Day 209, Friday, January 17th, 2014

Day 209, Friday, Jan. 17^th

Today we are heading south again.  The winds are from the north and we are anxious to be on the move.  We decide to head back to Black point for a night to be able to access internet, do laundry,  and buy some boxed milk (nothing fresh and sometime boxed UHT not even available).  It is another cloudy day.  No rain, but very dark and gloomy.  Our new friends are also heading south,  some to Black Point and others to Staniel Cay.  It has been nice finding some camaraderie to enjoy snorkelling and hiking together.   We had that luxury on the Erie Canal/down to the Chesapeake, and again in the Abacos of meeting great people and developing wonderful friendships, but had not yet found some fellow sailors since Nassau.  We are always on the lookout for our previous sailing buddies, but we seem to be moving at a faster pace than most of the boats we had chummed with.  There are a few boats that we came down the Erie Canal with that have now landed in the Bahamas and we will hopefully cross paths with them soon.  Having taken the Atlantic crossing from Hampton, we did in 6 days, what many boats have taken 2 months to do.  We are very happy we had the ocean passage experience.  We were tired of all the hopping along.

The sail to Black Point is wonderful.  It is a bit gloomy as there are clouds overhead, but the wind speed and direction make for a comfortable sail.  We tuck in to the north shore as the overnight winds are coming northwest to north and the anchorage is open from the west.  There are not as many boats here now as last week.  Kozo that we met in Eleuthra is anchored behind us so we pop over to say hello.  (They are from Aussie and brought the boat over from Turkey so have lots of stories to tell).  It is Friday so we head in to town to try to buy some data time from Bahatel for our ipad.  No luck the office is closed again.  The door says open 9-4, but no one is there.  Julie stops in at Scorpio Bar to enquire and the bartender thinks they are only open Tues. and Thurs. mornings.  You would think the sign would say that...... Oh well.

Windward

We do the typical, laundry, groceries, internet and cruiser happy hour and are back on the boat by 6:00 and head over for dinner on Windward.  We are bringing a spinach salad which is a treat as typically it is difficult to get salad making stuff, let alone keep it in the fridge from spoiling.  The grocers today had lots of fresh stuff.  We even bought some grapes.  No idea what they cost, but they are good so a nice treat.  We have a lovely evening with Lynn and Ian and are back on our boat quite tired by 10:00.  A very late evening for us. As Lynn says from Windward.  9:00 is boaters midnight, so technically a very late night for us.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson