Saturday, February 7 – Friday, February 13 – This week has been very fun. On Saturday, all of the families rented cars. We went in a van with Blue Heeler. We went to a cave and a few other boring places, then went to Dean’s Blue Hole, one of the deepest blue holes in the world. We met up with Tiki Tour, Zimovia and Another Summer there.
The people who rented the cars brought them to us at Tiny’s
Cette semaine était très amusante. Samedi, toutes les familles ont loué des voitures. Nous sommes allés dans un van avec Blue Heeler. Nous sommes allés à une grotte et d’autres endroits ennuyants, puis nous sommes allés à Dean’s Blue Hole, un des blue hole les plus profond en monde. On y a vu Tiki Tour, Zimovia et Another Summer.
The moon was not full anymore, but still shone vividly at dawn on Thursday, March 5
We’d arranged to meet two of the families at Thunderball Grotto at 0900, which was slack high tide. We were leery about getting in and out of the cave at high tide, but they assured us that it would not be a problem and said they thought it was better to go when there was no current.
We left Kosmos at 8:40, figuring it would take us 20-minutes to get there. But even though it was supposed to be nearly slack tide, the current was strong and our little 3 hp electric motor struggled. For a portion of the time, we were only going a little over one knot. It took 40-minutes to get there. Eric was frustrated. He’s been contemplating switching to a fast gas motor for the last few months, and he announced that this was the last straw – he was buying a new motor. When we got to the cave, we could barely see the entrance. We don’t think we would have been able to find it at all had we not been there before.
As our friends had assured us, getting in was not difficult. Here was a selfie with a view of the entrance from the inside.
We did our usual routine of school and chores in the morning, then puttered around the boat in the afternoon. We met Traveler and Driftwood at The Yacht Club for drinks at 1715. They told us that the salvaged sailboat had been sold! The new owners, who they said looked like teens, had moved it to the anchorage. At 1800, the rest of the party arrived and we all went over to Lorraine’s High Tide for dinner.
On Monday, March 2, the sunrise was blocked by a cloud.
In the morning, it was very windy with on-and-off drizzle. We went to shore for bread and groceries. These birds usually moved as a flock and had an interesting wing pattern. Christi has been trying to get a photo of them flying. She’s never been successful at catching the flock at the right angle to see the pattern, but she finally caught one with its wings open so you can kind of see the pattern.
Thanks to the full moon, it was an extra-low tide, and we were surprised to see there were a lot of conch shells along the part of the shore that was normally underwater.
It was still calm in the morning. We’d never put out the flopper stoppers, put on the window covers or got the dinghy down, so we had very little to do to get ready to go this morning. We pulled up anchor about 0630. It was a smooth passage to Blackpoint. We had a current with us and made amazing time, arriving at 1245.
Our friends on Algonquin and a Nordhavn 50 called Grey Goose were in the anchorage. Keith and Eric met them onshore. Christi stayed aboard to attend an online meeting.
They went to Lorraine’s on the road for lunch. Lorraine’s directed them to go to High Tide (the Lorraine’s on the waterfront) instead. After 30-minutes, the server still hadn’t taken their drink orders yet, so they left and went next door to the Yacht Club, instead. Eric had a nice time talking Nordhavns, but Keith was bored. After lunch, they headed back to Kosmos. Eric and Keith did stop by Lorraine’s mom’s for bread on both the way in and the way out, but she wasn’t home either time.
We’ll take a moment to share our opinions: we think the three restaurants in Blackpoint are all very comparable in terms of price, menu selection and quality of food. That said, we’ve decided that the Yacht Club was the overall best restaurant. We thought Lorraine’s had the best food, in part because she cooked the food to order, but the service was the slowest of the three, in part because she cooked food to order. Deshamon’s and Lorraine’s were inconsistent with hours. Emerald Sunset had stable hours and good service, but it was also the most expensive and the food was mediocre. The Yacht Club was reliable, with consistent hours, food, service and middle of the road prices. The biggest downside of the Yacht Club was that cats lived on the premises and sometimes the cat smell was quite strong — and for Christi, that was a big negative.
Christi hadn’t been on dry land since Wednesday and was anxious to go to shore. She and Eric headed to shore as soon as her meeting ended. Here were some of the birds watching them as they approached the dock.
