Sunday January 30, 2011

Up early again today. The first order of business is to locate the cause of he leak in the dingy. I put the foot pump and patch kit into the dingy. I bailed out the water that had leaked into the dingy during the night. Once most of the water was bailed out of the dingy, I headed to the beach. I looked for a nice sandy beach to make the repair. I let out most of the air, removed the “Joe” motor and oars. I took out the floor boards and place all of the dingy stuff on a picnic table on the beach. I was able to locate the cause of he leak. The dingy was leaking from the transom. There are two screws below the water line that hold the wooden transom to the PVC. The wood must have shrunk and the screws rusted. This seemed to be the spot were water was getting into the dingy.

I borrowed some marine caulking from Jim and Ellie and plugged the leak. I let the caulking dry for about an hour. It was then time to get ready to go to church.

I could not find a Catholic Church on the island. The only church that I could find was an Anglican Church. I decided that God would not care that it was and Anglican Church or not so I got ready to attend the 11AM service.

I put on clean shorts and a golf shirt. Jumped into the dingy and headed to church. It is funny I scouted out the location of the church with my boating buddies on Saturday. We toured the island on a golf cart. I was headed to New Plymouth in a dingy and everything looked different. I finally found the church. I docked the dingy and walked up to the front door. The door was locked! How could a church be locked on Sunday. I was shocked. I walked around the village and found a church of God that was conducting a service. I walked in quietly. They was singing. The kids were using there arms to act out the song. It reminded me of how the “girls” in our family act out the lyrics to the Christmas song “Up On A Rooftop”. The church was only half filled. All of the seats in the back of the church were full. There were only front of the church seating. I stayed in the vestibule and watched for about fifteen minutes. When the preacher started his sermon, I was difficult to hear through the doors. I left.

I walked around the village looking for a restaurant. I was hungry and knew that my “boating buddies” would be ready to set sail when I returned from church. I walked into one restaurant that had just changed the closed sign to open. The teenage girl told me that I would be at least one hour before she could serve me any food. I left and continued to walk through the village. I found a place that looked like a Bed and Breakfast. I was called the Crab House. I walked into a very nice place. I seemed to be opened. I walked around and into the kitchen. A man named Cooper was the cook. I asked him if he could make me some breakfast. He asked me if I wanted a ham and cheese omelet. I said yes. I introduced my self. The cook told me that his name was Cooper. While Cooper was preparing breakfast, I found a book on Fish Of The Bahamas. It had sketches of fish. I quickly flipped through the pages trying to memorize the names and shapes of the larger fish.

Cooper arrived 15 minutes later with the omelet. It looked like the very first omelet that he ever cooked. In fact is looked more like scrambled eggs than it did an omelet. The appearance was deceiving. It was served with cold toast and kettle type potatoes. I gulped down the food. Paid Cooper and headed back to the dingy. The tide was low and I had to walk down a ladder to get into the dingy. I fired up the Joe motor and headed back to White Harbor and the Water Mark.

When I got back to the boat, my boating buddies were ready to travel. Our destination was Treasure Cay. Treasure Cay has one of the Top Ten most beautiful beachs in the world and everyone wanted to visit it. We motored out of White Harbor Green Turtle Cay at 1:30PM.

FinniIrish took the lead. I was second and Passage was third. Once we got out into the Sea of Abaco, Passage passed me like I was standing still. I could only travel at 5 knots because of the drag of the dingy and the Joe motor.

Today’s route was like a horse shoe. We had to travel out of the Sea of Abaco into the Atlantic ocean because of this very dangerous shallow area. Or destination was 5 miles. We had to travel the long way to stay safe. The shallow area could be sailed but only at high tide and were sailing at low tide.

We reached Treasure Cay at 4:30PM. We had traveled a distance of 18.8 miles.

I sailed into the harbor at Treasure Cay. Dropped the anchor and headed over to FinniIrish for a happy hour. Lee and Janice were already there and were on their second drink.

We talked until dark. We planned the activities for Tuesday. I tried to call Sandy from FinnIrish. Ellie told me that they have an Internet service that would work. It did not. I returned to the WaterMark. Made Beefaroni for dinner and tried to connect to the Internet again. There is WiFi service here in the harbor at Treasure Cay. The networks are secured. I need a password. How frustrating. I guess that I will have to wait until tomorrow to call Sandy. I hope that she knows I am safe. Communicating with here here in the Bahamas is very difficult. We had a terrible connection from Green Turtle. Phil called and we tried to talk. Finally after the sessions automatically disconnected we gave up. Just like the calls to Sandy. The connection was so poor that it make talking a chore.