Update9

Dear Family and Friends,

We have come full circle since our last email update on April 26. When we last wrote, we were anchored at Manjack Cay, headed south in the Abacos, and now we are back at Manjack Cay headed north.

During the last three weeks, we sailed around the Whale Cay passage to Marsh Harbour, then on to Hope Town, Sandy Cay, Lynyard Cay, Snake Cay, and Tahiti Beach on Elbow Cay, then back around the Whale to Green Turtle Cay and now we are back here at Manjack once again. Aside from the free internet the owners broadcast into the Manjack anchorage, we just love it here. It is friendly and peaceful and beautiful. Yesterday, we dinghied to the north side of the island where the Atlantic was in a rage, crashing onto shore in big waves. Before that, Dave and the boys went spearfishing at a wreck in the calm waters of the Sea of Abaco, a successful event that spawned a potluck on the beach last evening, complete with cracked conch and fried fish, and a bonfire and marshmallow roast. The owners, Bill & Leslie, have installed a slide off the dock for the children. We probably don't have to tell you how much fun Chris and Josh have had, together with a few other children in the anchorage.

When we left Manjack in late April to sail south, we first had to sail "around the Whale." The Sea of Abaco is divided by a shallow rocky bar that runs between Treasure Cay on Great Abaco Island and Whale Cay on the Atlantic Ocean, so sailing between the northern and southern parts of the Sea of Abaco requires a passage "around the Whale." When northern swells roll in from the Atlantic Ocean, what the locals call "rage conditions" can make the passage treacherous and impassable. Conditions were good the day we rounded the Whale, and we sailed the entire 5 mile run. We entered the Atlantic Ocean into 6 to 8 foot rollers, with breaking

seas on the reef to our left and Whale Cay to our right, but without any breaking seas in the channel. Our 2 mile offshore sail was fun, then back in lumpy seas through the Loggerhead Channel to the calm waters of the Sea of Abaco. Another boat that made the passage an hour before us had described it as a white-knuckle ride, but the winds settled down just enough to make it not uncomfortable at all for us. We took a short video during the passage that we hope to post on the website.

From the Whale, we sailed to Marsh Harbour, the 3rd largest town in the Bahamas (with a population of 5000) and the central hub of the Abacos. We spent 3 days there, provisioning, buying spare parts, fixing the watermaker, and meeting new friends. One highlight was meeting a Swiss family cruising on a Brazilian flagged sailboat, with an 8 year old girl on board. Claudia and Josh and Chris hit it off, and Peter helped Dave fix the watermaker. We ended up cruising with them for over a week. Peter has a set of small water skis for the children that he can pull behind his dinghy. Together with the inner tube that we can pull behind our dinghy, the kids (and adults) had many hours of fun. Christopher was very persistent in his desire to water ski, and Peter was equally patient. After two days of falling, face plants in the water, and putting skis back on again and again, he finally got it all figured out, and then he didn't want to stop skiing around and around the anchorage. He was quite excited and satisfied with himself. He had a lot of fun.

From Marsh Harbour we motorsailed just over an hour to Hope Town on Elbow Cay, where we anchored for four days just outside the harbor entrance by Eagle Rock. Hope Town is a beautiful little town, with winding narrow streets, many reserved for pedestrians and some golf cars, and lined with brightly painted little Victorian cottages and shops. The harbor is completely protected, but filled with mooring balls. Since we like to anchor for free, rather than pay for moorings, we stayed outside the harbor, but it was only a 5 minute dinghy ride to the public dock.

We had a special treat in Hope Town. The Hope Town lighthouse,built in 1863, still runs on kerosene and all hand-operated mechanical parts - no electricity, no hydraulics. The huge fresnel lens floats on a bed of mercury so it can spin freely. It is one of the last of its kind. Someone told us that if we knock on the lighthouse keeper's door at dusk, he would let us watch him light the lamp. So we knocked and asked. Franklin told us to go right up.

. At the top, we climbed a vertical ladder that visitors normally are not permitted to go up. It led to the lamp and fresnal lens where Franklin climbed inside to light it. It was quite a process to light the lamp. Franklin hand pumps the kerosene pump to vaporize the fuel so it will burn, then he warms up the burner for 15 minutes by burning a small amount of kerosene below the burner. Once the burner is hot and the kerosene vapor is emerging fast from the burner tip, Franklin lights the vapor with a long match. It lit with a "whump" and suddenly burned bright. The fresnel lens that surrounds the flame is huge, probably 7 or 8 feet tall, and magnifies the 6 inch flame so it can be seen for 17 miles. There is a weight on a pulley (like on a cuckoo clock) that turns the gears that turns the lens at the top of the lighthouse. It must be rewound every two hours. To make the whole experience even better, Franklin let Josh give the lens a push to start the lighthouse turning! It was very exciting to participate in lighting the lamp in the same way it has been lit every night for over 150 years to warn mariners away from the dangerous reefs that surround Elbow Cay.

While at Hope Town we did some snorkeling and our first spearfishing on coral reefs just off the Atlantic side of the island. The snorkeling wasn't specatular (we got pretty spoiled in Belize on our last cruise), but Dave speared his first fish, a nice grouper. We also dinghied several miles out to the edge of the reef to look at a large freighter wreck that went aground several years ago, by the look of it. The side of the ship has a huge hole that the sea sprays from when waves roll in from the Atlantic. It was sobering to witness the destruction that can come from running up on a reef in foul weather.

On Sunday we joined our friends Sonia and Charlie (from Un Sea Sing, an Island Packet sailboat out of Florida) and worshiped at the local Methodist church. The small building was packed. It was an interesting contrast to our worship experience at the Anglican church in West End, where the congregation was entirely black (and we were the only whites there). Hope Town, like much of the Bahamas, was settled by British loyalists who left the new United States shortly after the Revolutionary War in the 1880s, and even today most of the residents are white descendents of the loyalist settlers. In all of our trips to West End village, we saw and met pretty much all black descendents of former slaves. Hope Town is a tourist destination as well, with many of the quaint cottages available for rent by the week (for those who can afford the typical $2000 per week rate). Thus, the congregation in the Methodist church was nearly entirely white, and many were obviously tourists and temporary residents. The service was also pretty short, but it was a family service focused on the children. The contemporary music was all songs we sang often in our contemporary worship service at Faith Lutheran in Bellaire, TX (our home church). The church windows behind the altar look out over the Atlantic waters and numerous coral heads to the east, a beautiful view.

After several nice days at Hope Town, we sailed about 10 miles south to spend an afternoon snorkeling at Sandy Cay. It is part of a Land & Sea Park, meaning it is protected from fishing and scavenging, and mooring balls are provided so that boats don't anchor and damage the coral. When we got into the water, we felt like we had jumped into a tropical aquarium. There is a beautiful coral reef, with many varieties of colorful coral, some small, some huge, all surrounded by gorgeous fish. There were schools of neon blue chromises, parrotfish in every size and color and long, narrow trumpet fish that changed color before our eyes. Josh saw a big barracuda, of course, as well as puffer fish, schools of yellow snappers and jacks, and every other variety of Caribbean reef fish. It was so beautiful we stayed in the chilly water until we were shivering.

The holding is not the best at Sandy Cay, and the winds were forecast to maybe swing north and blow hard, so we decided to anchor somewhere else for the night. We motored about 3 miles to Lynyard Cay. As luck would have it, we sailed into the Lynyard Cay anchorage and dropped our hook right next to two other boats with boys on board! Now we were four families, as we had been sailing with our Swiss friends on s/v Taua, and seven kids. Instant friends, instant plans, a weenie and marshmallow roast on the beach. We ended up staying several days (when we had originally planned only a night or two) so the kids could play together and we could relax and explore.

On the way out of Lynyard we decided to do some offshore fishing. The 600 ft. drop off to even deeper water is only about ½ mile off the island. Encouraged by other's success, we sailed around the south end of Lynyard Cay, out through the cut and out ½ mile to the drop off. Within 10 minutes both lines were zinging - two Mahi-Mahi at once! You can imagine the excitement and flurry on our boat. They both swam to the same side of the boat, forcing Dave to remove the port side rod from its holder and bring it around to the starboard side. We were only able to land one, a 40" cow, and the larger one spit the hook after a good fight while we were boarding the first one. But soon after, we caught another Mahi Mahi, this time a 38" cow. Excited by our success, but tired, we continued through the north cut back into the Sea of Abaco to find an anchorage at Snake Cay where we enjoyed a wonderful fresh fish dinner with friends on Islamine, another boat we had met back in West End when we first arrived in the Bahamas! We said goodbye (for now) to Peter, Monika and Claudia on s/v Tuau, as they are continuing south from Lynyard and the Abacos, bound for the Turks and Caicos where they will leave their boat for hurricane season. After spending 6 months in France, they plan to return to their boat to continue sailing the Bahamas, so there is a good chance we will sail with them again next year.

From Snake Cay we sailed 4 miles to Tahiti Beach on Elbow Cay, where we anchored again with our friends from Eira and Sand Dollar (the other kid boats we met at Lynyard Cay). Tahiti Beach is a large, beautiful beach for several hours each day, but only at low tide - at high tide the sand spit is covered by a foot or so of water!. The sand is beautiful, soft and white, and Nancy found many pretty shells there.

After a day and a night at Tahiti Beach, we sailed north for a long day, around the Whale and into Green Turtle Cay where we anchored in White Sound for two days to wait out a strong norther. At Green Turtle, in addition to listening to the wind howl, we spent a day at New Plymouth, visiting the museum to learn more about the Loyalist settlers, eating cracked conch in our second meal out (in nearly 2 months) at Laura's Kitchen, and stocking up on fresh produce to sustain us for the couple of weeks we plan to spend before returning to the USA. From Green Turtle it was just a 5 mile sail to Manjack, where we find ourselves returning for another stay.

Bill & Leslie, the owners of the house at Manjack who welcome cruisers with internet and open arms, are away for the summer, and their caretakers are a family from North Carolina. Bob and Trisha have two kids, close enough to our boys' ages that all played together well and our departure after only three days was difficult.

We have had many enjoyable moments in the last few weeks. We have met many wonderful people, including a few boats with children. When that happens, instant friends are made and it almost always warrants staying longer that originally planned. Such is the cruising life. We are quickly learning that plans are made in jello and inevitably change shortly after we make them. We have also learned that age, sex, nationality and language barriers play no part in the cruising life-style. Boys play with girls, 12 yr. olds include 6 yr. olds, young couples hang out with older couples, one boater helps another, and everyone figures out how to communicate with each other. Here's a great example: Peter and Monika are from Switzerland and live in France. They speak Swiss German at home (which is a little different from the "high German" spoken in Germany). Their daughter Claudia goes to school in French when they are home. (They only cruise for part of each year). We were at their boat one evening for dinner. Christopher said something in Spanish. Claudia translated it into French and then asked "Is that right?" in German. The adults all answered in English! While we were all laughing, her mother explained to her why we were all laughing - in Swiss German! How's that for international?!

Our plans from here are to continue north to Powell Cay, Allans-Pensacola Cay and Double Breasted Cay for the next week or so. We will find a good weather window and cross back to the USA in late May. There is a shuttle launch scheduled for May 31st and our plans are to anchor at Titusville, FL and watch the launch before heading north to New York harbor in a series of offshore passages. We are excited about the possibility of watching the shuttle launch.

Hopefully the website will be fixed once we get back to the States. Thank you for your patience.

We hope this finds you all well.

Nancy, Dave, Chris and Josh
Aboard s/v Liberty in the Abacos, Bahamas