Potuck BBQs and Bon Fires

Dear Friends and Family,

When we arrived in Cape Santa Maria on June 20^th, our friends aboard S/V Jingle were anchored in the anchorage. Knowing we wouldn’t be staying in the area long, we didn’t want to bother with unloading the dinghy from our deck. So once we were anchored and settled, Jimi hailed our friends aboard S/V Jingle about possible dinner plans. Within minutes plans were set in place. They would pick us up (free taxi) and we would all go to shore for happy hour and a nice dinner at the resort. The happy hour cocktail was called Bay Breeze, which is made with rum, coconut rum, and pineapple juice (my new favorite). Jimi and I shared a meal of blackened grouper, rice and vegetables. Eric and Sandrine invited us aboard their boat for after dinner drinks including a free taxi ride back to Sanibel.

The following day we had plans to explore the Christopher Columbus monument, but Sandrine got a migraine headache and had to stay in. Jimi and I enjoyed our day resting up, but again that evening they invited us over for barbecued pork spare ribs. Their food and company is always such a pleasure.

Saturday we left Cape Santa Maria. Sailing together, we were able to get pictures under way of each other’s vessels. We’ve been wanting pictures of Sanibel with her sails up and now we’ve got some! Here is a link to a short 13 second video of Sanibel sailing: http://youtu.be/t5fj-W9dPlE. A beautiful day and sail, we arrived in Georgetown late that afternoon.

Georgetown has been fun and again we’ve spent several nights aboard Jingle with Eric and Sandrine. We spent a day on shore doing laundry and shopping together and then ate a light lunch at Peace and Plenty. 

The following morning Jingle moved across the harbor to anchor by Stocking Island, be we remained close to town. A few hours later Randy showed up. Remember Randy in S/V Kataboo? We’ve run in to him on at least five islands in the Bahamas over the past six weeks or so. He was headed to the Dominican Republic, but blew out his head sail, so he’s back to get it repaired.

We hooked up with four or five other couples, Eric, Sandrine, Randy and four young kids from England for a potluck and bon fire. Good food, good company and a beautiful view – it doesn’t get much better than that. The kids from England, all 25 years of age, bought a 50 foot boat in Florida a few months ago. They are sailing it to Jamaica. Hey…that’s where we were going to go and these kids are right up our alley. They are on a much stricter budget then we are, so they don’t motor AT ALL. While the thought could have crossed my mind for a split second to turn around and boat buddy with them to Jamaica, Jimi said we’ll continue with our modified plan. The kids left Friday afternoon.

Mortifoid….mortifoid…mortified was the only word that repeated through my head over, over and over after Eric and Sandrine from S/V Jingle came over Friday mid-morning. They popped over to say hello and ask us about going for a hike. It was the first time they had boarded Sanibel and it was the worst timing. Sanibel was a mess: the liter box needed cleaning, the trash needed emptying (both of which smelled), cat hair, dust, sand, lint (the stuff normal sweeping takes care of)and things were laying all over, rather than being put away in their places. I normally follow a cleaning ritual every morning and I’m pretty good about getting it done every morning. The methodical side of me almost always makes sure things are put away in their place and cleaned (unless in use), or I go mad. I can only hope that Eric and Sandrine understand the situation and do not think of us as grubby people. As soon as they left, all I could feel was mortified as I began cleaning…..ha.

We’ve mentioned a few times in the past that our wind generator was not working and then we wrote and said false alarm….all is well. It’s official now…it’s broke! A few months ago we purchased new back up blades, which do us no good now, because the motor has failed. Jimi spent an entire day taking it apart and racking his brain with no success. We must get by on only solar power until we can come up with a solution. Sunny days don’t seem to be a problem, but what will we do on cloudy days? Hmmmm

I’m sending this post before we leave Georgetown, since it’s been a while, but we’ll have more fun things to share about Georgetown visit in our next post. Hopefully (fingers crossed) we’ll be working our way down the Jumentos next time you hear from us. A funny thing happened to us when we were in town Friday afternoon. We met a fella named John from the United States and as we were talking he said “Have you guys heard about the BBQ tomorrow night on Hamburger Beach?” Uhhh – ya that’s us. Haha. Jimi and I arranged to BBQ with Randy, Eric and Sandrine on Hamburger Beach Saturday night and apparently the word spread. I wonder how many people will show up. J So, more to come on Georgetown.

Hope all is well with you!

Love everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

Never better…..

Dear Friends and Family,
For now our plans are to return to Georgetown until around July 1^st (or thereabouts), and then explore the Jumentos Island chain in the Bahamas. Should a hurricane come through we can duck safely in to a nearby hurricane hole. The rest of the plan will come together later. And just like that our plan was set in to action. We left Acklins Island early the following morning. However, on our way back to Georgetown we made a detour to Rum Cay.
Upon leaving Acklins Island we sailed north fifty-two miles to the southern tip on Long Island anchoring just before the sun vanished: time for some dinner and rest for the next leg of the journey.

The following day we rocked and rolled 43 miles to Clarence Town. Clarence Town is just around the corner from Little Harbor. (Little Harbor is where we previously held up for two weeks with no hint of human life.) While there, we explored two churches - climbing the bell towers of one of them –

                                    

-amazing architecture and beauty.

There was a small grocery store with the bare necessities, a marina, a couple of bar and grilles and a Laundromat. Have you ever been excited to do laundry in your life? Well, I am these days. I made good use of the washers and dryers. They were a little higher priced then we’ve seen in the past - $8 a load, but still I’m grateful.
When we arrived we saw that our sailor friend Randy was anchored. We immediately launched the dinghy and went over to say hi. Randy is doing well. We didn’t get to spend much time with him, but it was nice to see him again. He left Clarence Town a day or so before us. And now, we have made friends with another. I know I can’t tell you about all the interesting people we meet, but I’d like to tell you about Farro aboard S/V Margie. Farro, now sixty-five years old, is an Iranian who moved to the United Stated with his family when he was eighteen years old. His mother passed away four years ago and his father is still living at the grand age of ninety-six. Farro was an Engineer and even taught as a Professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado for a few years. He doesn’t expect to live more than five more years or so, due to heart problems; he’s simply living his dream on his sailboat. He’s such a sweet man. Jimi and I immediately hit it off with him. Jimi helped him with his head sail and port screens. They hitch hiked together to a larger town for more groceries. We’ve spent evenings on each other’s boats and a couple of days at the marina restaurant. After a few days we generally became inseparable planning our days and evenings events. I asked Jimi if we could adopt him…….tee hee. He’s trying to get to the Dominica Republic, but the winds have not been right, so he’s waiting them out. In the meantime, we suggested he come to Rum Cay with us and he gladly agreed. He followed us in his boat and we had more time to spend with this wonderful and interesting old man.
At first (for me at least) Rum Cay was a disappointment. We walked around the marina, but it is in disrepair. Bobby, the owner, is offering free dockage for the entire year of 2013. We thought we would take advantage of it, but after seeing the marina, we chose to remain anchored. It’s a tight squeeze and there are no additional amenities to make it worth our while; no water, electricity hook ups, fuel, etc and we were worried about the bugs. There is a nice fire pit, a kitchen and day room free for the using, but we were happy on the hook. Bobby uses a chain saw with a diamond tip chain and dermal tool to sculpt old coral pieces weighing in excess of four or five hundred pounds. The sculptures are truly amazing and Bobby is a real artist. Jimi had a chance to talk with Bobby for a bit and found he is a pretty neat and interesting fella.

So Farro, Jimi and I set out on foot around town. We went to BaTelCo to recharge Jimi’s data plan, investigated a nicely restored Episcopal Church and found the grocery store. At the grocery story we were approached by a young man who asked us if we were going to come to Kay’s Bar and Restaurant……”ya, sure” we all agreed. Around the corner, over the small bridge and in a bright purple colored wood structure with a sand floor we were greeted by a dozen gentlemen. Literally is was like walking in to “Cheers”. We have never felt so at home or welcome in a strange place as this. Oh…I forgot to mention that back at the grocery store we met a young couple from France, Eric and Sandrine aboard S/V Jingle, who have been sailing on their Catamaran for two years. They also joined us at the bar. The guys played some pool (with duct tape and sand on the pool table, it made for some interesting games),

we all chatted it up and talked of eating dinner there. Eric, Sandrine and Farro were game, but Jimi and I said “no, it’s too expensive”. Upon hearing that the French couple invited Farro and us to their boat for dinner to share in their freshly caught Mai Mai. Without hesitation we accepted. In the mean time, one of the men at the bar, Kevin, brought his wife who was just getting out of a City Council meeting, over to meet us. They invited us over for a late lunch the following day. Despite the state of the marina, my perception of Rum Cay quickly changed and I decided this was the place to be!
Jimi and I put together appetizers for our dinner on the catamaran and Ferro brought a bottle of wine. We were treated with a delicious Mai Mai and rice dish, chocolate cake for dessert and cocktails throughout. The company was just as delicious as the meal, as we chatted and chatted until Jimi realized it was 11:15 p.m. and we needn’t outstay our welcome. Eric and Sandrine are headed to Georgetown as well and we hope to see them there.
The next day we enjoyed a Bahamian style family dinner in the home of Frances and Kevin. I brought Hawaiian Sweet Bread Rolls and they served us grouper, crab rice and mixed vegetables. It was such an honor to be invited in to their home to meet their children and play with their puppies, Jack and Jill. It’s these memories that will be most cherished.

With plans to leave the following day and tears in my eyes we said our goodbyes to Farro. I tried to talk him in to coming our way, but he is going to stay in Rum Cay for a while until the winds treat him right. He promised to send me an email from time to time to let me know how he is doing.

And with all that said, we are preparing to leave this little slice of paradise in the morning. Our next slice will be Cape Santa Maria. We were there in May for my birthday. I think we are going to stay a day or so. The island has a Christopher Columbus monument that we would like to explore.

So I leave you now, my friends, with this highly requested recipe for Hawaiian Sweet Bread. Enjoy!
6 ½ to 7 cups of all purpose flour
3/4 cup of mashed potato flakes
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger (I left this out, because I didn’t have any)
2 tsp vanilla
2 pkg (4 1/2 tsp) of active dry yeast
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 cup pineapple juice (room temperature)
3 eggs
In large bowl combine 3 cups flour, mashed potato flakes, sugar, salt, ginger, vanilla, and yeast. In medium sauce pan heat milk, water, and margarine until very warm (120^o to 130^o). Add warm liquid, pineapple juice, and eggs to flour mixture. blend at low speed until moistened; beat 4 minutes at medium speed. By hand stir in 3 cups of flour to form a stiff dough. On  floured surface knead in 1/2 to 1 cup of flour until smooth and elastic, 5 to 8 minutes. Place dough in greased bowl; cover loosely with plastic wrap and cloth towel. Let rise in warm place (80° to 85°) until light and doubles in size . 1 to 1 ½ hours.
Punch dough down. Divide dough in to 3 parts; form in to round balls. Place in greased pans; flatten slightly. Cover, let rise in warm place until light and doubled in size, about 1 hour. Heat oven to 375^o. Bake 25 to 35 minutes  or until loaves sound hollow when lightly tapped. Remove from pans immediately. Cool on wire racks. Makes 3 loaves.
The recipe calls for 8 to 9 inch round cake pans, but I use a loaf pan and then I make dinner tolls by forming 9 2 to 3 inch balls and place them in a 9 inch square pan. I check the bread often rather than relying on the time. Sometimes the bread doesn’t seem to take as long to bake as the recipe calls. The Pillsbury Cookbook © 1995
Love everybody,
Lorie & Jimi
Happy (belated) Father’s Day to all dads!

Top 10 Things To Do When Confined To The Boat Due To Bad Weather

Sometimes it rains a day here and there and sometimes it will rain for a week. Be it the rain or high winds or whatever confines us to the boat we have to find alternative ways to be productive. Here’s a list of our top ten things we find that fills our time.

     1.)   Boat Improvement and Maintenance

This is a rough environment for all it encompasses. The work is never done and constant repairs and maintenance exist. Some of our most recent fixes have been finishing trim and small work working projects previously put on the back burner,  a light here and a charger cord there. When it rains outside, we fix leaks inside. Although, it’s not always easy to find the origin of the leak.

                    2.)   Watch the Weather - Destination and Navigation

When the weather’s nasty, it’s important to know what to expect in the coming days. Receiving weather forecasting becomes a priority. The weather information we obtain helps us determine when and where we can or will go next. We have a few options for getting weather forecasts. We currently have a data card for the Bahamas, which when inserted in Jimi’s phone give us access to limited internet. This is one option Jimi uses for checking weather. Another is through our HAM radio. We can tune in to Chris Parker at 6:30am and at 8am to get weather information for the Bahamans and the Caribbean.  One of the coolest ways we can get weather updates is through ‘weather fax’. They are available at certain times of the day. By connecting our laptop to the HAM radio we receive a fax through the laptop with various weather reports. There are audio weather updates through the HAM radio on various channels and times, as well. Sometimes the VHF radio and public radio are options for getting local weather. From there we hit the charts to determine what destinations are possible and appeal to us. So when the weather clears up and the winds are in our favor, we have a plan or two.

     3.)   Personal Indoor Hobbies

We are well prepared with things of our own personal interest to keep us busy during the down times. Lorie catches up on scrap booking, stitching cards, cross stitching and watercolors.  Jimi enjoys post processing pictures or video from recent adventures, tinkering to make something out of nothing and experimenting/improving  electronics for example working on computers and 12 volt gadgets.

     4.)   Read

Rainy days are a perfect time to get caught up on our reading. Lorie has recently finished  the first four books of “A Game of Thrones” and is now reading the fifth. Jimi’s reads include studying the endless subject of sailing, which is everything from anchoring to weather, self steering to fishing and a plethora of cruising guides. We have a vast number of books that keep us well occupied.

     5.)    Baking

When boat bound it may not be possible to go ashore to purchase bread and other feel good eats. We solved that problem by baking our own. We often bake a couple of things at a time to utilize the use of propane. Our favorites include bread, pizza from scratch, cookies, banana  bread, dinner rolls, casseroles, and the list goes on. So when the weather is nasty and depressing outside we are able to fill the cabin with good smells and tasty food inside.

     6.)   Write to Prepare Blog Updates and Post Process Photos

Deciding what to write, when to write and when we can upload what we write are all factors that have to be considered and take up time. Adding pictures? Oh, what pictures have we taken and what pictures should we take. Then we have to post process those pictures and most importantly re-size them to a bandwidth friendly size. There’s no better time to do these things then while stuck on board.

      7.)   If Available, Surf the Net

Having the internet is a real luxury. When we do have it Lorie always messages with Jennifer (her daughter) and emails with her peeps in Georgia, South Carolina and Colorado. Jimi uses his time to research weather, cruising destinations and current projects. He also gets caught up on the news and recent events.

    8.)   Watch Movies

Thinking ahead years ago we began collecting movies. Watching movies is good entertainment to pass the time when needed. Some of our favorites and more recent films have been Casablanca, Walk the Line, The Notebook, Soylent Green, Sunset Limited and The African Queen.

     9.)   Play Games

We don’t play games as often as we want to or think we should, but we do have and have played chess, Teas hold ‘em, Life, Monopoly and Scrabble. Playing games provides great interaction and passes the time when needed.

     10.)   Annoy the Cat

Molly loves to annoy us….especially when we are preparing food. Sometimes when we are bored we return the favor and annoy her. The only thing is, she doesn’t take it that way; she loves the attention and wants more. Really, this time to interact with her is important because during fair weather she is on her own while we are out and about. So actually #10 should read play with the cat.

Fishing luck

Dear Friends and Family,

Jimi - The mighty fisherman – huh huh huh! O.k. Mmmm, maybe not, but he tries real hard and never gives up. Jimi caught a fish once; a really big fish,

sometime during the 90’s. He was on a commercial fishing trip in Mexico with his brother and sister-in-law. He says he used up all his fishing luck the day he caught that fish and hasn’t been able to catch anything since. This isn’t entirely true. In the Dry Tortugas he caught a fish, but it was sooo cute I had him throw it back and he’s caught so many barracuda we’ve lost count. Some of the barracuda have gotten away with our lures even. During one of his most recent barracuda fishing tales, as he began reeling the line the barracuda jumped out of the water, hook in mouth, flew over the dighy, clear over Jimi’s head and landed back in the water on the other side of the dinghy. He was then able to finish reeling it in all just to release it. We don’t eat barracuda because of ciguatera poisoning.

Even though we’ve been told barracuda is good eating and we would have loved to have a supply of fresh fish meat, we would not risk ciguatera. However, I am proud and pleased to report that Jimi caught us a nice little fish – a perfect meal. Finally we got to eat something that’s not out of a can!

We began collecting sea glass.

Sea glass is difficult to find in places others have combed, but our location on these windward shores is perfect. Of course, the terrain we had to cross getting to the beach wasn’t pretty. Razor sharp points align the tops of the coral or maybe a better description would be a bed of nails. Jimi and I are both very happy with our Crocs for these hikes though. Jimi wears the Santa Cruz and I wear the original Crocs (aka clown shoes). The rubber material protects our feet, nothing has penetrated the Croslite material yet and it flexes at the same time to allow mobility and comfort.…..woa……now I sound like a Crocs commercial and I’m supposed to be talking about sea glass. Well I just had to throw that in real quick. Sea glass: over two days we walked the beach each collecting candidates. Some we left so they could mature some more. When we returned to Sanibel we laid everything out to measure up our findings. We found that the majority of what we collected really wasn’t fully done churning with the sand and water yet. Nevertheless, we are happy with our small glass treasures and look forward to more.

We set sail with high hopes of making a fifty-six nautical mile jump to Acklins Island. The adventure began before we could even get out of the cut to Little Harbor. With a strong current moving in one direction and high winds in another direction Sanibel was fighting to stay on course. And if that wasn’t enough excitement, I set Molly in the cockpit as she was loudly voicing her opinion below deck thinking she would want to be with us. As soon as I set her on the cockpit floor she lost her breakfast; cat vomit covered a small area of the floor and as Sanibel rocked, it rolled. I grabbed the paper towels and came above proceeding to clean up the mess. As I was doing so my knee hit the auto pilot button. I had us set on a course straight for the rocks. Jimi’s trying to steer, but it’s not working -----what’s going on? In a flash he realized what had happened, turned off the autopilot and with all his strength turned the wheel to get us back on course.   It was still rough; it hadn’t calmed yet and cat vomit was still rolling. One of the best things to do when motoring to calm the motion is put up some sail – check – I took the helm fighting to stay on a course of 110° to 120° while Jimi was trying to  wrangle lines and maneuver  around in the cockpit only to find himself face to face with cat vomit every time. With life vest and harness on he went to raise the mizzen. The waves were hitting the side of our bow causing a sideways jolt; Jimi was having a hard time hanging on and putting up the mizzen. He hollered “in to the nose”, ignoring the compass, I turned our nose straight in to the waves and it was then he could raise the mizzen. He took over the helm, I cleaned up cat vomit and we bobbed around in heavy winds and high seas rest of the day (I slept in the cockpit through most of it). While all seemed well above deck below deck was another story. Salt water collected in the hallway (aka the tunnel) and the liter box tipped over spilling everywhere. Molly was calmly tucked away in my berth; she slept soundly there most of the trip. Later Jimi found that the chain and line for our extra anchor, which is mounted on the starboard side of the bow, fell over; we were dragging anchor chain and line off our starboard side. Who knows how long this went on. It’s clear the chain and line were banging on our hull side, as they are covered in toxic blue bottom paint. Last, but not least we thought something had gone awry with the wind generator. It spinned, but no energy was being produced until Jimi inspected everything the next day and found all on perfect working order. It must have been a fluke due to lack of sleep.  We arrived safely (floating and in one piece) at 1:30am; though, Jimi was a little frazzled at the intensity of the evening trip. It was dark…I mean real dark. No lantern hanging in the sky this night and the stars were barely visible. Jimi had to navigate and sail dealing with not only the seas, winds and potential obstacles, but without light.

We’re here in Acklins Island – another secluded location of the Bahamas. Originally we thought we would leave after a good night’s sleep, but that is not going to happen. We are going to stay here a couple of days to give Jimi time to recoup and check out a few things with Sanibel.

 We think we are changing our plans. We’ve been fighting our way southeast for months now and with summer upon us I don’t think it’s going to get any easier. All would be well if we were willing to motor, but we are not. We would rather keep our dollars in the bank rather than stuffing them in a diesel tank.

We’ve come up with a few options:

1.) Head West sailing across the northern coast of Cuba.

2.) Sail North back to Georgetown, stay there for a month or so, then sail down the Jumentos and West across the northern coast of Cuba.  

3.)  Head West sailing across the northern coast of Cuba and then North to Marathon, Florida. Hang there for a few months during hurricane season.

It’s not yet decided, but I think we are looking at combing option numbers 2 and 3. Sailing back up to Georgetown, spend a couple more weeks there, then explore the Jumentos chain, cut across the northern coast of Cuba and back to Marathon for three months of the hurricane season.

We’ll let you know.

Love everybody,

Lorie & Jimi

Update: During our evening TV last night we heard a lot of splashing outside. We went outside to investigate. Fish everywhere leaping out of the water all around Sanibel. Yep….it was feeding time. Jimi said he was going to throw a spoon on a hand line to see what he could catch. Right away he caught a good size fish. We are so pleased Jimi’s fishing luck may be coming back. Molly is happy too!

Day Sail

I told Lorie just a week ago or so how funny the idea of "going on a day sail" sounds. At one time it made perfect sense and would make for a fun day. If cruising full time, however, when you sail you are going somewhere and you don't stop where you started. Wrong.

The day started like any other day that we were "on the move." Button down the cabins, prepare coffee, snacks, remove sail covers, engine on, anchor up, leave anchorage, engine off and sails up. We were ready to leave after being holed up for a week, maybe a little too ready. The forecast was for light winds out of the east, which turned out to be south of east.

After tacking into the wind for five hours or so, I found our progress to be five miles. I didn't even need the calculator for this one, one mile per hour made good and 55 miles to our destination. Looking at other options I decided on an anchorage 10 miles to the south. With the wind from the ESE there would be no tacking and I should be able to make it by sunset. Wrong. The wind eased and so did our boat speed. Just as well, the anchorage is exposed to the south and passageweather was forecasting more Southeast winds. If it clocked around too far south it would be rough enough to spill the rum cocktail that was now firmly on my mind.

I guess I will swallow my pride and head back where I started the day. But even this wanted my sanity. With a heading straight downwind, light winds and seas that rolled Sanibel every which way I had to drop all her sails but just a scrap of jib sail. Otherwise, the flapping and flogging the sails were taking would have had me sewing for two days (actually, anymore I glue my sails together with 5200).

And here we sit, back where we started the day. At anchor, pointed ENE in 15 knots of wind. Perfect for our original destination. Thats okay, it is 9pm and this rum cocktail sure tastes good.

Treasures for the bilge

Dear Friends and Family,

More than a week has gone by and we haven’t seen a bit of evidence of human existence. Has there been some sort of apocalypse? Of course, we know there hasn’t been, as we’ve made contact with friends and family via email and listened to other humans on our HAM radio, but it sure seems weird to have gone so long without seeing a single person and it does give one something to think about.

We made it through the off and on again rain storms; all were pretty tame, but we did have some strong winds. Jimi threw out a second anchor as a precaution. We spotted lightening one evening and Jimi immediately unplugged everything and shut down the boat’s main power. So there we sat in the dark, but not for long. Nothing became of the lightening and everything went back to normal. So what did we do while held up in such a small space for over a week?  Jimi used the time well by knocking several ‘honey do’s’ off his list. He installed a latch on the trash door; it used to open during passages banging this way and that. He made wedges from scrap pieces to teak to tuck in between the sliding cabinet doors; they would rattle when the boat rocked. We would previously stuff a piece of tissue paper between the doors to stop the rattling. He fixed some trim pieces in the forward head and finished the top portion of the aft companion way with scrap pieces of teak trim. He attached hooks above my vanity for hanging towels. The top of his dresser can be used as a book shelf now; the books are secured by a piece of rope connected to a hook on each side. When is the best time to find leaks on a boat? While it’s raining, of course and this he accomplished too. He also spent time on his personal hobbies and studied weather info.

I made some small cloth bags to hold desiccant and sewed a strip of sunbrella on the end of our mizzen sail cover. Then Jimi finished that project.  I tried a new bread recipe: Hawaiian sweet bread – it was so good. I’ll have to make that again when we can  buy more of the ingredients. I worked on my own personal hobbies: scrap booking (I’m all caught up now), watercolor painting and cross stitching. I also did a lot of reading: I finished the fourth book of ‘A Game of Thrones” and began the fifth book.

Finally on our last day at Little Harbor we were able to venture out for some exercise and fun. However, the dinghy was still on deck and we had no desire to unload it, so we swam to shore. I carried our clothes, camera, snacks and water in a dry bag while Jimi carried our burnable trash and we swam about 500 feet to the beach. We hiked the deserted one and half miles of treacherous terrain until we could go no more. The terrain was razor sharp pieces of dead coral with small portions of sandy beach areas. If this wasn’t a good workout after sitting for the past week, I don’t know what would be. We both needed that.

We were in search of some old ruins Jimi spotted on our navigational software. When we got to the end of the line, we had to turn into the brush to find the ruins. The area was so grown in that it was too thick for us to trample through; we had to abort. Although we didn’t find the ruins, we found many treasures during our beach combing. We found several conch shells in perfect condition, Polvoparahornear (baking soda from a foreign country unopened and in perfect condition), a puffed up sand dollar, an aluminum buoy, and a small child’s toy.  The beach was lined with nets, ropes, and plastic containers all which have washed up on shore. Plastics are a big problem for the ocean and its sea life. You will always find windward beaches littered with plastics that either fall off boats or because container ships dump their trash. Metals will sink and are quickly consumed by the salt water, glass will sink to the bottom of the ocean often times breaking to make sea glass, which is later gathered by collectors, but plastics do not disintegrate in the salt water, nor do they sink. They float and often times whales and other sea animals think they are food, which is then the cause of their death.  It was very sad to see such a beautiful place so overcome with plastic trash.

After our hike, we built a small fire on the beach to burn our burnable trash, which consisted of tissues, used paper towels and other paper products, etc. Once we are twenty five mile out to sea, we’ll throw our cans and glass overboard. We’ll hold on to our plastics until we can throw them in a proper trash receptacle.

That’s all we’ve got for this post. We got a lot done for not doing much.

We plan to leave here tomorrow. I’m not sure what the winds hold for us at this point. The forecast says not to expect much, but we are going to go for it anyhow.  We could make it ten miles or thirty miles – I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the thirty. Even though we are three days in to hurricane season, we’re confident we can still make it South before the real danger arrives. And if not, we have several hurricane holes mapped out that we can duck in to.

Stay tuned for our ‘Top 10 list of what to do when it’s raining outside’.

Love everybody,

Lorie & Jimi