Ahoy there!

We're now in the third week of January and we've certainly slipped into Island Time.

If it wasn't for the fact that we have a daily tear off calendar (actually we have two courtesy of Father Christmas. Sharon has a Bad Cats and Andrew has Dilbert) and Sharon keeps a daily journal we wouldn't have a clue what day of the week it was!

Life in The Abacos has been fairly relaxed since last we wrote. Roger left us on the 8th January with an eventful journey from Marsh Harbour to Gatwick via Miami , Orlando and Charlotte. And his luggage was with him for at least some of the time! We intended to stay in Marsh Harbour for a week to do some boat tasks and are still here! It's the lure of the bright lights that keeps us!  

Well that and the weather.

The weather in North Bahamas is much better than at home. We usually have 70-75f, blue skies 5 days out of 6 and a passing shower once a week. But then we have the cold fronts. These arrive having started their journey in Canada and fortunately usually are warmed by the Gulf Stream by the time they get here. The unfortunate bit is that they hit the warm southerly trade winds, have a punch up and produce strong winds. Sometimes they are not too bad – we have a stalled front at the moment producing easterly winds of about 15/20 knots. And then there was last weekend. A very large and very strong front covered most of the eastern coast of the USA and some of Europe .

We had warnings of it coming down and it was due to hit us on Friday night. We battened everything down, set the anchor drag alarm and had an early night. Sleep was difficult with the anticipation. At about 4.30 a.m. a pre-frontal thunderstorm hit and we rushed round putting all small electronic equipment in the microwave and computers in the oven. The anchor slid and reset very quickly as the wind changed direction but we felt uncomfortable so we reset in the dark, 25 knot winds and driving rain (it's not all Tropical Turtle cocktails & dolphins out here!) After that the anchor held beautifully. We were now waiting for the front which came through at 8.20 a.m. with winds shifting to the north and settling at a steady 35-40 knots (force 8) with the occasional 45 knot thrown in.

The boat in front of us dragged when the front came through and they were obviously unprepared. As they got nearer the captain leapt on deck and started hauling his anchor and yelling instructions to his wife on the helm. He performed the whole operation naked!   The day passed with no let up in the wind but quite a lot of entertainment as we watched boats move around the anchorage. It was the dog owners we felt sorry for as they had to take their dogs for ‘ walkies '. Being in a dinghy is not fun in that weather and all the owners came back soaked but the dogs looked like they were having a whale of a time! On occasions the wind was so strong that even at anchor in the sheltered harbour we had waves breaking over the bow and hitting the cockpit. Saturday evening had shown no let up so we spent the night on two hour anchor watches.

By Sunday morning we were very tired! Andrew fell asleep at the table – his head missing his cornflake bowl by a matter of inches! By lunchtime the wind had relented to 25 knots and the sun was out! Sunday we had a very early night and slept like logs!

Since then we have had a series of fronts giving us fairly breezy weather so with nowhere better to go we have stayed put. We have done some general maintenance on the boat and have had a reasonable social life with lots of boats coming and going. In fact quite a lot of liming* has been going on!.

On Thursday one of the cruisers organised a trip to a local Neem farm. Being free it attracted a lot of boaters!   We were taken there in the back of pick up trucks and Bahamian roads are not good! Neem trees are native to India and were introduced here about 15 years ago as they don't need a lot of fertile soil to grow. All parts of the tree are used to produce a range of treatments – mainly with antiseptic and healing properties. After doing some seed planting in the nursery we went to see the factory and shop. We were interested in the healing properties as we are finding that cuts are taking longer to heal and so more likely to scar – we think that this is due to the increased U.V. We haven't had any major problems but we thought we would give it ago.

So what's next? The beginning of February will see us back in Florida for 2-3 weeks as Matt, Jude, Ryan & Sarah are on holiday and we all want to meet up. It will also give us a chance to stock up on wine boxes which seemed to vanish with our last guest!   This will probably be our last e-mail from The Bahamas but in Florida we will be back to having access on the boat. It would be really nice to have some e-mails waiting for us! We will then come back to The Bahamas, possibly by-passing The Abacos and heading for Nassau and The Exumas .

The Exumas are even more isolated than The Abacos and although we will be getting WiFi capability there may be long gaps in communications. We are hoping to have guests at Easter – if flights can be arranged and then off we move. But where? Well a funny thing has happened since last we wrote. Remember we said we were coming back to Europe ? Well one of the reasons was that while in the U.S money seemed to go from our bank account at an alarming rate and we knew that if we were in Europe we could pick up work. But since we've been here we're not spending. Partly because we had stocked up so much on boat spares and maintenance items and partly because there is nothing to spend money on (apart from rum!) So we had a rethink.

Sailing in Europe we can do at anytime once we're home, either on holidays or another ‘time out' but now at the top of the Caribbean it seems a waste not to explore more. A caveat to all this will be our insurance company who we have yet to contact. And no doubt come the end of April there will be another mad dash to get below the hurricane area – usually Trinidad & Tobago or Grenada . But we will let you know!

Well enough rambling – it's warm & sunny outside and we feel a barbecue coming on!

Warm regards

Sharon & Andrew 

* liming – socialising; hanging out; just being in a group. How any Caribbean aspires to spend their time!