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Nancy, Chris and Josh participated in "Children's Day", a morning of field day games at George Town's Regatta Park with local Bahamian children (who got out of school to participate).

We also teamed with Side by Side for Trivial Pursuit, and the kids participated in the kid's division of the bocce tournament. Roger and Darlene of RollsDoc (he was a Rolls Royce mechanic in his previous life before cruising) joined Nancy and Dave and Marc and Angie for the scavenger hunt, two hours of racing around the anchorage, the islands and the town to collect things and information (a black kite, six white balloons, the number of doors on the local medical clinic building, etc.). Of course, the local store had many colors of balloons, but no white! (We did locate some on another kid boat). We had only a multi-colored kid's kite on Side by Side, but a can of black spray paint fixed that - although back in the USA we'd have bought the cheapie can for a buck at Wal-Mart, but here in the Bahamas that can costs $8 - oh, what we did to try to win! We had a lot of fun, but again squeaked into fourth place (we had a lot of 4th place finishes in our regatta events, which was tough on hyper-competitive Angie from Side by Side).

In the sand sculpture event, a win, place or show was finally assured - there were only three teams entered! Side by Liberty designed a beautiful display of sea creatures playing cards (the regatta theme was Las Vegas style), but managed to be nudged out of first place by a team that pandered to a 30th anniversary of the regatta theme. The boys, however, won first place in the kid's division, with their theme-related version of "Pairadice."

In the middle of the first week of regatta, Parker on Side by Side announced the "homemade boat race" in Hole 1. Kids under 16, as well as senior citizens (over 16), were encouraged to build homemade boats to sail in a race (with both beam reach and downwind runs) in Hole 1. Our cockpit quickly became a boat-building yard, as Chris and Josh both designed their own boats, built them over the course of the next week, and sailed them to victories in the races. Josh's "USS Bottle Boat", made of a 2 liter Diet Coke bottle with two water bottle outriggers, held together with popsicle sticks and hot glue, and sporting both a big roachy mainsail and a Yankee cut jib, performed very well and took second place in the beam reach and third in the downwind, and third place overall (based on total elapsed time). Chris built two designs, one that didn't work at all and one that worked at the end after many modifications, but looked like a regular keel boat (with the addition of outriggers late in the design process, necessary to keep it upright), with a big gaff rigged main and a large genoa foresail. When his boat tended to dip its bow in the first heat, Chris grabbed duct tape and part of a coconut husk to create a "bowsprit" that also kept the bow from burying into the water. Chris's boat had good runs also, and took second place overall.

In addition to the many events we participated in during the two weeks of regatta, we also watched volleyball games, attended the Cruisers-Locals softball game (the Bahamians won, but everyone had fun), and attended both opening and closing night dances under the stars at the Chat n' Chill on Volleyball Beach. Dance music, as well as morning net

announcing during regatta week, was provided by Rockin' Ron and Cool Karen on Sea Dancer. Rockin' Ron was written up in a Cruiser's World article about last year's regatta, where the magazine noted that he looks 50 but is nearly 70 - it's amazing how this lifestyle brings out the youth in all of us. At the closing night ceremonies, Side by Liberty won bottles of rum and burgees (flags) for sailboat racing (both on Liberty and the boys with their homemade boats), sand sculpture and other events. In all we managed to collect a handful of red, blue and yellow burgees to decorate Liberty (which flew her huge Texas flag during the regatta), and we had a lot of fun in all the events.

Rake 'n Scrape

In our last days at George Town, we stocked Liberty well with fresh food, lots of dinghy gas, fresh water, and clean clothes in preparation for a month of sailing in the deserted Jumentos Cays and Ragged Islands, plus the Acklins/Crooked Island and hopefully Samana Cay. A last repair was fixing our headsail and repairing the ProFurl furling gear that the sail goes on, which had become stuck when the sail parted during the race. After a couple of trips up the mast to work on the furling gear, Dave called the company and got some good advice that not only led to repairing the gear but also addressing another maintenance issue that resulted in the furler working better.

Early the next morning we topped off water tanks, brought garbage to the dumpster, raised sails and got underway at 7:30 am, bound for quieter destinations. George Town was fun, but now we're enjoying the peace and quiet and solitude of the Jumentos.

While Dave was at the top of the mast, our good new friends from Sabbaticus (Kevin, Deena and 12 year old Conner) came by in their dinghy, having just arrived in George Town. We quickly arranged to go to town with them that evening for "rake 'n scrape" at Eddie's Edgewater, one of just a few local restaurant/bars. Rake 'n scrape is a form of local Bahamian music, with a guy scraping a screwdriver over the teeth of a big saw, a bongo drummer, a drummer playing a big drum with a goatskin head and a fire burning inside, a guy plucking a single string on a broom handle stuck in an upside down washtub, plus a six-string bass and a regular guitar. The music is very upbeat and danceable, especially with a couple of rum drinks, and we enjoyed a couple of hours of listening and dancing with the adults from Sabbaticus and Side by Side. The kids all met on Liberty to watch a movie, but cruiser's bedtime being what it is, everyone was home on their own boats by 9:30 pm.