We all climbed back in the dinghy and headed to the other side of the harbor. We tied up at the Jib Room. They were having a second hand sale this morning to benefit the local fire department. We had heard about the sale from on the VHF cruising network . We thought that there may be some things of interest to us, since boaters in the harbor were contributing to the sale.

I bought a full body wet suit for $20.00, two books for $1.00 each, and two plastic drink glasses for $1.00 each. Denny bought a Penn fishing reel for $5.00. I guess Kay didn’t see anything he couldn’t live without so he saved his money.

We went back to the boat, ate lunch, and pulled up our anchor at 12:25p.m. We left Marsh Harbor and sailed or should I say motored to Hope Town. We made water and ice on our way. We took a mooring in Hope Town about 2:30 p.m. Hope Town has a beautiful but small harbor. It is very protected from the ocean and the Sea of Abaco. The harbor is surrounded by well kept little cottages that are all painted in the bright pastel colors. This harbor also has a red and white striped functioning light house that we plan to visit tomorrow. The harbor is small and the moorings are close together.

We all took a shower since we had hot water from running the engines. We had drinks with the ice we made. The mooring money collector came about 4:30p.m. He charged $15.00 to stay the night. We grilled chicken and served it with red beans and rice, and a salad. I made a banana pudding and vanilla wafer desert.

It is good to be able to get on line on our boat again. After we ate, Denny bought me a round trip plane ticket back to St. Louis. My mother passed away a year ago and I have to go back to the states to settle her estate. I fly out on the 17^th and back on the 24^th.

I e-mailed a few people and we went to bed. I finished another book ; “R is for Ricochet” by Sue Grafton.

It was Saturday night and we could hear the night music and laughter from the bars on shore. The three of us just seemed to be happy to turn in early.

We left the boat about 10:00a.m. to tour the light house. The time sprang ahead today for daylight savings time. So it really felt like 9:00a.m. The light house was really interesting and it seemed really old. One of Jimmy Buffets last books was about a lighthouse and I couldn’t help but think of the book as we were walking up the old circular stairs. It was a warm clear day and the view was spectacular. We took lots of pictures.

On our way back to the dinghy from the lighthouse, we saw a man on the dock cleaning fish. We stopped to watch and to talk to him and the other people who where with him when he caught the fish. He had five big dolphin fish. There was an eel that lived under a rock in the water where he was cleaning the fish. The man was throwing discarded parts of the fish into the water. The eel came out from under the rock and drug the parts back in his hiding place. We watched the eel and talked to the men and women from the fishing boat for a while. The man offered us some of the fish. He said they had more than they needed. We gladly took him up on the offer. He put 5 big filets in a plastic bag and gave them to us. We thanked him and headed back to the boat to put the fresh fish in our refrigerator. We had enough fish for supper and to have fish sandwiches for lunch the next day.

After we put the fish in the refrigerator, we headed for the other side of the harbor. It was Sunday and a lot of places were closed. We walked around and stopped at the Harbor View Beach Bar and had a drink. The beach is as beautiful here as it was on Great Guana Cay. The bar here is a little more upscale than Nippers. They even have a fresh water swimming pool. Hope Town has a lot of rental cottages that are all unique. Most of them are right on the beach or have good access to it. We checked and couldn’t find anything for under $2000.00 a week. The little cottages remind me of something you might see on the north east coast of the U.S.

We came back to the boat with a bag of ice and had another drink. We cooked the fish for dinner. It was great. We had some left over to make sandwiches with tomorrow.

We all dinghied into Hope Town to check out the stores and places that were not open yesterday. We took the walkie-talkies in case we became separated. We don’t all like to look at the same kind of things. Denny pretty much stuck with me. I am about burned out on souvenir shops so I didn’t spend much time in them. We bought some milk and a dozen eggs at the Harbor View grocery store. We called Kay on the walkie talkies, He was headed for Captain Jacks bar. He had been in the Wyannie Malone Historic Museum. We all had a drink and headed back to the boat for lunch.

After lunch Denny and I put on our bathing suits and headed to the beach. Kay stayed on the boat. He was happy resting his healing foot and drinking rum and coke. This island has a seven mile beach like Jamaica. This beach is much less developed than the one in Jamaica. We walked for over an hour and only saw one bar. There are only a few scattered upscale beach houses along the section of beach that we walked.

About 3:30 p.m. we came back to the boat. We wanted to get cleaned up to go to Captain Jacks Bar for happy hour. We heard they had free appetizers from 5:00 to 6:30p.m.

All three of us cleaned ourselves up and dinghied right up to Captain Jacks dock. The free appetizers consisted of some peanuts, fried zucchini, and cheese bread cut in half inch squares. This wasn’t exactly what we expected but you know what they say, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”. They did make very good drinks and that helped us to have a very good time.

We went back to the boat and ate some cheese and crackers and a desert I made with some bananas that were on their last day. We all checked our e-mail and I found out I had more papers to sign and have notarized and sent back to my brother. It was too late today. I will worry about that in the morning.

This morning Denny and I dinghied into Hope Town to look for a notary. After stopping several places, we found one at Vernon’s Grocery store. Vernon himself is the notary. He was baking bread in the back of his store and it smelled great. He notarized our papers and informed us there was no Fed Ex or UPS on the island. We would have to go back to Marsh Harbor. We had considered going back there anyway because we realized yesterday that our fishing license had expired. We thought it was good for 90 days but it was only good for 20 days. We dinghied back to the boat and after some discussion we decided to leave Hope Town today at high tide.

High tide was at 1:44p.m. We ate lunch and pulled away from our mooring at 1:25 p.m. and headed back to Marsh Harbor. Marsh Harbor is the second biggest city in the Bahamas. It been hard for us to get away from there. On our trip we made ice, made water, and charged up our computers. We put our anchor down in Marsh Harbor at 2:44p.m. We were almost in the same location we were when we left three days ago.

Denny and I took the dinghy to town to get my papers sent back to the states and to renew our fishing license. I also bought some milk and chicken breast at Solomon’s grocery store. We also stopped at Bristles liquor store for a case of diet coke. It is harder to find coke in these islands than it is to find rum. We didn’t want to run out of coke and be someplace we couldn’t buy some.

Denny and I brought our purchases back to the boat. We all took hot showers, had drinks, grilled and ate the chicken, wrote and read some e-mails, wrote in our journals and went to bed.

Happy Birthday to our oldest daughter, Stacey Heisler Branch. I hope all her birthday wishes come true.

We listened to Patti on the VHF radio , ate breakfast, checked oil in both the engines and put the way points in the Raymarine. Kay (aka anchor boy) pulled up the anchor at 10:02 a.m. We are headed for Little Harbor, Abaco.

We did the usual, made water, charged the computers, and made ice. We motor sailed and increased our speed by at least 2 knots with the sails. We put down our anchor on the north west side of the entrance to Little Harbor at 2:44 p.m. We did not try to go into the harbor because the entrance is very shallow. There were several other boats in this anchorage with us.

We decided to take the dinghy into Little Harbor tomorrow. We spent the rest of the afternoon watching other boats come into our anchorage as well as the boats that were already in the anchorage. We read books and news on the computers. We should still be able to get on line till Friday morning, if we stay in here till then. We had drinks with the ice we made and I cooked spaghetti for supper.

The anchorage was pretty good , considering we were not in a harbor. The wind was blowing from the west at about 8 to 10. It was a little rocky but I have been in a lot worse anchorages.

April 6, 2006 Thursday

About 10:00 a.m. we all climbed into the dinghy and headed for Little Harbor. Little Harbor is where Randolph Johnston and his family settled over 50 years ago. Here they built a bronze art foundry to cast their world renowned art sculptures and gold jewelry. Randolph has since past away but his son Peter and Peters two sons still do sculptures, make jewelry, and do local art work here. Next to the foundry is a gallery and next the gallery is Pete’s Pub. Denny had heard on the cruising network that there was going to be a bronze pouring today around 11:30a.m.

We arrived in the harbor at low tide. We tied up our dinghy to a rickety , hurricane riddled dock and climbed the rickety ladder. One of the things we have noticed here is that ,unlike in the USA, you have to take responsibility for your own actions. If you tie up to an unstable dock and it falls in on you. Its your own fault for tying up to it. Not the dock owners.

There was nothing fancy about any of the buildings surrounding the harbor. There were a couple houses, the foundry, the gallery and the Pub. There is no electricity within two miles of this place so all the buildings are solar or generator powered.

We passed all the buildings and walked up over the hill to see the beach and the Atlantic Ocean. I always think it is neat to see the Ocean waves on a beach. We met a nice couple named Nancy and Stacie, who gave us advise on where to go, what to see, and what to avoid as we make our way south. Nancy was collecting sea glass from the beach. I thought it was interesting so I helped her find some while we were talking. This couple also lived on their boat. It was a big 60 ton steel fishing boat. They rode out Hurricane Wilma in their boat. That was a very interesting story.

We left the beach to see if they were ready to do the bronze pouring yet. They weren’t so we walked up the hill to see the light house. This lighthouse was nothing like the one in Hope Town. It was just an old abandon house with an aluminum tower that had a solar powered light bulb on top of it. We walked back down the hill to check again to see if they were ready to do the pour. They were not. These people are on island time so we should know nothing happens at the time they say it will. We walked over to the Pub and had a drink. It was lunch time and there was a crowd forming. They serve great big plates of food and all of them looked delicious.

When we finished our drinks we walked back to the foundry and they were about to do the pour. They heated up the bronze till it was red hot. They poured the red hot bronze into the molds. It was very interesting.

After the pour we walked to the gallery and looked at all the bronze sculptures, the gold jewelry, and the art work that they had on display. It was all very pretty but very expensive.

When they left we ate lunch. We sat around for a while and then Kay and Denny decided to go back into Pete’s Pub to have a drink and to get a bag of ice. I stayed on the boat and made a big batch of cole slaw. They came back about 3 hours later, a little tipsy and excited about some people they had met at the bar. They said these people wanted to stop by our boat tomorrow and meet me before they left . They also brought me a live conk, in a shell, that they found in the water. We sat it on the back of the boat. The shell was really pretty but I didn’t know how to get the conk out of the shell without messing up the shell. I sat it on the back of the boat and decided to worry about it later. We all had another drink, ate supper, talked for a while and went to bed.

I was awakened by Denny and Kay telling me to get up. The people they met yesterday at Pete’s pub had came out of Little Harbor to our anchorage to meet me. I pulled on my shorts and shirt and climbed into our dinghy with Kay and Denny. We tied up behind their boat. These people also had a 34 foot Gimini 105. This Gimini was built in 2005. The boats name was “Caesars Ghost”. I was introduced to a lady named Diane Hunter. She and a couple of her friends had sailed the boat to the Abacos from Maine in October of 2005. This week she had her 71 year old brother Bill Fulton and his lady friend Nan Dewing on board with her. These were fun people. Bill had won the Junior North American Championship in a Thistle when he was a boy. I think he and his sister Di, who owned the boat, had a lot of sailing experience. Denny brought his charts to their boat. Bill told him where he thought we should go and where he thought we should not go.

Di gave us a tour of her boat. It looked much bigger on the inside than I had expected. Maybe that was because they had it very neat and orderly inside. Their refrigerator was bigger than ours. They only have one bathroom on the boat but it was a good size. Head. The good thing about the Gimini 105 is that it only draw about 20 inches of water. They can go into almost any harbor at low tide without a worry.

We went back to our boat and ate lunch. We took naps in the afternoon. We planned on doing an overnight sail to Harbor Island in Eluthera tonight. Denny and Kay checked the oil in both engines and Denny put the way points on the Ray Marine. We pulled the dinghy out of the water. I put my conk in a plastic bag and set it in a bucket. At 5:07 p.m. Kay pulled the anchor up just outside of Little Harbor, Abaco. We were headed for Harbor Island, Eluthera. We planned to sail at night because we wanted to enter the Atlantic Ocean in the daylight and get into Harbor Island in the morning light.

We made water and charged our computer batteries on our trip. We did not have good wind to sail, so we motored through the night. Actually there was plenty of wind. It just wasn’t blowing in the right direction. The stars at night on the Ocean are beautiful. I used my wrist bands to control my sea sickness and they worked pretty good. I am amazed that those little voodoo straps can keep me from being sick.

April 8, 2006 Saturday

Kay put the anchor down in Harbor Island, Eleuthera at 9:04 a.m. We all went to bed and slept till noon. We got up, ate lunch and went back to bed. We read ,wrote in our journals, took hot showers, had drinks, ate supper, and went to bed again. We were all tired after the overnight sail.

We put our dinghy in the water and went into Dunmore Town. We pulled the dinghy up onto the public beach. It was next to the government building and in front of the Rock House resort. There was a place to tie up on the government dock but it was all rock and did not look like a good place to leave our dinghy.

It was Sunday so there wasn’t much open. We walked over to the “Girls Bank” or Island Flat Beach. You could wade out in the water for three quarters of a mile. There were several people looking for shells on that beach. We walked on around to the Pink Sand beach. It is a beautiful beach but it looked like it was the same color as all the other beaches I have seen in the Bahamas. If you got down real close to the sand you could see little red specks. It was cloudy and overcast. Maybe when we come back on a sunny day, the beach will be pink.

We stopped at a neat bar on the beach called “Sip Sip”. We each had a drinks. The bartender made drinks that looked like the ones in picture books. They were expensive but very good. It started raining so we each had another drink. We eventually left and went back to the dinghy. The wind had shifted and we were worried about the boat. When we did get back to the boat it had drug anchor but thank goodness it wasn’t on ground or on the rocks. Denny started the engines and Kay pulled up the anchor. We moved the boat further out into the harbor and Kay dropped the anchor again.

It rained again. We were all setting around the table and Denny said he kept smelling something rotten. We thought it might have been the garbage but I knew what it was. It was my conk. It had dies and it really stunk. I thought if it died, it would be easy to clean out of the shell. I opened the bag and there was no way I was even going to try. It really stunk. I dumped the whole thing, shell and all off the back of the boat. I put the plastic bag in another plastic bag and put it in the garbage. We read, made rice crispy treats, fixed and ate supper, played cards and went to bed.

It was raining again today. We have only had a couple day of rain on this whole trip so is an new experience for us. Denny was looking at the boat papers and realized our immigration papers had expired. They were only good for 40 days and we thought they were good for 90. Actually they expired yesterday. Since yesterday was Sunday, we hoped we wouldn’t be in a lot of trouble.

We put on our go to town cloths, climbed into the dinghy and headed to Dunmore town to see if we could find immigrations. At the government dock we learned that we had to go to the air port to get our papers renewed. We took a water taxi, then a ground taxi and made to the airport in about 30 minutes. We filled out the forms, had some things rubber stamped , and took the taxies back to Dunmore Town. We thought of all that time we spent in Marsh Harbor where we could have updated our papers if we had only paid attention to the dates. It would have saved us all the expense of those taxi rides ($57.00 round trip for all of us). I guess we should be thankful Denny did notice the dates when he did.

Denny and I walked to a small Piggley Wiggley grocery store and bought some spinach for a salad and a half gallon of milk. We left Kay at the bar, closest to the dinghy, while we went to the store. It began to rain harder as we walked back from the store. We gathered Kay up and all headed for the dinghy. The wind had shifted some again and Denny was concerned about the boat. The rain soaked us on our dinghy ride back. The boat was OK. It had not moved.

We all changed into some dry cloths and ate lunch. It is nice and warm here but the rain chills you. In the afternoon, Denny hooked the water maker to the water tank so we don’t have to fill up cans inside the boat and carry them around to pour them into the water tank on the front of the boat. Somebody said once that cruising is just doing boat maintenance in different harbors. It seems like every harbor we go to, he can find some boat project he wants to work on.

Denny also decided he wanted go out in the rain and wash some of his T-shirts. Kay and I just watched from inside the boat. We were wondering how he was going to dry the shirts in all the rain. About 3:30p.m. the sun started coming out. Denny hung his t-shirts around on the back of the boat. About 4:30 he took the dinghy in to get a bag of ice. He came back and made drinks. We had salsa and chips and fixed supper. We had a spinach salad, pork chops and baked potatoes. This is one of Kays favorite meals because he loves meat and potatoes. I think he just tolerates some of those casserole like dishes that I make.

Denny’s shirts didn’t dry. When we went to bed they were still wet. Maybe they will dry tomorrow. We plan on going to the laundry so he can take his shirts in wet and we’ll dry them there. I hope the rain is long gone when we get up. I would like to go back to that “pink sand” beach tomorrow afternoon and see it in the sunlight.

I finished another book: “On The Street Where You Live” by Mary Higgins Clark. A lot of deaths but a good mystery.

Well its still raining and it is blowing over 30 to 35 mph gust. We have decided not to take the dinghy ride into Dunmore Town to do laundry this morning. We ate breakfast, played cards and read books. We were dragging anchor again so Denny started the engines and Kay pulled in the anchor. They moved the boat and reset the anchor. Kay put out 100 feet of chain on our 44lb Bruce anchor and we are in 11 feet of water. He also put out a plow anchor with a 125 feet of chain. The plow anchor is not holding but they put it out in case we drag again, it might be the one that catches. Both Denny and Kay have been discussing and reading about the theories if anchoring.

In the afternoon it was still windy but the sun came out for a little while so I took the sheets off the bed and put on clean ones. I bagged up all the dirty cloths and prepared for the trip to town. I guess it was only suckers sunshine because the sun went away and the rain moved in again. We would have to wait and see what tomorrow will bring. We gave up on getting off the boat today. Denny’s shirts are still setting out in the rain.

We had salmon patties, seasoned rice, asparagus and carrots for supper. I made lemon pudding and served it with lemon cookies for desert. I don’t think Kay or Denny slept much in the night. I heard them up several times looking around to see if we were dragging. I didn’t here the engines start so I assumed we were holding.

Another day of the same old weather. I was going to get off the boat today come hell or high water. For a while there I thought that it really was going to be hell or high water and then around 11:30 a.m. there was a break in the weather. I should say a break in the rain but not in the wind. Denny did not want to leave the boat for long in case the anchors would drag. The plan was that he would take Kay and I to town, drop us off and come back to the boat. We could call him on the hand held VHF when we were ready to be picked up. We all piled into the dinghy with the plastic bags of dirty cloths and headed for town. He dropped us off at the government dock and with dirty cloths in hand, we headed for the laundry. The laundry was about a 5 block walk from the government dock. Even though the weather was bad, it was nice to be off the boat and walk.

The laundry had six washers but only five of the six worked. It was the same story with the dryers. The big problem was that the electricity was off and they weren’t sure when it would be on again.

That seems to be the story on all the islands we have been to. The electricity comes and goes. All the people who live on the islands just take it in stride. They aren’t in any hurry.

Kay and I filled up four of the washers with our dirty cloths plus Denny’s wet T-shirts and underwear. We took turns staying in the laundry with the cloths waiting for the electricity to come on. First I went out, walked around and went into some of the shops and stores and then he went out. After about an hour the electricity came on and the washers started.

I met a nice couple that came into the laundry to dry some of their rain soaked cloths. She had some beautiful conk shells. I ask her where she got them. She told me the man across the street was cleaning the conk and gave them to her. I could see him from the laundry. He was setting by the water with a big pile of conk shells. Kay was still out walking around. I was so tempted to leave the laundry and get one of those beautiful shells. I had second thoughts when I remembered all Kay and I had to carry back to the boat when the laundry was finished. I also had flashes of the stinky conk we threw overboard. I don’t think they would have been ready for me to bring another shell on the boat.

Kay and I finished the laundry and headed back toward the government dock. Kay called Denny on the hand held and told him to come get us. He was at the dock just as we got there. We threw our bags of cloths in the dinghy and headed for the boat. We no more got ourselves and our cloths back in the boat when it came another down pour.

Denny ran the engines when we were at the laundry. He had charged all of our computers and made enough water to fill the water tank. The engines running had heated the water for us to have hot showers.

We had chicken and dumplings for supper. Every now and then we can get on a wireless connection at this anchorage. We have been able to get and send e-mails a few times. We all went to bed early, hoping the anchor would hold.

I woke up this morning listening to Chris Parker on the SSB. Denny and Kay listen closely to his weather reports. It sounds like it might clear off on the weekend. We ate breakfast and I made some potato salad to serve with supper tonight.

Kay hasn’t had much luck getting on line on his computer on the boat at this anchorage. He decided to go into the internet bakery and get on line. He went in early and was back in a couple of hours. He said the bakery was a nice place and the owner was very nice.

After lunch Denny and I went into town to look around. We wanted to walk over to the beach to see the ocean waves in all this wind. Kay stayed on the boat in case the anchor drug. We took the dinghy into the Harbor Island Marina. It was at the opposite end of town from where we have been going. We walked up to the beach and the waves were really big. There were only a few people on the beach and we didn’t stay long ourselves because of the wind. We walked into town, taking in all the sights as we walked. We walked to the grocery store to get some eggs and bread. All the stores will be closed tomorrow because it is Good Friday. The Bahamian people are very religious. We bought some eggs but both Johnson’s and the Piggly Wiggly were out of bread. It was no big deal cause I still had enough bread for tomorrow and the stores would be open again on Saturday. We saw a guy kite surfing off the flat beach. That was a sight in all the wind. The places to stay in this town are like small bed and breakfast cottages. They have white picket fences and wooden shutters on the windows. It is a pleasant place to walk. The main mode of transportation is the golf cart. The golf cart has been the favored vehicle on almost of the islands we have been on.

We walked back toward the marina where we left the boat, We stopped by a place we can see from out boat. We could hear music coming from the bar last week end. We thought we might like to go there tomorrow. Denny ask and they said we could bring our dinghy right up to their dock. So I guess we have a place to go on Saturday night and we don’t have to do any walking.

We walked back to Harbor Island Marina where we had left our dinghy. We went inside to buy a bag of ice. The lady inside commented on how untypical the weather was . She said it usually doesn’t stay this rainy and windy for so many days in a row. We put the ice in the dinghy and headed back to the boat.

We made drinks with the ice. We had chicken breast, mustard greens, baked beans, and potato salad for supper. Kay had taken pictures when he went to town this morning and Denny and I had taken pictures on our afternoon walk. Kay loaded them all on his computer and gave us a slide show of our day. We wrote in our journals and went to bed.

I finished another book; Let Me Call You Sweetheart by Mary Higgins Clark

It is Good Friday. I slept till after 10:00 today. Kay had already left for his morning walk in town when I woke up. Denny was reading.

The sun was shining. It was a beautiful day, finally. The wind had even died down. I ate breakfast and made a big batch of cole slaw. I have to fly home on Monday so I went through some of my cloths to decide what to pack. We sat in the sun and read .

Kay came back from town with a lot of stories about what he had seen on his walk. He took pictures so we will have a good slide show tonight.

The weather had cleared up so there were lots of boats coming and going in the harbor. Kay and Denny can set for hours in the cock pit, drinks in hand, just watching the boats with the binoculars, guessing what they are doing. There are a number of very large boats that come into this harbor some over 100 feet long.

Denny and I did not leave the boat all day. The kite surfer was back up at the flat beach again today. We watched him for a while. Kay got in the dinghy to get a closer look but when he got closer, they were putting their toys away.

There has been a Hunter sailboat anchored in sight of us since we have been here. He came by in his dinghy and Denny talked to him about sailing through Devil’s Backbone Cut. Most of the people we have talked to have hired a guide to get through. We could go back out the way we came in the harbor but they would have to do it at high tide. High tide is not until 11:30 a.m. on the 17^th. That is the day they would like to leave this harbor. Kay says he doesn’t have enough pucker left in him to go out again at low tide. They plan on sailing to Spanish Wells and if they go through Devil’s Backbone Cut it would be a shorter sail. I probably will not be with them when they do leave this harbor. They plan on moving to Spanish Wells after I leave to go to St. Louis.

We ate supper and Kay showed the slide show of all the pictures we took today with our three cameras. It was good to have a nice sunny day again.

It is another sunny, beautiful day. There is hardly any wind. About 10:00 a.m., we all decided to go to the pink sand beach. We didn’t take a cooler with us. We just took towels and three bottles of water and the cameras. We wore our bathing suits under our shorts and T-shirts. It is one third of a mile walk to the beach and we didn’t want to lug anymore than we had to. There are bars on the beach if we really wanted something.

There were quite a few people on the beach. All ages, sizes, and shapes. It was a good day for people watching. We all came back to the dinghy at 2:00p.m. and headed for the boat for a late lunch.

After lunch I wanted to take a shower and relax for a while. Kay and Denny wanted to go back to town and check out a couple places they had seen the other day when they were walking. They came back about three hours later with some good stories. (see Denny’s journal for details)

We grilled pork chops for supper and then decided to go into the Romora Bay Club for a drink. When we were walking around the other day, we found out that we could just tie the dinghy up to their dock. When we arrived they were just shutting down the bar by the water. It closed at 9:00p.m. so we walked up the hill to their indoor bar. There were several people eating in their fine restaurant but the bar was almost empty. We talked to the manager and his wife. They told us how they became the managers of this resort and we told them how we ended up in their harbor. They invited us back to use the pool anytime we wanted. We also met a nice man named Jonathan Simons. He lived on the island with his wife and his young son. He has set up a recycling education program in the Eleuthera schools to teach the children the importance of keeping their island and ocean clean. He and his wife are marine life trainers. Now they study dolphins and whales in their natural habitat. The drinks were a little pricey ($8.00 mixed drinks and $5.00 beer), so we only had one drink. There was hardly any wind so the dinghy ride back to the boat was quite pleasant.

We all dug around and found the best cloths we had on the boat. We decided to go to church. Kay had checked the Methodist church schedule the other day and found out the service was at 11:00a.m.

We wanted to go in early and have a cup of coffee at Valentines before we went to the church. Valentines is the upscale marina here at Dunmore Town on Harbor Island. The boats that are docked there are first class. Some boats are over 100 feet with 35 feet tenders. We could have tied up to the dock at this marina for $1.25 a foot with a minimum charge for electric and water. We chose to anchor. It was free to anchor.

We left our boat about 9:00 a.m. We tied our dinghy up at Valentines dock and went up to their restaurant. They hadn’t opened yet but a nice lady told us there was free coffee in the lobby. Kay doesn’t drink coffee without baileys and whip cream so just Denny and I went in and got a cup. We carried the coffee back out on their deck that overlooked the water and all the big boats in the marina. It was a beautiful Easter Sunday morning.

Both Valentines and the Romera club, that we were in last night, are planning big expansions. They are selling condo units that aren’t even built yet. This island will not be the same in a couple years.

After we drank our coffee, we walked around town for a while and then went to the church. The Wesley Methodist Church 1843. The service lasted over an hour and a half. The sermon was very good. They sang a lot of songs and they sang every verse. I think that is what made the service so long. We don’t go to church as often as we should so a good long service was good for us

We came back to our dingy at Valentines. We were going to have a drink but they were really busy. We just got into the dinghy and went back to our boat. I fixed fried ham, scrambled eggs and pancakes for our late Easter Brunch. While I was cooking, Kay took the dinghy into the Harbor Island Marina and bought a bag of ice. Denny made Bloody Mary’s and Kay had his usual Rum and Coke.

We just laid around on the boat the rest of the afternoon. I sat in the sun for a while and then packed my bag for my trip back to St. Louis tomorrow. Kay and Denny pulled in the second anchor, that we didn’t need out anymore. They also spent time watching the boats come and go in the harbor with the binoculars. We all gathered things we brought on this trip that we haven’t used. If I can get the things in my bag, we can get them off the boat. Both Denny and I brought too many cloths and Kay has a couple pairs of shoes to send home.

After supper we ran the engines to charge the batteries, charge my phone and our computers. Denny and I wrote in our journals and went to bed.

April 17, 2006 Monday

I fly to St. Louis today.