Continued… When Christi and Keith returned to the dinghy dock, they saw that Kosmopolitan wasn’t there. They walked out to the southwest edge of the marina to watch for Eric’s arrival. Looking north, we could see the marina, the little shallow bay next to it, and the sea wall that separates them. The marina was clearly a dredged portion of the little bay.

Looking south, we could see that the beach on between Xuma’s and this point was lined with chairs.

There was a fish cleaning station at the end, and just as in Staniel Cay, there were sharks hanging out directly below the station, waiting to be fed.

We were starting to get worried, when we finally spotted Eric popping out from behind the strip of land that created the bay. Because of the waves and wind being against him, the dinghy was moving really slowly.

Eric was shocked when, not too far from the breakwater, he watched the battery charge drop from 40% to 7% in an instant. Kosmopolitan was tied up on the dinghy dock right at noon. The restaurant was a covered patio with stunning views. They gave Christi a complimentary glass of champagne for Mother’s Day.

The food was great, though pricey with small portions. We ordered a tomato salad and ceviche. It wasn’t Mexican ceviche, though, it was Polynesian poisson cru, marinaded in coconut milk. Christi and Eric loved it. It brought back many happy memories of our time in the South Pacific. Later, we found out one of the chefs was from New Zealand, and he was the one who put the Polynesian style ceviche on the menu.

We also ordered tacos, which reminded us of our Costa Baja tacos — gourmet, delicious, small and expensive at $11.70 per taco (including tax and tip). We agreed these tacos were a significantly better value than the mediocre tasting — and even smaller — tacos that we’d gotten at The Coconut Club.

From the deck, we had a lovely view of the channel into the marina. We watched a conga line of large boats come in. It was a narrow channel, which required navigating between two rocks (and uncomfortably close to the southern rock), then make a hairpin turn shortly after passing the rocks. Tricky entries seem to be common in the Bahamas.

Since our lunch was leisurely, we’d expected the solar panels to have charged the battery to at least 25%. When we returned to the dinghy, Eric was shocked to see that the battery had only charged to 17%. So we wiped down the solar panels really good in order to remove any salt or dirt was may be inhibiting charging, then lounged onshore for a little while as we waited for the battery to charge a little more.

At 19%, Eric determined we had enough charge to get back, especially because now the wind/current would be pushing us into Kosmos. All went fine with the return. 

Immediately upon return to Kosmos, we put down one of the flopper stoppers. As a side note, we forgot to mention that one of the upgrades that Eric did after the Sea of Cortez trip was to get beefier flopper stoppers. The more robust units have been working great so far.

The flopper stopper helped a lot with dampening the motion, but it was still uncomfortable. Our attitude was “Oh well, it’s just for one night.” But, much to our dismay, when we checked the latest forecast, it had changed. A storm was coming that would bring lumpy seas. It would be a much more comfortable ride if we waited to leave until Tuesday. Since it was too late to move today, we planned to move to someplace more comfortable tomorrow. The sunset was completely blocked by low atmospheric clouds, but we did get a little bit of color in the sky.

 The full moon lit up the night sky — even when covered by clouds!