Hi-5 Sailcat - Our Next Family Adventure...

2012-02-14/17 - in Black Point

We left Lee stocking in the company of Whistling Cay. They were still 'threatening' to leave, but we were glad they stuck around for another day. It was a brief 3 hours on the outside. No fish caught, a little bumpy, but we all had a nice time on the outside anyway. When we pulled in, we were delighted to see the family on Allego. We had met them several times at Emerald Bay and Connor really liked the company of their two boys Tristan and Samuel. They are a French speaking family from Quebec, but do really well with their English! Connor had thought he had said goodbye to them a couple of weeks ago, but that's how it is with cruising. You never really say goodbye...only see you later. Another great surprise was Isla Bonita. They were also in the anchorage beside us. We had left them a month ago (or so) near Little Farmers Cay. They have 2 children, and when we left, Connor was again a little saddened. So, as it goes....never say 'goodbye'! We were all back together again. We headed straight for the settlement. I really like this place. It's small but you can instantly feel the community togetherness. There are a couple of very small grocery stores, a couple of family restaurants, a government clinic, an all ages school, etc. We found ourselves hitting the happy hour at a little bar called Scorpios. A lot of the cruisers gather and take advantage of the free wifi.. I had mentioned iphone issues in the past, but I thought I would also check here if there was anyone who could help me out with repairing the phone. I asked Lorraine, the owner of Lorraines cafe. She boldly stated, 'David would fix it. He was just here.'. She promptly found him in town and I gave him my sickly phone. So, we headed back to the dinghy dock and, coming up the way, was Germal....the fellow we met who works at compass cay marina. He immediately recognized us and gave the boys a great welcome. I mentioned my phone is with David and he said, "David, yes, he is great. I give all of my phone problems to him". The next few days we went to town, said hello to those we have met and gathered with other cruisers for happy hour....aka wifi with beer. My phone was, sadly, broken bit David hooked us up with the phone guy at Batelco (who was also at happy hour), and he ran through some options for us. He is now another recognizable face in the settlement. I could get used to this place. Wifi, free water at the town spigot, laundry, and the company of great people, and a fabulous blow hole that is within a short hike from town. But, we are moving on, I think. We are heading to Staniel Cay, and up the Exuma chain to the Abacos. More pics will be posted when I get my computer working. The battery is completely gone......I love technology! Oh, whistling cay finally said there good-byes. We will miss them as they make their way back to Alaska!

2012-02-13 - to Twin Beaches, Lee Stocking lsland

marking our trail along the way

Dylan's new beach 'ride'

Dylan checks out a small low-tide cave......

It's still blowing here. We ended up moving over closer to shore to the 'twin beach' area. It was a very nice spot with better protection. We did our regular school morning and then headed over to anchor there. There was only one other boat anchored but, by the end, there were 8-10 boats anchored. Connor and I hiked to the other side of the island by ourselves. This is the Exuma Sound side which is very exposed and rough. There were rock faces to climb up and paths that were very close to the crashing waves. They sad thing about these beaches is there are lots of floating debris such as bottles, shoes, and various other light plastics that end up there. We searched again for sea beans. We found only two in the beach where we landed and thought, for sure, there would be some on the rough side. The only thing we found were roll-on balls (another strange thing beach combers collect) and a Christmas ornament. One thing that we figured out is Dylan loves the tube on the beach. This is great for walking with him as we do beach walks. He was very comfortable. We checked out some low-tide caves a well - he loved that!

2012-02-12 - in Lee Stocking Island

The wind had clocked around and was now coming from the north making the anchorage more calm. It was welcome as a few days on a rocking boat can get a little 'old'. We quickly caught up on school work this morning and ended up being done before the rest of the other boats. Connor and I tried paddle boarding for the first time. Kerry jumped in the dingy after a while and pulled Connor and then both Connor and Hoku from Makana on the paddle board. Then Nathan, from Whistling Cay, joined in and then dragged Hoku, Connor and Lily on the paddle board. They were having a blast trying to stand up, all together, on the board - falling off, pushing each other off....just being goofy. Even Dylan got a chance on the paddle board. He loved it until we got a splash over the front of the board. It turned out to be a great water sport day and all kids were exhausted at the end.

2012-02-11 - in Lee Stocking Island

Well, as it turned out Whistling Cay decided to hang out at Lee Stocking to wait out the cold front and accompanying winds. This was great news and Connor was thrilled. Despite the fact that the anchorage was very windy and wavy, Kerry and Connor went with Whistling Cay and Makana to go snorkeling in the morning. They saw many Queen Trigger fish (my personal favourite) and Parrot fish. In the evening everyone headed to Makana for a get together.

2012-02-10 - catch up

'catchin' the big one!'

Smile for the camera....and then, on you go!

lovely Wendy from Scooter.....

Daniel from Dream Weaver and Connor make a dollar on their carnival set-up using coconuts for bowling balls and beer bottles for pins! Daniel was pumped!!

Without internet it has been a bit difficult to keep up on pics etc. Here a few more to complete our GT experience.

2012-02-10 - to Lee Stocking Island, Exumas

last day of fun at Emerald. The kids played for so long in the pool that their hands 'pruned'! great day

Well, we are finally at a turn around and are officially heading home. We arrived in George Town at the beginning of January. We had Roxy and Robert visit which was great. Then, a week later, Kevin and Pat came for nice visit. We left George Town a few times, once to Conception Island and Long Island but never really far and always returning to George Town. To keep things interesting in George Town (so we feel like we were moving around), we moved to different anchorages to have a different view, different perspective. Connor enjoyed the company of other children and we met new friends and reaqainted ourselves with friends we met along the way. It was also nice to have a regular school schedule and catch up on necessary lessons. But, now we face north as most boaters here must do at this time in the season. There are several boats that we have travelled with that also have children that we hope to meet up with soon. I am looking forward to having new experiences again. We intend to go up the Exuma chain again hitting some of the sites we missed and revisiting some that we loved. I also am look forward to getting home and seeing family again!

So, here we are at Emerald Bay Marina....getting the last of the laundry done, checking email and making a few calls that will be difficult to do in the next few weeks. Our trusted phone that was bringing in email on the water, sadly is not working....but has been replaced with a phone that send and receive calls -a little bit of a trade-off! Kerry was also busy this morning looking at marinas in Florida that Hi-5 will call home for the rest of the season. We are considering several locations from the Keys to Stuart.

Home....here we come!

.......I will update again once we have internet.....stay tuned :)

...later in the day.....We finally left Emerald Bay for Lee stocking Island in company with Whistling Cay. Makana and another boat Cookie Monster were following closely behind. At Lee Stocking Island there is a marine research station but we are not sure who they are and what they are doing. We later learned that there is a woman who is the caretaker of the facility while there is no research being conducted, but she is 'off-island' right now. As we entered the cut to Lee Stocking we ended up catching a fish, finally. We identified it as an Almaco Jack and we were thankful to have a bit of fresh food on board. We ended up taking all of the kids (ours and Whistling Cay) in our dinghy to a small beach just south of the anchorage. It was beautiful and we found a very large sea cucumber that we could touch. Connor, however, didn't take us up on that experience and declined the offer to touch it. Later, we went to Whistling Cay in the evening. The kids watched a movie and we said our good-byes. They are soon heading back to Florida so that they can store their boat and head back to Alaska for the salmon fishing season.

Dylan checks out the sea cucumber!

Connor decideds to pass on touching the sea cucumber this time....

2012-02-05 - in George Town

We went over to beach church this morning Dylan loves the singing and I was meeting Wendy from Scooter to hand over some Canadian money to her. She and her husband Peter are heading to Cuba and were in the market for some Canadian money as American isn't as 'welcome'. Dylan was especially vocal today and I had to walk him away several times. Hunter, the speaker for the day, assured us that Dylan's lovely chatter was so welcome. Several other members came over after the service and said that they were glad to hear a childs voice. Once grey haired gentleman stated that he loves the voices of children....it makes him smile! So, sing away Dylan...sing!

We later headed to the boat to do a quick tidy and Connor stayed behind to play with the local boy, Delino. When we returned, we did a bit more weaving on the beach and tried to get into the George Town way of life (It's ok but, I really can't imagine a whole season of this). Everyday seems to be the same. You either like it or you don't! We, need to move on!

Dylan like the musicians that gathered and jammed on the beach, though.... :)

2012-02-04 - in George Town

We made a date with the girls from Cee Jem on the beach for this morning. We haven't seen a lot of them since we crossed over to the Bahamas back in December. Connor had a great time with them running through the palm forest behind the beach and climbing the steep hills. I, unfortunately, had two long trips across the harbour to get our phone figured out. We had such a good spot at Sand Dollar beach that I didn't want to move the boat over to the town side to avoid the waves in the harbour. First, Dylan went with me. It was't bad going over...but, on the way back he was laughing the whole way. I was pounding trough the waves, making him bounce repeatedly in his chair. Doi-boyz was trying to fix the phone, but needed more time. I had to brave the harbour once more....waiting until the sun was low in the sky. I had to leave it one more time as he couldn't get it to work.

2012-02-03 - in George Town

This morning I had promised Connor that we would do only basket art for school today. We haven't set aside time during regular school for art so he was so looking forward to it. He has started several baskets but has yet to finish one. This morning, he worked on a small one to hold his ipod. It looks great and he seemed really proud of his work. School has been going really well since we have stopped and had time to catch up. It's great that the other boats are also keen at doing school in the morning which keeps the focus on the work and not the kids playing outside on the beach. The one thing that I love about teaching is 'tricking' them into school. When Connor complains about doing school in the morning, I love saying, 'Hey do you want to play this game with me, instead?"...He turns into a receptive little boy not knowing that we are secretly learning math concepts...or pulling out a coral book and talking about all the types of coral we have seen. What are Zooxanthellae and how Cigueterrra poisoning (the one you get from eating barracouda) works? After all that Connor will say, "we didn't do a lot of school today!" and finishes his statement off with a, "Yeah!" I smile quitely and say, 'Yes, too bad. Tomorrow we will catch up!' ;)

2012-02-02 - in George Town, Exuma

We needed to head into town today. I was having trouble with our iphone that brings us the internet and, should we need it...the ability to send and recieve calls. There is a shop in town that looked like it might do the job...called Doi-Boyz. We took the big boat over to town as we would have gotten soaked again crossing the harbour (which, as you might imagine, is getting a big 'old'). We popped over to Whistling Cay to let them know what we were doing. Connor admitted to the kids on the boat, that he preferred to hang out with them instead of going to town with us. We launched the kayak and he paddled his way between the big boats. We anchored by town. Kerry drove Dylan and I to town and he continued on to do a garbage run and fill our water tanks. There is only one dumpster in town that we are able to deposit trash into - you have to go to the government dock area and carry trash to it. I headed over to Doi-boyz to see if they could help out. I soon found out that the guy who actually does the phone work doesn't get in until 5 or 6, which isn't great when your car is a dingy and you need to make your way through the dark. So, we will check again tomorrow to see if he is available. fingers crossed!

Today is Nathan's birthday (on Whistling Cay). He made a cake with the kids and invited us all over for cake. We also invited the kids from Dream Weaver (Daniel and Pace). They all had a great time with each other. Tomorrow, Wendy (the mom from Whistling Cay) comes home which, I am sure, Nathan is looking forward to to give him a break.

2012-02-01 - in George Town, Great Exuma

Last night we took a mooring ball next to Chat 'n Chill to get away from the waves in the harbour. It was a great break to not being bounced around. We heard on the 'net' this morning of other boaters intending on going to Cuba. They were gathering on one of the boats in the morning to have a look at charts and discuss each others plans. The other boat "Scooter" had decided to go that route as well on their way to the Mediterranean. After the discussion Kerry made a captains decision and decided not to go to Cuba. Apparently, you can't stay on your boat in the marina because it is too buggy forcing you to rent a car, drive and stay elsewhere. You can't leave your boat also at anchor or leave your dinghy in the water. Well, this is what some have been saying, so it isn't looking like it would be a good choice for us. Scooter wanted charts, etc, and we had a full set, so we forwarded all we had (charts, guide book, courtesy flag) to them. They were thrilled as it would have been difficult to obtain all those items from the Bahamas. Anyway, I am glad that we have finally decided on Cuba. We can now plan our route home.

2012-01-30 - back to George Town, Great Exuma

We made our way back to George Town today. Nathan, on Whistling Cay, caught an African Pompano on the way into the harbour. It was an amazing and very large fish. He was kind enough to share his catch. We brought everything else and had a great time on their boat this evening.

2012-01-29 - in Emerald Bay

2012-01-28 - in Emerald Bay Marina

2012-01-25 - to Emerald Bay Marina, Great Exuma

We headed up to Emerald Bay again to recharge our batteries, do wash, catch up on Internet, etc. It's such a great stop-over. It was great for Kevin and Pat to get all their wash done, before heading home as well. We ended up spending 4 nights here. It's surprising, however, how busy we were while we where there. It seemed I was running off in the direction of the washers or being with the kids in the TV room, while we I caught up on emails. We needed he last day just to 'relax' - at least a bit.

There were lots of kids as well in the age range of Connor which was fantastic. At times, we had all of the children on our boat playing - a little chaotic, but it looked as if they were having a great time. Girls and boys teamed up together and apart - playing something that we couldn't quite figure out, but it involved lots of giggles and screams. Great fun!

We have joined up with another boat called Whistling Cay. The mom, Wendy, had to head back to the USA for a family event, leaving the father in charge of 3 kids ages 3 to 8 and one very cute Labrador retriever, Rocky. We ended up paying admission to a local pool in the condominiums next to us. They played for hours in the fresh water and reluctantly finished their play when the sun had set.

We are leaving for George Town tomorrow to plan the next leg of our trip. We are also considering Cuba and have all necessary charts and flags for it. We will see.