Friday March 25 - Monday March 28:  Easter Weekend

     We slept in on Friday - no surprise there! - and spent much of the day cleaning, organizing, and stowing.  We had brought with us a lot of prepackaged food and many things for the boat, and we were happy to spend a leisurely day dealing with it all.  We also needed to re-acclimate to the warm, humid weather.  Tommie was constantly underfoot; she was not going to let us out of her sight.   After we cleaned up all the hair she left for us, Dan instituted a new policy - combing the cat several times a day.  I think we get a kitten’s worth of hair out of her every day.  

     If you have been following along, you will know our 4th crew-member, Ziggy the Auto-Pilot.  Well, Ziggy was known and named for his erratic courses.  Our cruising friend Ivan from Wisp in the Wind tried to help correct Ziggy’s wrongs, but to no avail, so on his suggestion, while we were in Maine we found a rudder angle indicator to match our Ray-Marine auto helm.  Upon arrival back in Georgetown Dan installed the new component and on our first trial coming across Elizabeth Harbor it worked great. It may even steer close to a good as Wisp in the Wind’s auto helm.  Thanks for the suggestion Ivan.  We shan’t be embarrassed by our Ziggy anymore.

     Also while in Maine, we went on-line and obtained a proper Ship Radio Station License (required internationally) and international MMSI number.  MMSI is akin to a vessel phone number, for private calls between vessels at sea.  This is part of the digital selective calling system, DSC.  As well as having the MMSI, our VHF radio is coupled with our Global Positioning System, GPS, so, in essence, our radio knows where we are at all times.  The other purpose DSC plays is in the event of emergency, at the press of a button on our VHF radio we can send out a distress call, an SOS or MayDay, and our position, name, and MMSI will pop up on other participating boat’s or ship’s GPS Plotter, right on their chart, and other vessels’ SOS will show up on our plotter as well.

     Long story short, we are just a little more prepared than we were a few weeks ago, and hope, other than Ziggy, that we never have to use any of those emergency systems. 

     Saturday we went to town.  This is Easter weekend, and George Town is very observant of this holiday.  Everything was shut down yesterday for Good Friday and will be closed for both Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, but Holy Saturday is a normal business day.  I spent time in the laundromat while Dan filled water and fuel jugs, and we did a good grocery run before we took the Wille back across the harbor.  Our spot off Volleyball beach was taken so we moved over to Honeymoon beach.  We went for a quick swim to cool off, had a nice hot shower from the solar-powered shower bag, and hopped back into the dinghy to meet Frank and Rose of Local Knowledge for dinner on the beach at Chat ’n’ Chill.  We feel like we owe them more than food for looking after Tommie and the boat the whole time we were gone, but they just wanted a meal at Chat ’n’ Chill as payment.  How lucky are we to have such good friends?  We had a good time with them, enjoying our take-out and watching the sun go down.

It just doesn't get much prettier than this!

     Sunday morning we went back over to Volleyball beach for the last service of Beach church.  There were more people in attendance than they’d seen all winter which was made for a great community, but we did miss having a choir and choir director.  

      We had the day to ourselves and decided to take the dinghy up to the Northern end of Stocking Island for some snorkeling.  We found an excellent coral bed and saw lots of fish and many large snails.  The water is now a steady eighty degrees, but we still wore our wetsuits.  We could stay in almost twice as long that way, and had a great time exploring that area.  

        This weekend was also the Junior Regatta for the Bahamian dinghies.  The race was across the harbor, and difficult to get photos of, but we did manage to capture a couple of the kids as they sailed their boat through our anchorage before the races began.  Some money from the George Town Regatta goes to support this sail club, which gives local kids a great chance to learn how to sail.  The Junior Races are a big deal in town - they set up a tent and have live music and food, and many folks from town and from the boats come to the harbor to watch and cheer.  

     Monday we met a fellow New Englander, Mark from Gloucester single-handing his ketch Gingernut.  It turned out we had many friends in common, and we spent several hours and lunch listening to his tales.  Fun to hear a Massachusetts accent.  Small world.

     After lunch we dinghied around the corner to the blue hole we’d explored previously.  We’d heard there was a second blue hole in the same lagoon and though we snorkeled for close to an hour, we didn’t find any evidence of it.  We did find lots of fish, though, and some giant, ugly sea slugs munching their way through the algae on the bottom.  I wish I had an underwater camera to better show the sights below the surface, but for now, stock internet photos will have to do.  

Blue tang.  These can be various shades of blue, usually darker than this picture.

     Tomorrow we’re planning to head off farther South.  We will probably be out of cell/internet range, so don’t be surprised if it’s awhile before there’s a new blog posting.  We will keep writing them, though, so that when we get near a cell tower, we’ll be ready to go with a posting.