the parade were moving so fast that it was hard to get a good picture!

After Junkanoo and the late night Madelyn especially was a bit of a bear on Friday.  But Friday afternoon Barefoot Man was having a concert.  Barefoot Man is fairly famous over here.  Fun music, hilarious lyrics.  So we headed over to the concert to listen for a bit.  The girls decided to get some hair braids while we listened.

These were our first two repeat stops and we were able to do new things and have fun during both.  Saturday we pulled out and headed to Manjack Cay where we had an incredible afternoon. Stay tuned….

After leaving Hopetown we pulled into Marsh Harbor and anchored for a night so we could run into town and stock up at the good grocery store again.  We took the dinghy into the marina to say hi to friends that were still there.  We got our groceries, went to bed and pulled out the next morning to head down to Little Harbor.  Little Harbor is as far south as most people travel in the Abacos.  It’s on Great Abaco island like Marsh Harbor and Treasure Cay.  It’s a pretty narrow and shallow entrance so we anchored outside. Our friends from Trawler Life got a good picture of us pulling up right outside the harbor trailing our dinghy.

That turned out to be shallow as well so we anchored across the water at Lynyard Cay with a number of other boats.  It was a bit of a sporty trip as we had to cross the North Channel which had big swells coming in.  We confirmed again these are NOT comfortable in our boat and Madelyn had a minor freak out.  Nothing out of the ordinary and we talked to friends on Trawler Life (a trawler) and Igloo (a sailboat), both of whom also said they were uncomfortable and rolling all over the place. So, it’s not just our boat.

We took the dinghy into Little Harbor to meet Michael and Cathy at Pete’s Pub for lunch.  Little Harbor is a tiny little community.  There are about 50 houses on the island.  No electricity – all solar!  All the water they have is rain water.  The girls were kind of in awe of all that….they can’t make it a day without YouTube and their iTouches you know.  The thought of only solar power and rain water blew their minds.  Pete’s Pub is this awesome little outdoor pub and bar in the sand.  T-shirts that people have signed and left hanging from the ceiling.  Stickers and names on all the pillars.  Amazing fish.  Amazing burgers.  Pretty darn good drinks.  Right on the beach so the kids could play.  And it randomly had a pole in the middle of the sand for who knows what – but the girls loved it and we got multiple comments from the wait staff and other patrons.  Yes we know our kids are playing on the pole.  Thankfully their young minds don’t know more than how fun it is to swing around a pole.  Despite how it looks to the rest of us!  We’ll show them again when they are older.

After lunch we took the dinghy back to the boat and then to the beach right by where we were anchored.  The kids played for a bit before we headed back to the boat to watch another beautiful sunset.

Our boat is at the edge of the picture

Friday we headed back into Little Harbor for lunch again.  Our friends on Igloo were still there and we were hoping to see them a bit before they left Saturday for Spanish Wells.  The world is really so small.  As we pulled into the harbor on our dinghy we spotted a sailboat from Manistique, MI.  Many of you know that we go there every summer as Kathy’s parents live there.  I quickly snapped a picture and texted it off to Kathy.  Turns out her parents are with them visiting right now in Italy and of course know the boat and owners.  Small world!  Anyway, Kerry from Igloo took the girls for a ride on her paddle board around the harbor and then we went into Pete’s for lunch.  After the BEST tuna I’ve ever had we took a walk out to the remains of the old lighthouse.  It was pretty cool to stand inside the old lighthouse and look out through the crumbling windows.

Cactus in the Bahamas!

We walked back to Pete’s and Dan and Helayna from Igloo had come over from the mooring field.  Helayna is 15 and so sweet.  She took the girls down to the beach and played catch with them.  Which turned into an entire afternoon and evening of playing with them. She’s a saint!  The girls came running up asking if they could go see the sailboat.  Helayna is old enough to drive their dinghy!!!!  Yes of course, put on your life vest and GO!  The girls were in heaven getting to do something so cool.   They rode on the dinghy with no parents out to the sailboat.  There’s not much they love more than seeing other people’s boats.  She took them all over their boat.  It’s also the first sailboat they’d ever been on.  She showed them how the swing keel works and where they store water and all sorts of things.  Anyway, they returned to the harbor with pretzels and art supplies!  Did I mention she’s a SAINT!?!?  She brought a huge collection of pastels and paper for the girls and a local adorable little boy joined in as well.  So the parents stood around talking and having a few cocktails all day while she entertained our kids.  They created some beautiful pictures and Kerry insisted that we take home a box of pastels.  The girls are very excited to get them out again and to hang their pictures around the boat.

After pastels Helayna took them out on the stand up paddle board.  What a day for them.  Both of them loved the paddle board and as the sun was setting Helayna was out in the water with them.  Then it was dark and after 7 PM and we were still at Pete’s Pub!  What a perfect island day.  We had to say our goodbyes to Igloo. They pulled out Saturday morning and headed for Spanish Wells.

We got up Saturday to a beautiful morning.  We’ve talked a lot about how much we are loving this lifestyle and loving all the travel and new places.  Many of you have patiently listened to us go back and forth about our plans and our future.  It changes constantly.  Saturday was a turning point for us.  We had already made the call that we were not heading south to the Exumas.  On south from there would lead to another year at least of travel.  And we made the decision that our current boat just isn’t the boat to do that much ocean travel in.  To get to the Exumas we would have left Little Harbor and traveled down to Spanish Wells which is on the north end of the Eleuthera.  From there we would jump down to the Exumas.  We decided it was too much this time.  But then we woke up Saturday and it was gorgeous and I really thought for a minute about wanting to make the run down to Spanish Wells at least.  Our friends were on their way, we could just hang there for a few days and then come back up to Little Harbor.  It was a tempting thought but we decided to just stick with our plan and not go.  Turns out it was probably good since a beautiful morning turned into a quick storm that blew threw.  We happened to be in Little Harbor exploring a cave when it hit.  It was a wet and rough dinghy ride back to the boat!

After the storm passed we headed north to Sandy Cay to snorkel.  Sandy Cay is a protected reef.  We got up there and Trawler Life was there already snorkeling…or trying to. The current and wind were so strong they recommended not putting the girls in the water.  Molly was pretty upset but there was no chance we would be able to snorkel with the water moving like it was.  So we headed a little further north and anchored at Tilloo Cay.  Tilloo is a 4 nm long cay that stretches almost to the south end of Elbow Cay.  From where we anchored we were able to see Tahiti Beach, which the girls loved.  We took the dinghy up there to play for an hour or so before sunset.  Cathy from Trawler Life snapped a picture of our boat in the sunset. 

Sunday we got up and spent a few hours playing at Tahiti Beach.  We were there when the tide went full out and it was gorgeous.  The girls spent a good half hour or more exploring hermit crab shells all over the rocks with the tide out.  They found some more conch and Ben spotted a good sized starfish. 

We went back towards the boat and Michael and Cathy were waiting for us right on the coast of Tilloo where they had been snorkeling and cruising around.  They had us follow them in close to shore where they had found some HUGE starfish.  The girls (and Ben and I!) were amazed.  Cathy and Michael just picked the starfish right up.  Molly held one.  Madelyn was a little cautious but she did touch it.  And yes we were careful and returned them gently to the water!  Turtles were everywhere zipping all over the place.  Molly was bent on snorkeling so she swam all over.   We even got to see a nurse shark swim past. 

Sunday late afternoon we were going to head north a bit and anchor in Marsh Harbor again.  We could see some rain in the distance and decided to wait it out since it was perfect where we were.  Well, we eventually decided to head that way.  Bad timing.  It got crazy gusty and Ben quickly turned around and back into our anchorage.  He got the anchor down right as huge wind gusts and some violent rain hit.  It didn’t last long but was something else.  When Ben pulled up the anchor to move us further in to a better spot the anchor picked up some sort of a cable.  Ben was able to unhook the cable thankfully and we moved into a better spot for the night.  The calm after a storm is incredible.  Water was glassy, there was a double rainbow.  Just a beautiful evening. 

It’s been a wonderful few days exploring new places and anchoring out – something we haven’t done much of.  We’re thankful as always for this experience of a lifetime.  We are watching the news right now about all of the snow at home and on the east coast and have the safety of everyone there in our thoughts.  We continue to discuss daily what our future will look like.  If we want to continue being able to live this adventure we will have to make some changes at home and with our boat.  I suppose if anything the conversation keeps us busy and is fun to think about.  Our travel wish list continues to grow.  It’s a big wonderful world out there! 

I’m behind on blogging due to lack of WiFi signal.  So I have some catching up to do!  We pulled into Hopetown a week ago Thursday, right after our visit to the school in Man-O-War.  We knew winds were moving into the area and we wanted to be in Hopetown before they started. We had friends there and knew it was a bigger town to spend a few days in.  As we pulled in Thursday Michael and Cathy from Trawler Life came over on their dinghy and told us everyone was heading down to Tahiti Beach.  It was a beautiful sunny day. The winds had already started but sunshine all day so we blew off school and hopped in the dinghy and joined them. I’m so glad we did as the next many days were impossible to even think about a beach.  The girls snorkeled with Michael and Cathy, we ate lunch on the beach, a fellow boater brought a huge watermelon and sliced it on the beach to share.  We walked way out on the gorgeously long sand bar at low tide.

So happy to see Michael and Cathy from Trawler Life again!

Michael and Cathy found so many neat things for the girls – a sea biscuit for them to keep, a live sea biscuit for them to see and hold and put back in the water, a sea cucumber and many conch shells with conch still in them.  I know they already blogged about this but it was just such a neat experience for them.

Live sea biscuit

Sea cucumber

We headed back from the beach and right to the pool at our marina.  A HEATED pool!  The first since Florida. The girls were so happy.

As predicted the winds started and some rain moved in.  The wind started in earnest Thursday and blew through Tuesday.  We were able to see all of Hopetown and had a good time, but didn’t get to spend time at the beautiful beaches here.  The girls would run down to the Atlantic side beaches, get blown around, do a cartwheel and run back up.  Friday Molly and I walked over to the famous Hopetown lighthouse.  It is the last manned kerosene lighthouse in the world.  It’s undergoing a huge restoration project and there are lighthouse keepers that keep it going every night.  The top part around the light has diamond paned windows that are in the process of being replaced. They have raised money for about half of the windows so far.  If you know me at all you know I’m TERRIFIED of heights. It gets worse and worse as I get older.  But I climbed to the top with Molly.  I had to stop and breathe after each level.

We got to the second to last flight of the windy spiral staircase where I could see all the way down. I had to stop. She went on above and was able to look out the window onto the ledge.  She told me she knew I wouldn’t want her to go out there alone so she just looked out.  So, up I went to the top level.  I couldn’t bring myself to go out on the ledge.  But there’s a walkway the whole way around.  I let Molly climb out as I held tightly to her clothes. Yes there were railings.  Yes I’m irrational. TERRIFIED of heights.  Anyway, my pictures aren’t great but they are of Molly standing in the open windows, and the view from the top on a cloudy day.  And one other that I took from a friend.

Maddy wasn’t allowed to go because of another HUGE school fit.  She’s had a very difficult past couple of weeks with everything from school to bedtime to fighting with us every time we are going to leave and go do anything (usually something she ends up enjoying).  Anyway, Ben took both girls to the top (I waited at the bottom) twice and walked all around the outside with them.  Here’s some more information if you’re curious or want to see a better picture!  http://visithopetown.com/lighthouse.html

Friday afternoon we went across the bay into town.  We walked around the damp quaint adorable streets of Hopetown and looked at the houses and shops.

We stopped at Vernon’s for a loaf of fresh bread and a key lime pie that Vernon makes daily.  We found the Hopetown Harbor Lodge and stopped for a drink. This is where Gary the Explorer works.  The girls have been watching his YouTube ecology videos about the ecosystems here in the Abacos.  I’ve been watching with them and we’ve all learned quite a bit!  Michael had also told us about Gary’s pina coladas.  So, pina coladas for us and huge strawberry daiquiris for the girls.

Saturday we went into town again and the girls played at an actual park!  A small playground with a cool tree house play area.  Madelyn was thrilled.

We met our friends at Hopetown Harbor Lodge for a great lunch.  Then we all rented golf carts to explore the island since dinghies and beaches weren’t an option in the insane wind!  We followed Michael and Cathy to the south end of the island.  We stopped to see a few different places and marinas.  The ocean was angry that day.  Here is one of the places the girls ran down to the beach and very quickly back up as the sand was pelting them from the wind.

We went to see Firefly marina, SeaSpray marina and the Abaco Inn.  Three really nice areas at that end of the island.  We ended up going back to Abaco Inn for dinner.

Sunday the girls and I went to the local Methodist church right near the water’s edge.  We attended a family service that the girls loved.  I have never seen them so excited about church.  It was led by the youth ministers.  It was very informal, involved great music, kids doing readings, etc.  They really enjoyed it, as did I.  Then back to the golf carts for lunch and more exploring.  The neighborhoods on the south end of the island are incredible.  These beachfront houses are beautiful and it was fun to explore.  And the girls always love a good golf cart ride!

Monday after school we went to see Trawler Life.  The girls LOVE to visit other boats and check them out so we took the dinghy across the bay to their mooring and visited for a bit.  And then they came to our boat to do the same.  It’s always fun to compare storage space and see what we like about other boats.

Tuesday after school (and a big meltdown from Molly this time…she has her moments too), we went back into town to check out the Hopetown school.  It’s a lot bigger than the Man-O-War school.  We didn’t go inside as it was the end of the school day but we walked around the school. The kids appear to stay for lunch here whereas in Man-O-War they went home for lunch we think.  Their lunchboxes were set up all around outside organized by grade level. We read some school announcements and found that they are in school until June 16th much like Chicago.  We also found that the classes here appear much more diverse and more what our kids are used to.

At the base of the school is a Recycling center! The only recycling we’ve seen in the Bahamas.  They collect some plastics and uncrushed aluminum cans. It all goes to help fund a children’s cause in Nassau (I can’t remember exactly what!) Better than nothing.  We loaded all of ours up before we left!

Wednesday we headed into town for Heritage Festival.  It was held in the little park the kids had been playing in.  Conch salad for lunch.  Local artists.

Local kids’ art contest

Spent some time visiting with our friends Kerry, Dan and Helayna from Igloo and then toured the Hopetown museum.  It displayed the history of Hopetown and was a walk through an old house.  This is already long so I won’t go into a lot of the history but it was fascinating to read about how Hopetown flourished when boats started wrecking right outside of the harbor.  Goods would be salvaged from the boats and sold.  This provided quite the economy until the lighthouse was installed.  It actually had a negative effect on the economy as there weren’t as many wrecked ships.  That’s just a small part of the history.

Why a Ship is called a She is pretty funny

We enjoyed looking in the rooms at the old furniture and clothes and such.

As we were pulling out of Hopetown it turns out that our friends Sonny and Phyllis from Corkscrew were at the top of the lighthouse. They saw us down below and took a great picture of the boat from above!

Have Another Day pulling out of the channel

We headed to Marsh Harbor that afternoon to anchor and take the dinghy in.  We went to visit Kellirae and Bill on Ocean Dancer. We left the dinghy, walked to the good grocery store to stock up again and then back to say hi to Sonny and Phyllis.  We’ve been anchored in various places since!  Anyone who knows us knows that’s a record.  I’ll post soon about the past few days.  This is long enough.  Hopetown was a great stop!

Jeffrey Siegel founder of Active Captain responded to a challenge on facebook to describe his hobby badly.  His response was that he fixes boats in exotic locations.  I can’t think of too many things that have resonated with me that well, it describes a large portion of what I do on the boat.  And I love it.  The mechanical aspects of the boat are a big part of what I enjoy about boating.  With some notable exceptions I enjoy tinkering and improving things on the boat.  I enjoy most of the maintenance (head systems being a notable exception) tasks on the boat and I certainly enjoy the sense of accomplishment from keeping everything running and in good shape.  As I look back at a few of the things that I’ve done on the boat since we left here’s a partial list:

• Oil change on main engines and generator, twice
• Impeller change on generator and main engines
• Oil change and spark plug change on the dinghy
• Fuel filters changed twice
• Main engine breather filters replaced
• Engine zincs changed
• Shaft zincs changed
• Seakeeper zinc changed
• Refrigerant added to salon compressor (thanks Don!)
• Crossover valving adding to allow the generator to draw and return fuel to either tank
• Four additional house batteries added
• House bank wiring redone
• Countless latches replaced (Apparently the Southco 5 & 10lb latches have about a 13 year life)
• Hacked together a deck mounted overboard discharge system as our boat lacks one
• Fiberglass repairs on the dinghy (thanks dad!)
• Resealed a window
• Recaulked many linear feet of exterior seams
• And the never ending task of waxing the boat…

We recently moved from Treasure Cay where we enjoyed the beautiful beach, nature to explore and beautiful resort to head to Marsh Harbour.  Marsh was a provisioning and maintenance stop.  We were able to get to a grocery store that looked like the grocery stores to which we’re accustomed.  I was able to get to a hardware store (twice of course), a marine store and an auto parts store.  I plumbed the necessary valves and adapters in to allow the generator to draw from either fuel tank (an important improvement to try and even out our port list.)  I was also able to perform an oil change,  change several zincs, replace breather filters and generally check out everything in the engine room.

While doing all that maintenance I looked through some of my records and came to some interesting statistics.

• Since we left Chicago we have put 350 hours on the main engines
• We have traveled 3,301 miles
• We have burned 4,783 gallons of diesel
•  We have been underway for 315 hours
• We’ve traversed 34 locks
• We’ve had 59 travelling days
• We’ve stayed in a marina 158 nights
• We’ve stayed at anchor 10 nights
• We’ve stayed on a town wall 4 nights
• Since the last time I posted one of these reviews we haven’t added any props to our propeller body count so I’m not going to talk about that any more

A few interesting notes about expense.  Thus far we’ve averaged $60.82 a night for dockage.  We’ve averaged $2.67 a gallon for diesel.  We’re spending less per night than we thought on dockage.  We’re spending about what we expected per gallon of fuel but we’ve definitely used less fuel than we were predicting.  One of the things we’ve discovered during the trip is that we are generally much happier moving slower.  Because of the design of our boat when the water gets rough we need to pick up the pace some in order to gain better stability.  That means that we’ve actually gone faster than we might like some of the time in order to try and get a more comfortable ride.

We’re currently sitting in Hope Town waiting out some 30 MPH winds before we decide whether to head south to Exumas or continue our exploring the Abacos some more before heading back to the U.S.  Either way I’m happy to know the maintenance is current and everything looks to be in good running order.

Wednesday morning we left Marsh Harbour early and got fuel and then headed to Man O War for a day or two.  We got fuel in Marsh Harbour since this was the cheapest place to get fuel in the Abacos. We wanted to fill up since we think we’ll head south to the Exumas.  Looking at the weather patterns we now wonder if we will do that after all.  To which Ben said today….we wouldn’t have filled up there if we thought we might head north instead of south…pricey fuel!  Jello plans again!  Who knows where we’ll end up.

We pulled into Man O War after traveling 6 miles.  I love that these islands are all so close together!  Man O War is the first island to have a more prosperous feel to it.  The other places we’ve been haven’t at all felt impoverished, but Man O War had a distinctly different look to the houses and the area in general.  And it is VERY VERY small!  After looking at the weather we decided we’d get there Wednesday morning and spend the day exploring so that we could head to Hopetown on Thursday instead of Friday. There was a big front with a LOT of wind moving in and we wanted to get to Hopetown before that happened.

We spent the day popping into the cute boutiques and watching the people working on boats in the boatyards around town.  Ben was impressed with the marine railroad that one of the boatyards used.  He explained to the girls how it worked to pull the boats out of the water.  We made our way down to the sail shop to watch the women sewing canvas bags of all shapes and sizes.  I did take note of the gender roles.  The men work on the boats in the big boat yards and the women sew the canvas bags.  Regardless of that, it was neat to talk to them and watch them work.  The girls love playing with and petting any cat and dog they find.  The lady in the first picture had a cat curled up sleeping on the corner of her desk.  The girls found out her name is “kitty”.

We told the girls they could each pick something out.  We had no idea the prices on these bags!  The idea is they are made from the canvas and sail materials from sail boats. There were a lot of cute patterns that were probably not sails but you get the idea.  Once we got an idea of how much the bags cost we scaled back on what they could pick from.  Cute little canvas wristlet sized bags and lots to choose from.  Madelyn has lots of trouble making decisions!  Molly got a wristlet sized canvas bag. Neither picked one with the wristlet strap.  Madelyn ended up picking one of those and a little coin purse she just HAD to have with the agreement that I put one of them away for her birthday.

There are two restaurants we had been told were good on the island. We went to one and had a nice lunch.  Then we walked up the big hill and looked around the neighborhoods some more.

Maddy took this one!

The National tree

Adorable houses, cute town buildings, pretty flowers and winding roads.  Life is simple here.  We found the Library, School and Post Office right in a row all painted in cute colors.

Library

School

Post Office

We headed back to the marina and tried to track down the fellow boater who is teaching in the local school.  We found her boat but not her.  I got up early Thursday morning to go for a walk and noticed she and her husband were in their boat so I went over and said good morning.  She talked with me for quite awhile about what she’s doing and what all she has studied with the kids.  It was really interesting.  And it had a lot of overlap with what we’ve been doing with the girls.  She did a big study with the kids on the ocean reefs.  That is one topic we haven’t covered yet so it’s on my list.  She and her husband lived on their boat and home schooled one of their sons when he was 15.  And she taught.  She asked how old the girls were and said that she taught 4th grade for  few years and it was one of her favorites.  Anyway, she was heading out on a deep sea fishing trip that day but told me that I’d be more than welcome at the school and to just drop in.  So, I walked up the hill and found the principal who also teaches one of the classes.  She said we could absolutely bring the girls by.  The girls wrote blogs posts about visiting the school so I won’t say a ton here and will just post a picture or two so I can put  the rest in their blog.  But I’ll just say that we all thoroughly enjoyed our visit.  The kids in the upper grade classroom did their science presentations on the atmosphere and solar system for us.  And it was a lot of fun to see that all the way in the Bahamas the local school looks a lot like the school classrooms in Chicago….just smaller.  And the principal was so welcoming. She teaches the 4-5th grade class and said many times that Molly was welcome to stay or come back another day and join them.  We’re hoping to go see the local school in Hopetown tomorrow and check out some similarities and differences.

A number of these islands are still largely inhabited by descendants of the original loyalist families that settled here.  In Green Turtle it was the Lowe family.  In Man O War it was the Albury family.  The Albury family built boats and if you look around the Abacos you see their name everywhere.  All of the inter-island ferries have the Albury name on them. We’ve seen a number of other boats with the Albury name. And in the 4-5th grade classroom 4 of the 8 kids had the Albury last name.

After our school visit we pulled lines and headed out for the 4 mile trek to Hopetown on Elbow Cay.  It was already incredibly windy!  We’re in Hopetown for at least 5 nights so I’ll cover all that we’ve seen and done here in my next post.

Well, we didn’t leave Treasure Cay as scheduled.  That’s kind of how things go here.  We have heard a number of boaters say that their schedule is set in Jello.  Pretty much!  We liked Treasure Cay a lot and decided to stay until Saturday.  And even then it was hard to leave!  So maybe we’ll go back.  Who knows. Jello!

During our extra days there we met up with some other loopers on Bee Haven.  Rod and Susie are wonderful.  They are welcoming and friendly. We were out in the dinghy and swung by to say hello.  They invited us on.  Joy and Jeff from Tidings of Joy were also there visiting.  We managed to figure out that we have a very similar schedule to Jeff and Joy (as much as we can plan, see above) so will hopefully travel south with them.  Rod and Susie showed us around their boat.  We LOVE their boat and were excited to take a tour.  Then Rod cracked open a coconut for the girls.  Another new experience!  He used a pry bar to remove the outer layer and then let them hold the coconut inside.  Then he drilled holes in the coconut and had the girls pour the coconut water into a glass. We all gave it a taste….even Madelyn who won’t try anything!   She didn’t like it (nor do I) but she tried it!  Then he cut the coconut open and chipped out chunks for them to try eating.  Molly liked it.  Madelyn tried it AGAIN!  Wonders never cease.  He let the girls keep the coconut. Fun new experience for them.

Rod and Susie also have a pedal kayak that the girls were so excited to try.  Rod had mentioned a couple of times that we should take it out.  Another reason to stick around!

Thursday night we went to Pizza Night at the marina.  Great pizza.  Ben bought more fresh stone crab the next morning on the dock – colossal claws, the BEST we’ve had – for less than the pizza.  Yep, that’s crazy.  We devoured the crab and had so much that we made yummy crab salads Sunday for dinner.

Friday morning we went and got cinnamon rolls again.  Couldn’t stay away!  Friday after school we went and got the pedal kayak.  Ben and Molly took a turn first and then Maddy and I took a turn.  It was some good exercise and fun to pedal around.  We saw a couple of turtles.  We returned the kayak and took the dinghy back out to explore some more.  The tide was out and the girls could hop right out of the dinghy into the sand.

This is our recess!

Also our Physical Education!

They were thrilled to run around and play in the water.  They gave snorkeling another try too.

It was a perfect Friday afternoon and looked like a postcard.  And we came back to fresh stone crab again for dinner!

I have to remind myself this is real!

Saturday we planned to leave around 2:30 or 3 pm so that we would be entering Marsh Harbour on a rising tide.  The tide moves about 40 minutes each day and has been on a tough schedule for travel recently…7 AM/7 PM, 7:40 AM/7:40 PM, etc.  Anyway, that gave us the morning to play before we left.  The girls grabbed their scooters and I put on my running shoes and the three of us headed out.  We saw some of the beautiful waterfront neighborhoods in Treasure Cay and burned off some energy.  Then we threw our suits on and went to the beach.  I warned them they only had an hour. It took forever to get Madelyn out the door and then once there was impossible to get her to leave!  That sand is just so amazing.

I don’t blame her. Molly swam.  Maddy played in the sand.  I listened to a good live band and sat on the beach reading my book.  We headed back to the boat a little before 3 and headed out of Treasure Cay.  It was my favorite stop in the Bahamas so far.

We pulled into Marsh Harbour around 5 pm.  Got docked and showered and went to walk up to the restaurant we heard was good and it was closed.  It being a bigger town there are a number of places to choose from and we found one close by.  We had hoped to be able to see the Junkanoo festival here.  But turns out the parade we were hoping to see started quite late Saturday night and would have involved a cab or long walk with the girls.  Didn’t seem like the smartest choice.  Molly was upset to miss it.  It would have been a neat cultural experience.

We came to Marsh Harbour for a lot of provisioning before we head further south.  Sunday morning we walked to the big grocery store here.  I’ve mentioned previously what a nightmare shopping with the girls is.  Well this time we were all so happy to see an actual grocery store that it was all good!  We loaded up on cantaloupe, strawberries, apples, bananas, mangoes, limes, sweet potatoes, asparagus, romaine, carrots, and lots more.  All that fruit has been hard to come by!  Monday Ben headed to the hardware store and marine store.  Both of which he had lists for.  Back to the hardware store today.  He has changed the oil on the engines and the generator, worked on one of the air conditioners and installed something so that the generator can draw fuel from either tank (you’ll have to ask him specifics – I stick to palm trees and beaches and school).

We are in a big harbor here that has a few marinas all next to each other.  But there is no beach close by and the pool is pretty chilly.  There is a great snorkeling reef around the other side of the bay we are in but we haven’t taken the dinghy down.  So, instead, when we’ve been on the boat we’ve gone on a puzzle kick!  The girls did a 300 piece and a 400 piece and now we’re working together on a 1500 piece.

Yesterday after school we walked to a local fish store and stocked up on some fish and then stopped in a few cute boutiques.  I’m sure there is more to discover and see here but we were largely here for a boat maintenance and shopping stopover.  Our friends on Ocean Dancer pulled in Sunday and Dealer’s Choice today so we’ve been able to visit with them as well.  Brian from Dealer’s Choice has given all of us a lot of local knowledge on routes south to the Exumas and has patiently sat with us looking over charts and showing us where to go.  He’s been coming here for years and we thank him so much for all his help!

Today there was a very tiny farmer’s market in the courtyard at the marina here.  A jams/jellies/pickles table, a fresh greens table and a sweets table.  Yum all around. We got some dill hamburger chips from the pickled table.  Grabbed more cucumbers and tomatoes and loaded up on sweets. Madelyn got a donut and the rest of us chocolate chip scones and grabbed a slice of cheese and guava Danish.  It was incredible.

Tomorrow we are heading to Man O War Cay for two nights.  It’s a small sleepy little island that is known for its sail shop and boat building.  We can go to the sail shop and watch the women in the back sewing canvas bags and other items.  And there are a couple of boat builders that we hope to be able to watch as well.  Susie from Bee Haven told us about a lady that lives on her boat at the marina who teaches at the local school. She is currently teaching ecology.  We’re hoping to meet her as we’ve been learning lots about the ocean ecology and animals.  It would be really cool if we could stop in the local school.  Stay tuned!  Then Friday we will go to Hopetown we think for 5 nights…jello.  Our friends from Trawler Life, Michael and Cathy, are there.  We haven’t seen them since Chattanooga and are so excited to meet up with them again. You may recall that months ago Michael taught the girls how to fish!  There is also a local there named Gary the Explorer (YouTube him!) that Cathy told us about.  We have been watching his videos and have learned a lot about the ecosystems down here.  We can’t wait to meet him.  Michael and Cathy told him about the girls today.  After Hopetown we plan to head south to Little Harbor and then on to Spanish Wells and the Exumas.  We think….

And just to keep it real, yesterday both girls had separate meltdowns during school. The usual.  Math for Molly and Writing for Maddy.  Fun times.  But again…get through that nonsense and then get off the boat in paradise.  We’ll take it.

As Ben said in his post, we are a week away from 6 months on the water.  That’s CRAZY!  It has flown by.  Absolutely flown.  And I think here we are, enjoying the Bahamas, hard to believe we have come this far.  Then I think back to all we’ve seen.  Our first week we took the girls to St. Louis to see the Arch.  They are collecting magnets and those were their very first magnets on their magnet boards.  Their boards are filling up now.  And for a long time their favorite place was Green Turtle Bay in Grand Rivers, KY.  We got to see Nashville and Chattanooga and those were both awesome.  Those seem like a lifetime ago and yet it was just a few short months ago.  And so many more places along the way before we made it all the way south.  All of them were special places with special memories.  Wonderful visits with friends and family, great discoveries, new experiences for the girls and for us, and countless new friendships made.

Way back when their hair was still dark!

We ended up in Great Guana Cay for an extra day.  Sunday morning brought high winds and one look out at the Sea of Abaco and the wind and we weren’t going anywhere.  So glad we didn’t!  Slowly but surely one boat after another came flying into the marina and out of the wind.  By Sunday late morning 3 boats that we left West End with had joined us.  We left Green Turtle before they did and it was great to see them again.  We also met a few new people there that spend time here every year and were full of advice for routes and places to go.  We welcome all of it!  Monday morning the winds had died down and it was time to go. But first, time with friends.  Bill and Kellirae from Ocean Dancer came and hung out on the boat for a bit to visit. They are hoping to go diving and Ben would love to go with them since he needs a buddy to dive with.  Sonny and Phyllis from Corkscrew were right next to us. The girls LOVE their dog Marena.  We spent some time on their boat Sunday playing with her and visiting with them and Monday morning Phyllis came out and asked if the girls could come over again before we left for Treasure Cay.  As soon as they finished their school work they hopped on over.  Phyllis makes jewelry.  She uses their second bedroom as a bead and jewelry room. The girls made jewelry with her and had such an amazing time.  Their jewelry is beautiful!  They want to blog about it though so I’ll save the pictures for them to post.  Molly also asked Phyllis lots of questions about jewelry making so we’ll post those answers as well. 

After saying goodbye to everyone we moved along.  We just had to go 10 miles across the Sea of Abaco to the other side.  Treasure Cay is on the mainland of Great Abaco island.  I’m reminded every time we travel somewhere new that I don’t like the way the ocean rolls.  It was sunny and beautiful and no matter what, the ocean has swells and rolls.  Even for 10 miles.  But we pulled into the well marked channel and this marina is tucked way back behind the island on an inside channel.  Such a nice change.  Our last two marinas have had no protection and we’ve had a lot of strong winds (it’s winter after all).  Finally we are somewhere that’s mostly quiet and still.  We planned to stay two days, which has now turned into four again because of a front that moved in this afternoon.  Treasure Cay has one of the top beaches in the world.  I said to Ben today that this is what I picture when I think of the Bahamas.  We’ve seen quite a few neat little towns, exposed the girls to new cultures, seen new things and all has been great….but this is like a postcard. 

Monday afternoon we walked to town (which is 10 steps from the marina) and checked out the grocery store. Each little town the stores have gotten a little bigger.  We are on the mainland now so we should be able to get better produce and selection.  We’ve learned that the store has different things each day.  Monday bananas looked decent, romaine horrible and disgusting.  Cucumbers have been fine everywhere we’ve gone.  Tuesday bananas completely gone from store.  Shelves stocked with new romaine.  Bell peppers still wrinkly. But got more cucumbers and made a big cucumber salad.  Also grabbed romaine – we had run out a few days ago and I like having fresh produce on hand.  Today the bananas were back and Ben bought a bunch.  But all the romaine was gone…so weird!  Tuesday we also walked into the bakery and a couple of other little shops.  We promised the girls we’d come back for cinnamon rolls and ice cream.  We walked over and checked out the beach.  It’s as beautiful as we had been told. 

Tuesday after school we hopped in the dinghy.  We chatted Monday night with a fellow looper who has been here awhile.  He told us some places to explore to find loads of turtles and rays.  It was a cloudy and windy day.  We ducked into a little cove.  Ben saw a couple of turtles but the rest of us missed them.  But we stopped so the kids could look in the water.  Sea cucumbers, starfish, one big ray…plenty to see.  The girls didn’t want to get in the water.  It was chillier than they have become used to so instead they snorkeled over the side of the dinghy.  Ridiculous but it worked!  We got chilly and headed back to the marina. We walked to the bakery and they were OUT of cinnamon rolls!  NO!  Molly and I had been waiting all day.  She settled for a huge blueberry muffin instead and Maddy got Junkanoo ice cream (Superman in the US).  Another trip to the store and back to the boat for Taco Tuesday. 

Maddy being lowered into the water

Molly lowering herself into the water

Today was one of my favorite days!  The girls and I were up shortly after 7 and by 8 we were at the bakery along with a lot of other people.  The cinnamon rolls were well worth the wait.  SO good.  I ate half and saved the other half for Ben.  The girls each polished an entire one off. They did eat half and eat the rest a couple of hours later. 

As soon as we were done eating we ran down to the beach.  I love being out in the morning.  The water is so calm and peaceful as is everything else.  The breeze was a bit cool since it was early so the kids opted for clothes instead of suits.  I should have known better.  Two hours later, every inch of clothes covered in sand we headed back to change to suits.  I was able to run/walk on the beach while they built a castle in the amazing powdered sugar sand. 

Then I got them to walk down the beach with me because I spotted another mom with two girls down the beach.  We went and talked to them for a bit.  They come down every year for a week or so and she gave me some good tips.  One tip was where to find sand dollars!  I’ve been waiting to find one!  One of my favorite memories from childhood vacations is walking on the beach collecting sand dollars.  They are so beautiful.  On our way back down the beach I spotted a ray in the water very close to the beach.  Then Molly spotted a crab lying on the beach.  She touched it and it was still alive and had washed up.  She ran back and got shovel to try to scoop it up.  I eventually scooped it up with a lot of sand and carefully put it back in the water.  We watched for a bit to make sure it didn’t wash up again. 

This ray was so close to the beach!

Anyway, back to the boat, swapped our sandy clothes for swim suits and headed back.  We took Ben with us.  There were storms forecasted for this afternoon through tomorrow morning.  Can’t waste the good weather sitting on the boat!  We went back to the beach at low tide, i.e. sand dollar time!  We walked a least a mile and a half down the beach.  Tide was out and we could walk way out in the water.  Ben spotted the first sand dollar!  Yay!  And then after he found that one we found tons of little baby ones.  The lady we met on the beach explained that if they are brown and on top of each other they are still alive but if they are white they are dead and ok to take. 

Molly also found a starfish in the water and the girls took turns touching it. And then Ben found one washed up on the beach.  The girls touched it and moved it around.  We are pretty sure it was no longer alive but Maddy insisted on putting it back in the water anyway.  Back to the sand – the girls made chairs in the sand and covered every inch of their bodies in sand! 

All of this exploring fit so perfectly into our ocean habitats and animals unit.  We did school when we got back to the boat.  The girls grabbed a laptop and did some research on Starfish and will look up Sand Dollars tomorrow.  They learned that starfish eat by having their stomach come out through their mouth to get food.  Yuck.  Anyway, they were giggly and excited about that. 

Storms moved in tonight.  Currently we are sitting without power.  The whole island appears to be out, as is all WiFi so no blog posting tonight. This happened last week during winds as well.  Not much we can do but wait and turn the generator on if we need it.  It’s quiet now but more rain is expected. May be a rainy boat day tomorrow but hopefully just for the morning. We will likely move onto Marsh Harbor Friday.  Update – it’s sunny and beautiful and this morning and the power was only out for about an hour.  So school and then more exploring! 

Random closing thought.  I blog about what we see and do on our trip.  But it’s not all beaches and exploring and swimming.  It’s also boring daily life.  I get up with the girls in the morning.  I make breakfast and we make lunch and dinner most days on the boat.  We ate out a lot in FL, not so much here.  I have been craving a good meal out.  A lot of food here is fried and overpriced and we can eat better on the boat and it’s simpler, so we do.  I do a LOT of dishes.  Dishes all the time.  I do laundry.  We clean all the time. I clean inside. Ben cleans outside.  The girls help – Molly more than Maddy.  The boat breeds dust everywhere.  We are constantly cleaning floors and picking up toys and trying to find places for everything.  A friend commented last week that he loves that we are always in swimming suits in pictures.  I replied back that I don’t much take pictures or blog about time spent on the boat.  But we do all the everyday life chores as well.  Every day!  And then we get to go outside and experience the amazing beauty of where we are.  It’s a balance we’re happy to take! 

A little time for puzzling

The girls enjoy seeing the different money

We’ve been gone for nine days shy of six months.  This has been the trip of a lifetime.  Many mornings I wake up and marvel at the fact that we have made it this far.  We’ve traveled 3,242 miles.  We’ve traversed 34 locks.  We’ve covered almost countless rivers, lakes, canals, the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic Ocean and several seas.  Oh, and we’ve touched bottom three times, had to be towed off once and damaged four props.  When we arrived in St. Petersburg Laura and I turned to each other and both marveled at the fact we’d made it that far.  Since then it’s just gotten harder to believe that we are where are and doing what we are doing.

We are aware of how fortunate we are to be here.  We try hard to help the girls realize how fortunate they are as well but I worry constantly about our success in that department.  That said, we have been able to be quite successful in providing the girls with the experiences we thought would make the trip worthwhile.  As Molly’s fourth grade class began studying the civil war we found ourselves in the midst of civil war battlefields.  More recently as part of the first grade curriculum Maddy started studying habitats.  We are currently floating in one heck of a habitat.  We’ve seen cows swimming in flooded rivers, fall in the Tennessee Valley gorge, Taylor Swift’s recording studio, dolphins jumping in our wake, houses built on stilts, the biggest cruise ships in the world, sea turtles, sharks, eagle rays, the bluest, clearest water you can imagine, six toed cats, Molly throwing swords and so many hundreds and hundreds of things I can’t list.

I spent a while circling the boat in the dinghy trying to find better depth

Precisely!

A little unsure…

Piglet!

And that water!

Can you tell Ben has the food?

Now we find ourselves in the Bahamas hopping from cay (pronounced key) to cay each with their own beauty and charm.  Today we arrived at Treasure Cay with one of the most impressive beaches I’ve ever seen.  The sand couldn’t be softer or finer.  The water off the beach is a beautiful blue-green.  We travel from one postcard to another.

Laura and I have spent a lot of time thinking about what’s next for us.  Do we continue travelling south?  Do we go to Eleuthera? The Exumas?  We’ve had a few occasions recently to be reminded of the limitations of our boat.  It is a tremendous amount of living space for us.   It’s also relatively efficient for a boat of its size.  What it’s not is a great sea boat.  It’s not comfortable in rough conditions and it doesn’t inspire confidence.  We’ve talked about travelling further south into the Caribbean but with our current boat both Laura and I don’t feel like that’s likely to be a great idea.  We’ve thought about looking at different boats and I think it’s likely when we get back to Florida that we will do some looking.  We’ve made a lot of improvements to this boat and it would be difficult to not be able to benefit from all those changes.  So, if we are going to make a change we need something that is clearly a better boat for us and for the cruising we hope to be able to do.  That’s likely not an easy task.

For now we will just continue our cruise through paradise enjoying our time here and soaking up the experiences and beauty.

I left off Valentine’s Day morning with my last post.  That afternoon the girls baked brownies and then cut them out in heart shapes, frosted them and decorated with red sprinkles. They also made Valentines for the boaters we met in West End that traveled to Green Turtle with us.  They had so much fun delivering the Valentines.  And such a sweet surprise, later that afternoon KellieRae from Ocean Dancer brought them a Valentine with chocolates for all of us in it and the next day Carol from Freedom brought them a Valentine with bracelets in it.  We’ve met such wonderful people on this journey!

Hard at work

Finished product

Wednesday and Thursday brought some INSANE winds through Green Turtle Cay.  Wednesday after school we tried to go into town on the dinghy.  We made it halfway up the channel and turned back.  I took the girls to the beach and pool instead.

The beach the day before the wind…

Cool sea urchin and tree roots on the beach

After an hour and a half of the intense wind blowing off the water I insisted we head back to the pool on the other side of the bluff and out of the wind.  Thursday was much of the same only the wind came from the opposite direction.  So, we rented a golf cart instead and headed into town.

Cute houses on the way into town

We had lunch at the Wrecking Tree.  Amazing cracked conch!  Then we walked around town a bit and then stopped for a drink at Miss Emily’s Blue Bee Bar, home of the Goombay Smash (rum punch).  The girls left one of our boat cards on the wall!

Yum!

Boat card on the wall!

Friday morning the winds were gone and the day was beautiful.  We headed out along with quite a few other boats.  We stopped at No Name Cay to visit the pigs!

Welcome to Piggyville!

That view!

And that water!

What an incredible experience.  I kept my distance but it was very cool.  We brought them food and played on the beach a bit.  The water felt great, and was so clear that the girls had fun watching all the fish darting around where we were standing.  Everyone but me took the opportunity to pet a pig.  We just started a unit on Habitats and Animals so this fit right in!  The girls are keeping notes on the various plants and animals we study.

Piglet!

Piglet!

Can you tell Ben has the food?

After about an hour playing at No Name we took the dinghy back to the boat and finished the trip to Great Guana Cay. This required us to go through Whale Cay cut – a passage out from the Sea of Abaco into the Atlantic.  The Sea of Abaco shoals in with sand here and boats have to go out and around Whale Cay and then back in.  The actual cut is only about 2 miles long but it can be an experience.  The water only swells side to side because of the narrow opening between two islands so even if the water on either end of the cut is calm it can be a mess in there. Thankfully we scooted on through with some slightly uncomfortable swells and nothing worse.  We pulled into Great Guana Cay and enjoyed another beautiful afternoon.  Right when we pulled in we met another family who is from Telluride and currently traveling on their sailboat.  They have a 6 year old girl and 10 year old boy and a sweet dog.  They were spending the day with friends who also have kids but are not on a boat but doing an extended stay here right now. We walked into town here, stopped in a couple of little shops and the local grocery store and walked down to Grabbers, a local restaurant and bar on the beach.  We had a drink while the girls played in the sand and in the hammocks.

Island life suits Ben!

This morning I took a long walk and determined that we saw most of what there was to see in Great Guana yesterday!  But the other famous place here is a bar and restaurant called Nippers.  It is on a bluff facing the Atlantic Ocean side of the island. We put our suits on and grabbed the beach bag and headed that way for lunch.  The ocean and beach on that side of the island were amazingly beautiful.  And the turquoise water crashing over the rocks was pretty spectacular.  The girls spent ages climbing the dunes and running down them.

They made it down the hill faster than we did!

Those specks up there are the girls

A rare picture of both of us

We had lunch and they played in the pool a bit and then headed back to the beach.

Nothing like being able to eat barefoot in the sand!

They also wanted to stop at Grabbers again to play in the hammocks so we did that as well.  When we got back to the marina a ton of boats had arrived.  It was practically empty here yesterday and today it’s almost full.  We went to say hello to some boaters that we have been traveling with that came here today.  We also went to introduce ourselves to two other families that we met over the radio pulling out of Green Turtle yesterday.  They are from Maine and take their kids out of school for two months in the winter.  They keep their boat in Florida, home school and travel for two months and then head back north.  One family has 6 and 9 year old girls as well and the other has a 7 year old girl and 10 year old boy. They were traveling with a third boat that had grandparents (the boat owners) and their son, daughter in law and granddaughter (also 7ish I think) on board with them.  We’ve found that in the Bahamas there are kids everywhere. We have noted that they are ALL on sailboats, not motor like us, but it’s refreshing to see so many families. We didn’t encounter too many kids on boats in the US so it’s been fun to see so many here.  Random side note on the marina – we spotted a nurse shark swimming around under the boats and Ben and Molly saw an Eagle ray tonight as well.

People ask me and ask the girls all the time about school.  What did you learn today?  What program are you using?  What are you teaching?  And on and on.  I’ve met teachers who I’ve had great conversations with.  I’ve met a TON of people who home schooled their own kids and are great to talk to as well.  And now I’m meeting a lot of other parents that are home schooling.

We’re still trucking along with Engage NY for math for both and continuing to work on reading daily with Maddy.  Molly and I read novels together and we’ve started including Maddy in that.  She loves to listen and both girls can certainly answer questions about what we read at their own levels.

We do Science together.  We just finished a Solids, Liquids and Gases unit that both enjoyed.  And this week we started looking at Habitats and Animals. Not surprisingly the girls chose to study the Ocean habitat first.  The learning opportunities are endless.  A friend sent me a YouTube link about some island guy named Gary the Explorer that we will possibly get to meet in Hopetown.  I clicked on it the other day as a little brain break for them and low and behold he makes a ton of videos about ecosystems in the Bahamas!  We ended up watching a 15 minute video all about the sea grass here.  The girls (and I!) learned that the sea grass is why the water here is so CLEAR.  It acts as a filter and pulls everything out of the water, leaving the crystal clear waters.

Wednesday while playing on the beach they found a rope swing.  We just finished reading Bridge to Terabithia and the girls spent a half hour swinging on the rope pretending they were swinging across the gully over to Terabithia.  They took turns pretending to be the different characters in the book and played until I told them it was time to move along.

Yesterday we stopped and saw the wild pigs.  What an opportunity for my city kids.  It goes on and on.  So, oceans for now. And when we head up the east coast we’ll get back into the Civil War and social studies.  I am trying to let where we are and what we are doing guide what we study for school.  And just so it doesn’t sound like I’m painting a life is rosy and perfect picture, I’ll let everyone know that in 5 1/2 months Madelyn has not gotten any less stubborn.  She still fights me on writing every single day.   And she has ups and downs on school in general.  Thursday she was impossible. Friday she came into it deciding to just do her work and we flew through it.  She loves how good it feels when we have a good day and yet at times we can’t reason with her when she’s choosing to be impossible!  It’s an adventure.  One I’m thrilled to be on.

Tomorrow we think we will head 10 miles to Treasure Cay.  We’ll decide in the morning.  Maybe we’ll stay here another day.  Treasure Cay has 3.5 miles of one of the top beaches in the world.  And a friend told us about some river that has turtles that we’ll try to find.  Stay tuned!

So much exploring to be done.  It will be a week tomorrow that we crossed over to the Bahamas.  We spent 4 nights in West End at Old Bahama Bay waiting out winds. The resort had kayaks, paddle boards and bikes all just there and available to use.  Thursday after we finished school the girls were so excited to kayak. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera out on the kayak with us.  The water was so clear and they both did a great job helping to paddle.  We spent the rest of the day at the pool and playing on the shuffleboard, chess and checkers courts.  Fresh conch salad for lunch by the pool.  Fresh stone crab for dinner that Ben bought from someone selling it on the dock.  He also bought a conch shell.  It’s huge and pretty and SO SO LOUD!

Friday after school Ben got the girls’ bikes down and we grabbed bikes from the hotel.  We rode out of the resort and around one of the housing developments next door.  We all love the colors of the houses.  It’s so bright and cheery.  We think Chicago homes would be prettier painted these colors.

On the advice of others at the marina we rode past all the houses and hopped off to walk down to the beach to collect sea glass.

Maddy wanted to bring the entire beach home.  We rode on a little further through a development that never happened.  Beautiful roads, brick sidewalks, fire hydrants, street lamps, a club house, golf course….and then nothing.  Road ends in this circle drive with not a single house ever built.  I commented it’s so interesting to me…most places in the US the lots would be sold and the houses built long before the roads and sidewalks were put in.  We ditched our bikes at the end of the road and walked down to the beach again, this time for shells.  The tide was way out and it was a beautiful day on this side of the island.

West End was hit by Hurricane Matthew last October.  Ben rode into town to the store Saturday afternoon and saw just how destroyed it still is.  So sad that it is so hard to recover for many of these smaller countries.  As it is many places in the US as well.  The marina and hotel barely got hit however were under water for 3 days.  The power has been restored to the hotel and marina offices but the marina phones don’t work and there is no power to the slips.  This meant a huge discount on docking but for them is sad and a real problem.  Ben talked to the owner a few times.  They are hoping to have every power pedestal pulled and replaced and back up and running by April 1st.  Ben doesn’t think that will happen.

I don’t think I got any pictures of it but the entire time we were in West End there was a sailboat stuck aground in the bay.  We watched for four days as they tried to get the boat unstuck.  No luck.  On day four the owner gave up, gave the boat to a local and flew home.  As the tide would change we would watch the boat lie almost completely on its side and then the next day lean the other way.  They were not in a recommended anchorage, but even so, it was a quick reminder of just how fast the tides change here and how shallow the water can be. Boating here is beautiful and yet stressful all the same for Ben.

We pulled out Sunday morning with a group of 4 power boats and 4 sailboats to head through Indian Rock channel.  A dicey passage that had good depth at high tide but has currents that can pull you to the side and into the rocks. We followed a large catamaran who has been sailing here for years and knew the way.  Once through, the sail boats put up sails and dropped off to the right of us and the power boats motored ahead to Great Sale Cay.  Beautiful day on the water and beautiful anchorage.  The water while getting there was like glass and at 20 feet deep we could see the bottom while standing up on the fly bridge.  Ben saw turtles and sting rays while driving. Other boats saw dolphins and sharks, we missed them unfortunately!  Once anchored and settled Ben got down the dinghy and we cruised around.  Before cruising he got the water maker running.  It has added to our boat clutter but is great to be able to pull in the salt water, purify it and fill the water tanks without relying on a marina.

Making water

Once in the dinghy we saw starfish and sponges under water.  I can’t say enough how incredibly clear the water is.  We had a great dinner, watched an amazing sunset and looked at the stars.  And then we went to bed as the winds shifted and so began a night of not sleeping. Yikes.  At one point I got up b/c I was convinced we were blowing away.  Not so much.  All boats were still anchored where we started and there was hardly a ripple.  It’s a mystery why on earth it was so loud.  But we didn’t sleep.  We talked to the other boats the next morning and most had the same issue.  Thankfully the girls slept through it.  We set out early because we were all up.

Starfish

We’ve seen a lot of abandoned boats like this

Sunset

Our group broke up a little yesterday and headed different places.  We and two other boats came to Green Turtle Cay. We had planned to make one or two other stops along the way but with winds moving in last night and then again tomorrow we decided to just come here and stay put until Friday.  We started slow to save fuel and then Ben picked up pace the last 20 miles to get in at higher tide.  Seeing the boats come in after us he was happy he did that.  Boy does the tide drop fast and a lot.  We are at Bluff House Beach Resort and Marina for four nights.  As frequently happens we pulled in, others came to help.  A couple of people saw our Loop flag and asked if we are doing the loop.  Ben handed them a boat card and we got the “We know you – you have Molly and Madelyn”.  Yes we do.  Funny how many people know who we are when we arrive because of the girls. They went on to tell the girls they have been following them.  It’s good motivation for them to keep writing!

Docking is always an adventure.  This time our boat backs up to the dock and we have a ladder we have to climb up.  This morning at high tide it’s quite manageable.  Last night was a bit crazy. Ben basically lifts and pushes the girls up.  It’s a very vertical ladder on the side of the dock and requires being quite careful. Yesterday we went into town with the dinghy and walked around a bit.  We will head back today or tomorrow to hopefully check a few of the sites out.  We visited two of the tiny grocery stores last night (picked up brownie mix because the girls asked to make a Valentine’s Day treat) and saw some more colorful houses.  We decided the turquoise and pink one was our favorite.  We also walked past the post office and library.  We had dinner back at the hotel restaurant.  The rum punch here means business.  Tasty stuff!

Library

Post Office and Customs Office

Today is Valentine’s Day.  The girls are lamenting not being able to exchange cards with friends.  But they got up this morning and were happy to see a few treats waiting for them and then they made us lovely cards with really sweet notes about taking them on this trip.  We managed to make it to see second cousins for Halloween and saw all our family at Christmastime so this is the first holiday they have been affected by not being with kids.  But we think they’ll do alright.  We made Swedish pancakes with all the fixings for a special breakfast and are having stone crab again for dinner.  They have a heart shaped cookie cutter and we have red sprinkles left over from Christmas cookies so we’re going to make brownies and cut them into heart shapes later.

Swedish pancakes!

Valentine’s selfie

We’re here until Friday and then moving along.  Next on the list are Treasure Cay, Great Guana Cay, Marsh Harbour and Hopetown to finish out our tour of the Abacos Islands.