ANOTHER COLD FRONT..........

Yes...... We had to go back to Marsh Harbor to sit out another "cold Front" as it worked its way through the islands. This is a cold air mass that pushes a warm air mass out of the way with some strong rotating winds at the interface. Yesterday the highest was 38 knots with lots of squally rain. Today looks very much better.
What looks even better is this "Hog Snapper fish, head and all, with spices, tomato, onions, capsicams and a little NZ butter, out of a tin". Just wrap the foil and onto the BBQ griller with it.

As soon as the front passes, we will be on our way to 'LITTLE HARBOR' to the bat cave and the bronze foundry and then an overnight sail to NASSAU, the Capital of the Bahamas.
Strong NE winds are expected but we urgently need to keep moving........ The season is creeping up on us....



Now as to the other photo,......... well, that's a "Rastafrarian" dinghy. Some people go to great lengths not to have their dinghy stolen. We use a stainless steel chain and padlock, very conventional, I know... ........
The 'hair net' is made of bits of fishing net interwoven with odd bits of washed-up rope found at the high-water mark on the beaches. This being 'Earth week', it is a good reminder of our trashy ways. Someone even flew a huge 'Blue Planet' flag till the wind got too strong......May have torn the Planet to pieces.. Great to see the awareness. Most yachties are enviromentally-conscious even if they " pea in the soup".



While in Marsh Harbor, we went to visit the school for "Special Needs" children. Laurie introduced herself and was gone for the next couple of hours "on tour". Talk about a magnet and a steel ball..... What else was to expected after you have been doing that job for thirty years. The school operates out of donated buildings and has 94 students, all in uniforms and range from severely palsyed children in wheelchairs all the way through to mildly mentally challenged, including deaf and hard of hearing. The whole school, with all of its infrastructure and materials, operates on " DONATIONS". Yes, just donations. No government funding, no goverment support. This is teaching from the heart and not the wallet. Just runs on people willing to support and raise funds for it. A remarkble insight into the better side of human nature. Marsh Harbor, and the Bahamas, for that matter are not exactly rolling in wealth. The kids, who ages range from about 6 to 21 are trying amongst many things, to grow vegetables, in a little garden and you don't have to be "blind Freddy" to see that there is more rock and rubble than soil. I will let you guess which of the pictures was taken by one of my junior assistants. I had to fight to get the camera back. Double click on the photo above and see one of the kids seriuosly watering the rocks. They asked Her Highness, a very humbled Queen, to come back, so that the students could read to her and show off their reading skills. This sort of stuff is very emotional and hard to take when you see their eagerness and enthusiasm........... Now there, I have just smudged the page.......




On the somewhat brighter side, are the buildings for the "Every Child Counts Learning Centre", which were donated by a former Catholic Nunnery... (Don't know if they went out of business or moved on..) At one of the yachting events last year there was fund-raising to paint the buildings. Well... they look great, all lilac and mauve, and very clean too. Their web-site is www.everychildcountsabaco.org
Who knows what you can do........everylittlethinghelps....

The Queen is now talking of trying to set up some assistance through her network of associates for raising materials and funding to help. We already have enough difficulty getting online as it is....... this is not due to the quality of the signal but due to the only signal being shared by way too many internet users. This brings our share of the bandwidth to about half an Mbps during the day. That's a new screen page every hour or so... Yes, you guessed it........... it is 4.00am or the photos won't load. Goodnight or morning....whatever.................................