Sunrise on Friday, January 16

As soon as we all woke up, Eric said he’d had a bad night wanted to move to a less stressful location. It was high tide, and since the tide would be going down, we needed to move ASAP. We quickly got the dinghy up and the boat ready to go. The snubber had gotten twisted again, and Eric noticed that it was beginning to fray at the base. We pulled up anchor at 0730. We had a hard time getting the anchor properly seated in place on the bow. The anchor swivel was getting worse. Eric thinks it’s likely getting because there was sand in it. Lubricating it was still on the to-do list. 

There was a solid one-knot of current in the narrow, shallow pass. Worried about how the autopilot would perform, Eric hand steered us through the narrow spots. Even though the tide was falling, he felt safe because we were following the same track out that we’d taken in, and he knew it was deep enough at that moment. 

We went to Blackpoint, which took about 2.5 hours. It was rolly in the anchorage, so we put the out the port flopper stopper right away. The wind was forecast to calm down and change directions soon, and when it did, the anchorage would be calm. After we arrived, Eric took a long nap. At about 1415, we got the dinghy down and went to shore. As predicted, the waves in the anchorage had slowly but steadily calmed down, and by the time we headed to shore, conditions were pleasant. 

We docked at the public dinghy dock. In addition to a couple of sharks, we also saw a turtle. We had lunch at the Lorraine’s by the road. While Keith was pretty much over his cold, he wasn’t feeling particularly energetic. He also had a mild residual cough.

As we were leaving, we stopped by Lorraine’s mom’s house to buy some bread. She said she was baking a batch now and to come back at 1700. We stopped by the grocery store and picked up a few items, including refrigerated items. Eric dropped Christi and Keith off at the boat so they could put away the groceries, and he went back to shore to pick up the bread. When he arrived, she’d just pulled it out of the oven and it was still hot. We had a mellow evening onboard.

On Saturday, Eric made us French toast for breakfast with the awesome coconut bread. Bogumilia had pulled into the anchorage, and we arranged to meet them for lunch at Emerald Sunset at 1500. The supply ship was in port and had basically blocked the dinghy dock, so we docked at Lorraine’s and walked over to Emerald. We asked about the buffet, and they said it was already closed for the day. Because it had been a while since the supply ship had last been in port, and today’s food delivery had yet to be unloaded, they were low on many key menu items: no burgers, no fries, no lettuce. Most of us didn’t get exactly what we’d wanted. But, despite the disappointing meal, we had a nice visit.

Before heading back to shore, we swung by the public dock to drop off the trash. We couldn’t get over how crowded it was. It looked like the entire town was waiting for items to be offloaded from the boat.

In the evening there was no sunset; the cloud cover was too thick to see anything at all. We had another quiet night aboard.

On Sunday, Christi woke up sick. Just like Keith had, she started the day with a 101 degree fever, had a sore throat, a headache and was feeling achy. She rested all day. And just like Keith, by late afternoon the fever was gone and by bed time she was pretty well over it.

Since Christi wasn’t up for cooking, Eric and Keith went to Deshamon’s for lunch. We can’t remember if we’ve mentioned this before or not, but Dehamon’s only opened for lunch when they had a tour group scheduled, and they only offered the buffet at lunch time. A tour group happened to be there, so they were open. The buffet was $30 per person and included two types of chicken wings, salad, banana bread, coleslaw, ribs, a dish with chicken thighs, conch fingers, rice, fried shrimp, mixed veggies, and fried fish. Eric said the food was good and it was excellent value for the money; that he ate more than he’s ever eaten at a restaurant in the Bahamas. Keith did not like the food and didn’t eat much. Other than the outing for lunch, Eric and Keith laid low onboard all day.