Friday, April 4, continued — A little bit north of where we were anchored was a line of small bungalows along the shore. We were told that they were restaurants, and most were only open for dinner. One of the cruisers went to check, and was told that the restaurants opened at 1730. Just about all the families agreed to meet onshore for dinner. At 1730, we were the first in a long line of dinghies that pulled up onshore.
However, there was only one restaurant open, a sandwich shop that looked like it was open all day. The sandwich shop was overwhelmed by the number of people and simply could not serve everyone.
The sandwich shop had creative chairs.
Those who couldn’t get food waited for more restaurants to open. The kids played and the parents talked.
Thursday, April 3 — In the morning, Eric hitched a ride with two other cruisers Taylor and Brenda, to make a bakery run. They dinghied 1/2 mile north to a road, then walked another mile to Alnor’s Bake shop. Here were some photos from the walk.
Looking back at the anchorage from where they landed the dinghy. Yes, those are two Nordhavns off to the right. They landed the dinghies near a cemetaryContinue reading →
On Wednesday morning, as predicted, the wind picked up and moved to the southeast, but the anchorage was still comfortable and it was pleasant to be onboard. This was just before sunrise.
The nice thing about the cooler water was that it slowed down the growth on the bottom and waterline (compared to the warmer waters in Panama), but it still needed to be regularly done. Eric donned a full wetsuit and did water line with our battery operated waterproof scrubber tool.
We normally put our dinghy up in inclement weather because a plethora of things could go wrong. Since our dinghy was light weight, it could easily flip in the bigger, choppy waves. Lines could fray or loosen, and then the dinghy could float away. Or, the waves could push the dinghy up against Kosmos, causing damage to the dinghy and/or to Kosmos. This week, there had been at least seven announcements on the radio that dinghies had blown away. Some were recovered by fellow cruisers or locals; some were just gone.
Today’s forecast was still very windy with a chance of scattered showers. But we were so tired of being uncomfortable onboard that we decided it was worth the risk to get the dinghy down. When we went out on the deck, we were surprised at how salty it was. Our guess was the waves have stirred up a lot of salty moisture that has settled onboard.
Getting the dinghy down in the heavy winds used to be tough when it was only Eric and Christi. But now that Keith is a full fledged crew member, having his third set of hands makes it relatively easy, even in the wind.
We decided to try a new place for lunch, called The Coconut Club, located a little farther north up Stocking Island in an area called Monument (red dot on the map below). The ratings all said it had a great ambience, but the food was expensive and mediocre, and the service was slow. Truth be told, every place we’d eaten at in the Bahamas has been expensive with slow service, and, while the food at most of the places has been good, we hadn’t had anything fantastic as of yet. We figured it was worth a try.
We were delighted to see that our friends from Baja, Oceananigans, were anchored near the restaurant. On the way to the restaurant, we stopped by and asked if they want to join us. They said they had guests coming and the majority of the crew needed to stay onboard to get the boat ready for guests, but one of the crew Ryan, would come with the two younger kids.
When we woke up on Tuesday, March 25, we saw that the storm had not hit yet. It was an unusual dawn, with the colors darker than normal.
Eric checked the forecast; the storm was still on its way, and now it was supposed to be even bigger than what had been predicted yesterday. The barge was still there, too. On the radio net, someone said the barge was waiting for a tow boat to come rescue them.
It was the hottest and most humid day that we’ve had in the Bahamas. It was so hot that we broke down and turned on the AC – it was the first time that we’d run it since arriving in the Bahamas.
Eric was still hesitant to turn the Zeus back on. He decided to only turn the power on, and didn’t run it. The first thing it did was demand a software update in order to operate.
