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.......................

A FLAWLESS WEDDING..........................

Timing was everything..................and timing was perfect. One cold front passed with rain and clouds, and the next one did not arrive until two days after the wedding........ Now that takes some doing............Thus a truly beautiful wedding in full sunshine was held on Saturday afternoon, March 27, 2010, on the ocean side of Elbow Cay in the Bahamas to wed Lauren Anne Reynolds and Tony Alton Shiver, Jr.............. Now, after probably 4000 photos were taken by the guests, it is difficult to choose the appropriate ones for this blogsite.............. But here is a sample............ All the guests stayed at the Hope Town Harbour Lodge in rooms and bungalows with grandiose views and spectacular sunrises. Without even asking for it, Her Highness and I were accommodated in the "Queen's Quarters"................ Word has obviously gotten around.... But this weekend belonged entirely to the Bride and Groom. We congratulate them on this wonderful decision to be united in love and friendship, in joy and harmony, in mind and in body......................to share and to cherish the future together.



Some photos were taken before the wedding, and some after, so you need to suss that out. We even took a boat ride to Nipper's Beach Bar on Guana Cay, where we discovered the secret hideaway for their "Rum Punch" that sneaks up on you without warning......... with severe consequences.




And it would be hard to find a more exotic setting for a wedding. Even this palm tree sent out its orange shoots for the occassion, and this frog who had been hiding in the bushes made his appearance. There was a rumour that he always appears at weddings and that he really is a "Prince" in disguise, but none of the single fair ladies in attendance took the slightest notice of him and as far as we know........ nobody kissed him......................... To find out the 'truth' of the rumour.

HEADING TO THE WEDDING.............................

The wedding is to be held in Hope Town, a small community in the Bahamas, originally made famous for its ability to plunder the wrecked ships that ran aground on its reefs. The British government then erected a lighthouse in 1868, which generally upset the community no end, resulting in an 'economic downturn'............. which was periodically reversed when the lighthouse was made... "not to work".............. Today, Hope Town and its historic lighthouse are thriving, with 70 cents in every dollar coming from tourism, and this wedding should double that. The wedding party and all the guests are flying in and staying almost a week..............sunshine, flowers, blue water.........pink drinks and pink sunsets.......... The early bird arrivals have been sightseeing, including this photo on the right taken from the top of the lighthouse. The iconic lighthouse is even depicted on this mailbox............... The original settlers were "Loyalists", those who did not want the party politics of the American colonies, but rather the order of His English Majesty "King George" ..............Sadly today, for your basic shopping, you still need to go to the "American Colonies" and Walmart...............albeit by plane or boat........ The lighthouse is known as "ELBOW REEF LIGHTHOUSE" and you can clearly see that the island looks like an elbow from the top of the lighthouse...................




Much photographed, painted and embroided, this towering monument is now to be immortalised on the wedding glasses, hand-painted we might add, and a surprise gift for all the guests at Lauren-Anne and Tony's nuptials. ....................... Not that this historic monument is defunct............ Quite the opposite............. Daily, the tanks high up in the structure, are filled with kerosene (paraffin) from jerrycans that are hoisted up with a rope and pulley, and the cable with its counter weights, are manually re-wound to allow the glass dioptic lens structure to rotate all night long, giving a signal beam at least 17 miles out to sea. This should allow the sportsfishermen with their million dollar yachts and their elaborate GPS/Radar/depthsounder/chartplotter electronics to find Hope Town harbour, in relative safety.



You might just have to double-click on the wine glasses to see the little painted lighthouses.....



Those concentric glass lens rings are some four feet in diameter and at least three inches thick, and if you have ever lifted a mirror or some window glass, then you will know this was marvelous engineering, in a place where today it is very, very...... very hard to get a fan belt...... We know......And these humungous lenses are ten stories up in the air.............



So nightly, the little paraffin lamp is lit by hand, and the hand-cut glass prismatic dioptric lenses rotate, casting shadows over the quaint little cottages below. The lenses, together with the steel machinery, was manufactured in England and shipped out to the Colony of the Bahamas ................And most likely on a SAILING SHIP............Think about that while the sun sets..........................Now come up to the balcony at the lighthouse by clicking on the video arrow below...................

SAILING IN THE SKY...............................

The sail fom Eleuthera to the Abacos was great................. Wind, 6-7 knots from the SE, wind on the quarter, sea swell about 6 feet in slow curves............... very, very nice......... and we made Hope Town by the late afternoon. By the next day, the grey and gloom was back again, and the wind had increased to 25 knots from the west. The plan to pick up a mooring buoy in Hope Town turned out to be a bad plan....... There was not a mooring to be had in the whole harbour....... The place was 'chock-a-block' full with boats of all shapes and sizes.......We had left our run too late, and on top of that, we were due to fly out to Florida, the next day, as a surprise visit for Lauren's daughter's bridal shower. By 5pm we had finally scored a mooring, and by 7.30am the next morning, we were on our way to Marsh Harbour. The strength of the wind should have told us that this was no day to fly. This was no day to do "sailing in the sky". .....Even the birds were "hunkered down" in the bushes like this one below, and if we were going to end up in a funeral plot, then at least we hoped it would be one without trees growing in it.............



At the airport near MARSH HARBOUR sat our personal yellow twin-engined Canary...............Somewhat protected from the winds prevailing on the seaward side of the island, and the "Queen of Florida" all worked up and very excited about the planned surprise................. The pilot, whose name was Che Chang (you can call me Darren for short), offered Laurie the co-pilot seat................. This could be fun......... " Maybe he could teach me to fly while we go across the Gulf Stream "



By the time we are half-way across the water, the passengers, all six of us, are having second and third thoughts about this 'Yellow Air Taxi' flight, because the pilot has one hand on the ceiling and his other elbow braced against his side window, while trying to keep the plane level...... We do some incredible contortions in the near darkness at two in the afternoon, with a radar screen that looks like a smudged 'Van Gogh' painting, done in limp green............ "ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?"................


WOW.....................



I have never seen "that" particular look on Laurie's face, and the Pilot isn't exactly smiling either................ and after crossing the Gulf Stream and some pretty wild gyrations, we drop down to 800 feet as we approach the Florida Coastline, and out of the rain we see the runway lights......... The pilot does a great job in trying to bring this 'Baby bright Canary' down, but halfway down the runway he has to abort and go around once more, .....................and then on the second go, touches down to a roaring applause from all of us.........An hour and a half flight that's taken three hours to complete.................and then things really get interesting, as we enter the airport building.... Security rushes up to us with " What are you doing here, and where did you come from?". "Every aircraft has been grounded and all incoming flights have been diverted to Miami... and there is extreme, extreme turbulence up there, and we are under a tornado watch" ............Dah!!!... as if we didn't know that....... They quickly organise airport TSA, Customs and Immigration and we are released.........into the pouring rain, the concrete jungle and traffic at Ft. Lauderdale International Airport............ The ultimate culture shock for sailors......... But in the end, every bit of it is worth the look of " TOTAL SURPRISE " on the Bride-to-be's face, as she bursts into tears upon seeing her mother come around the corner at her bridal shower party, put on in Jacksonville by the wonderful and gracious hostess, Robin Frost...............Laurie's life-long friend........



NOW THAT'S THE KIND OF SURPRISE WE CAN ALL HANDLE

The wedding is sheduled for the 27th March, in Hope Town in the beautiful Bahamas.


And needless to say we are due to fly back on the Yellow Canary two days hence............never mind...............