THE "WHO DAT" REGATTA..............................

We made it back to Georgetown in the Exumas, in time for the biggest cultural sporting event in the Bahamian calender ..............and we both have T-shirts to prove it.............. THE NATIONAL FAMILY ISLANDS REGATTA ........... A sporting event unequalled anywhere, because all the yachts have to be locally built, and all in wood, and all sailed by local Bahamians, although exceptions are made for the "A" class, because of their sheer size and the number of people need to keep them upright............. The boats have come from everywhere, by sailing there, or by road, or by being carried on commercial barges as deck cargo or being towed by other vessels......... And the spectator fleet is equally awesome, all the more so, when suddenly two seaplanes come gliding through the anchorage full of yachts and pull up on the beach (top left)........... And it is not just on the water that the activities take place, for everywhere there are shacks and tents being built, and Bahamian food being served, and of course.... BEER.... lots of it, lots and lots and lots and lots. The kids are equally excited because school will be cancelled for three days (due to the noise factor they tell us)....... Laurie was messing with this little girl and her fake cellphone....... "WHO DAT?"........... "Could be just about anybody"...........



A week ago none of these shacks were here, each with its back-porch for fish cleaning and looking over the harbour where the sloops will be anchored........... The same goes for the amount of conch shell that has been harvested for this event, because hundreds of out-island people will come on the ferry boats and the mailboats to see this spectacle and participate in the biggest party of the year. You may just have to double-click on the photos to enlarge them..............



And if you didn't bring your anchor, well, that's just too bad .......you'll just have to beach it till you're ready...............



Everywhere in the islands these sloops are built to a basic length/beam/draft ratio in order to qualify for class A, B, or C, but construction is as you see it, as long as it is made of wood. Take a close look at the construction and you will recognise a tree branch here and there............. with the bark still on, and some packing crate material............... island style...........that's the way it's been for more than a hundred years.



Psssst...... Now I am going to let you in on a secret...... While passing through STANIEL CAY and once again 'shooten de breeze' with Steve Smith, the boat builder, I suddenly got asked if I would like to sail on "TIDA WAVE" during the Regatta. "TIDA WAVE", the reighning champion, has won this even nineteen times in twenty eight years, so what do you think I said............................Actually I was completely blown away.......... thrilled and honoured beyond words............ Which brings me to "COTTON" from which the sails are still made and locally sewn. Cotton canvas, that is......... Cotton was one of the main industries tried by the settlers in the islands, when the first people came from the Carolinas back in the early 1800s. The crops were never really a success and the struggle lasted for years........ Everywhere today, you still find cotton growing wild........And in the photo below there are the flowers, the cotton boll and the woolly cotton.........All in the one branch at the same time.................



The sloop "TERMITE" , a "C" class sloop from the Exumas, being launched...... You can get some idea of the length of the boom.......relative to the hull length...



Tomorrow is RACE DAY 1, and last night the celebration had begun with the music, the drinking and the dancing lasting long into the night and into the morning and the next blog entry will be something else................ I hope. They won't throw me off the boat should I make a mistake, because under the rules, they have to turn around to pick me up again, so I should be good to go for at least one round.............It wasn't always so....... When you see the size of these sails, they are like huge white skies over your head. The "A" class boats are 28 ft long and the mast is 60 feet above the deck..............and the boom sticks out at least 10 feet beyond the stern...... you do the maths.........


But let's eat something first......... "Anyone for some snapper?"......................

SIGNS OF SUMMER AT LAST........................................

Every time we put the dinghy in the water and go ashore we see the plants in full bloom and there is colour everywhere................ Brilliant vibrant colours..... a real contrast to the stark grey colour of the hard coral rock and a perfect blend against blue water and blue sky..................... These islands are a painter's paradise, despite the fact that the colours look too good to be true.......... but the photographs do not lie................ It really is magnificent and truly overwhelming.

The bouganvilleas are easy to recognize and we are trying to find the names of others that we have not previously seen...............Like this huge oak-like tree in Nassau in magnificent soft pink blossoms............You have to stand beneath it and it will take your breath away.........



Sailing through these islands and cays in water rarely more than 12 feet deep, is an experience in itself................Patches of sea-grass are hard to distinguish from soft corals, but the rock edges of the islands and reefs are totally unforgiving................. and so far...........all is good.



Now for something completely different..........." WHO SAYS YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL" Our latest chart-plotter, (below left) is this beautiful colour screen monitor, that has the built-in ability to take a video input......... So now, while sailing (or motoring), we can play a DVD through our stereo unit with a video feed going to the chartplotter and audio sound to the speakers in the cockpit........... And we can have the video in the corner of the screen or on full page, or even on 'auto', where like a commercial break on TV, it will do a quick show of the chart and your course, and then back to the movie...............We were watching the "EAGLES FAREWELL TOUR" while doing some touring ourselves................ We call this " REAL KEWL "............... The down-side of this is that if you get too lost in the movie, the scenery around you may stop changing.........and we guess you know what that means.......

On the right is a new addition under the floor....... Producing electricity is on a par with producing water........ The red belt is driven by the propellor shaft to a lay shaft which in turn drives two alternators, which in turn put a nice charge back into the batteries.............. When we are sailing, the propellor shaft will begin to rotate when we do more than two knots...................and for running the chartplotter, the navigation lights, the autopilot and listening to great music during the night, nothing beats free electricity.........



THEN AGAIN IF YOU HAD UNLIMITED MONEY AND A ZEST FOR SPEED............. this might be more your style......We saw what was presumably the owner and his female companion, and six crew members doing the doing.............



But our preference is for the quieter sailing life, and serenity of a different kind........ Here is the breadfruit tree so famously brought over by Captain Bligh to the islands and on the left with breadfruit in the making, and the "baby mangoes" growing strongly on the right...............And some flowers and shrubs that reflect the beauty of this paradise.............



And Laurie bids farewell to Shauna, a long time friend, in the straw market in Nassau, who incidentally said.......... "surely you must be B'aimian by now"....



Then again everything is relative............ for above is " THE GARDEN OF EDEN", so labelled on the island of Guana, south of Stanial Cay in the Exumas".......

THREE GALLONS TO THE MILE........................

Even when the wedding had sort of ended and some of the guests had left, the dancing continued right on. The Bride, Groom and others finally left on the ferry to Marsh Harbour, but that is as far as they got. All flights back to Florida were cancelled due to horrendous weather that ended up killing three port employees when one of the giant container cranes in the port was ripped off its foundations by a tornado. Mangled steel and chaos and without warning. The photo in the newspaper shows the approaching grey wall of the tornado. The last wedding guests, as in the photo below, departed on the Hope Town ferry DONNY VIII, when the worst of the storm was over......... And we could finally make our own plans for heading out and heading south....... Finally south..... We have been in the Bahamas long enough to almost qualify for citizenship........... Time to move south and get the engine going, fuel up and move out.................Next stop.... NASSAU about a hundred miles south and a chance to make sweet water with our watermaker....... Yes, for every mile we motor we make a delicious, sweet three gallons of pure water................Something you rarely think about when you turn on a tap at home................ But priceless when you live on board and you either make your own from saltwater, or you have to buy it for as much as 65 cents a gallon. Then again bottled water costs much more than gasoline (petrol)...............Now how does that work when it comes all the way from the Middle East and that bottle of water from just around the corner?



Then in NASSAU the two "Queens" get together for a quick informal discussion. The one sitting in the chair and looking somewhat stone-faced is Queen Victoria............... It is nice to be back in somewhat familiar territory. ...... There is shopping to be done and parts to be bought and new areas to discover.......... And the traditional wooden Bahamian sloops that we had photographed on our last visit to Nassau, are being repainted in readyness for the "Family Islands Regatta" to be held in Georgetown, EXUMAS, later this month....... This is a huge pride thing and the Bahamian man below, Mr. Marty Bullard, the Captain of the sloop "HEATHCLIFF", is the man to beat. He is the ' No. 1 Captain ' in the Bahamas. We hope to still be in Georgetown when this event takes place.



And then to the hardware and industrial supply stores for bits and pieces...... We had arrived in Nassau on Thursday night, not realising that this was the 'Good Friday' Easter weekend with everything closed except for a couple of hours on Saturday morning, so hit it quick and fast..............and round it off with a most delicious lunch of fish stew at the Double 'D' restaurant......... Huge chunks of grouper...... a killer meal for the price...... check it out next time you are in NASSAU............. And then with full stomachs we walked to the fish markets, which is really fish being sold, fresh or frozen, from the deck of all the fishing boats that have come home for Easter. ....... Fish of every kind, shape and size.



And if fish is not your thing then perhaps you might be interested in lobsters of this size for twenty bucks each.......................