We've slowed our pace a lot, tending to spend two days in a place instead of moving every day, and not going very far, either. We were in Hawksbill Cay where we walked endless beaches without seeing anyone. We found ruins of "homes" built in 1785 by British Loyalist who fled to the Bahamas from the US. We also did our last boat repair job! The patch on the dinghy which attaches it to the big boat when we are moving was coming unglued. We brought a pile of tools, glue, rags and solvents to the beach where we could work on it out of the water. We re-glued it and then rigged a come-along to hold it in place for 24 hours while it dried. So hopefully this fix will last forever, our last boat repair project.
We found our way over to Warderick Wells Cay, the beautiful headquarters for the Exuma Land and Sea Park, where we picked up a mooring. A little hiking, some snorkeling, meeting with new friends at the whale skeleton on the beach rounded up the day. No photos posted because internet is really expensive here and is charged out by the megabyte. Our first try at it used up our share in about 15 minutes. We are more careful now.
We checked out the scuba equipment on board - figured out our weights and dove under the boat, cutting off a line that had wrapped on the shaft of the propeller. The water is beautifully clear and we could see lots of fish around a sunken sailboat hull nearby.
We've also done a bit of volunteering on the island. The park will give us a free day of mooring worth $15 for every day we work. Our friend Andy has been hauling rocks in a wheelbarrow from a pile and replacing a seawall. This is real work! Sally and I painted some moorings and signs and then teamed up with Andy to start the process of securing two huge fuel tanks on a nearby island. It seems the hurricanes come along every so often and just wash them away if they aren't cabled down, so they hired three professional tank types (that would be us!) to take apart the old cables and affix them to the new tanks. Except the wind came up and we can't get back on the island until it slackens.
It's been real wind, 15 to 30 knots from the NE, enough to move us around in this sheltered spot all night. AND, it went down to 69 degrees last night, the first time it's been below 70 since north Florida. The wind is supposed to slacken off tomorrow, so we'll probably move on Monday. Capt. Jeff
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