Day 229, Thursday Feb 6,

Day 229, Thursday Feb 6, 

Today Marcene is leaving.   A boat named Hoodwinked is picking her up at our boat and she is sharing a taxi with grandma to the airport.  In our dinghy we may get wet which would be no fun for the trip home.  We follow them in to the docks with our guitar which Marcene has agreed to return to Sudbury for us.  We were not using it and it was taking up too much space. 

Marcene cab

Our new motor is working well so it is a quick dry ride with just the 2 of us in the dinghy.  We are at the docks at the same time as Marcene so can do a proper good-bye.  Julie sure has enjoyed some girl time.  After the cab has departed we head up to immigration to get our visas extended.  We were only granted a 90 day stay and it expires in a couple of days.  It has been a bit of a struggle getting our paperwork as we were told by customs when we entered the country that we could get an extension anytime at an immigration office.  Well there are not many immigration offices in the country.  We walked to the Marsh Harbour airport immigration to be told we had to go to the Marsh Harbour government offices, so we walked a couple miles there to be told we were too early.  We could only get extended the week before we expire.  So then we plan on being in Georgetown the first part of Feb. to be told we can only get extended 2 to 3 days ahead.  So we are back again after having been at this office on Tuesday.  The immigration officers look at us like we are being a pain in the butt, and inform us the approving officer is not there, but we could leave our passports and paperwork and they will call us when our extensions are ready.  We decide to go for lunch and check back in a couple of hours.  We don’t like leaving our passports. 

Dawson, Julie, Gwen and Guiomme

We have a lovely lunch at Exuma Yacht club overlooking the surrounding bays.  We have internet which is nice for the hour.  Back at immigration, our paperwork is all signed off and we are approved for another 120 days.  Thank goodness, otherwise we would have had to vacate the country in the next 5 days.

We pop into the grocers to grab a few things then head to the mothership.  We look around for Slow Waltz, as we saw from their Delorme website that they are on their way to Georgetown today and we are anxious to see our buddy boat from Delaware Bay and Cape May and the Hudson River.  No sign of them, so we head to shore for some volleyball, but are quickly grabbed to play a couple hands of bridge.  We have brought the hand held radio with us though and abandon the bridge game as soon as we see that Slow Waltz is anchored.  Soon we are regaling each other with adventure stories over a beer at the Chat and Chill.

We headed back to the boat as Windward and Slow Waltz were joining us for dinner. 

Cheers

Julie and Dawson