Our Final Letter from the Abacos (22 Dec - 4 Jan)

From 22 December until 4 January we had our first set of visitors for the year!!!! Our visitors were the West Coast members of our clan. They were:

·         Daughter - Lisa,

·         Her husband - Dave,

·         14 YO Grandson - Trent,

·         18 YO Granddaughter Maddy and

·         18 YO Grandson Nik

(Collectively, they will henceforth be referred to as “the kids”). The kids arrived at Marsh Harbor on Sunday 22 December after about 20 hours of time in airports and on airplanes. Dave is a Marine stationed in Twentynine Palms, CA so they started the trip at the nearest airport – Las Vegas – then they flew to Houston and Fort Lauderdale, and finally to Marsh Harbor. That’s what happens when you start from the Left Coast!

Dave and Maddy I told you
we let them rest

Nik and Trent: I didn't know we let them
rest THAT much, thugh

Mom - Lisa.
As you can see, it is true that mothers never sleep.
 (They take pictures of people taking pictures)

We let them rest on the 22d, but were on the way to Treasure Cay shortly thereafter. Treasure Cay, as you will remember, is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world – azure waters half-surrounded by clean, cool sand. Just as the beach was beautiful, the trip from Marsh Harbor to Treasure was picture perfect. The water was like glass and you could look through the ten to fifteen feet of water and see the bottom of the sea. You could see starfish as well as finned fish swimming away. It was really great.

We arrived at Treasure and anchored. We could choose anyplace we wanted because, for the first time ever, we were the ONLY boat in the anchorage. A sailboat came in shortly after we arrived and anchored … well … a little bit closer than we would have preferred, but it was okay. The next boat was even closer. Now look, the anchorage is about 1000m x 500m; and everybody wanted to anchor near us! Actually, in boating they have a term for it – snuggling. Why people want to snuggle is beyond me, but they do. Oh well, no one was so close we had to move. We just gave them dirty looks and drove on.

We went ashore and the kids seemed to enjoy the restaurant (Coco’s), the beach, and the swimming. The swells were about six inches and everyone could get wet and stay cool. I do love beaches so … .Plus, Maddy turned into a serious shell collector and found some pretty ones over the next several days.  Ann made sure that we washed them and kept them outside long enough to ensure there were no little creatures growing inside them. We have made that mistake before.

We couldn’t stay at Treasure very long and had to leave the next day. Anybody? Does anybody know why we had to leave? You might be thinking we had to be somewhere else – Nope. Maybe someone got sick – Nope. Maybe we ran out of food, drink or soda – Nope. Nope. And Nope. It was the generator … The friggin’ generator went on the fritz … AGAIN! I wanted to get back to Marsh Harbor so our friend, diesel guru and generator savior, Martin, from August Sun could take another look at the *$%^&*thing.

In the event, it took two more “looks” by Martin before we finally got it fixed. It turned out to be the same solenoid that failed last summer and that we had Rudi (another generator guru) replace. We did, however, discover a work-around that makes the system work without hunting for a new solenoid in the Bahamas; if we jump two of its external terminals it starts right up. To make sure we weren’t damaging the system, we e-mailed Rudi, told him what we were going to do and asked him if he thought it was okay. He told us, “yep,” just to make sure we used 10-12 gauge wire for the bridge. We are going to order a new one (actually, we’ll probably order two), but not until we get someplace where we trust the delivery system (which we don’t here in Marsh Harbor).

Christmas Festivities.

Santa at the anchorage at Treasure Cay ... He goes EVERYWHERE!

Ever since I was a kid we have had pizza for Christmas Eve dinner. I know, I know that sounds crazy to some of you, but listen to the logic. My family opened its presents on Christmas Eve. (Don’t ask me why, we just did.) So, it stands to “kid reason” that we should eat Christmas Eve dinner as early and as quickly as possible. Moreover, since we had to have the dishes washed and put away before we could open presents, we wanted to use paper plates for the meal itself (there could be certainly be no utensils) and we wanted to keep the serving and cooking dishes as few as possible. The answer? Pizza, of course. Now that we are grown-ups we do the same thing. Why? Because it is a tradition, of course!

Anyway, our daughter, with moral support from her father, insisted that we have pizza for dinner. Ann made individual pizzas so each person could craft his or her own. They were scrumptious! The next day we headed back to Marsh Harbor so we could be at the marina for Christmas dinner where the owners hosted a Christmas dinner. They furnished ham and turkey while the boaters provided side dishes. I convinced Ann to make her patented macaroni and cheese. (Actually, I had a great deal of help in this from Maddy who is also a mac and cheese fan.)

Great Guana

After Christmas we headed to Great Guana. There, we visited the “world famous” Nipper’s Bar and Grill as well as some lesser known establishments. Nipper’s overlooks a nice, clean beach on the Atlantic side of the island. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the beach on the Atlantic side which had some relatively serious waves that could knock you down and were (almost) big enough for body-surfing.

The soon-to-be, kinda-semi-official SCUBA divers.
The only problem was that Dave has more muscle
 than fat -- which means he sinks to the bottom.

However, we hadn’t gone to Guana for Nipper’s, for the eating, the drinking or even for getting knocked down by waves. We went to Guana because Ann and I had arranged for the kids to take a “resort” SCUBA dive. (Actually four of them had to take the resort course; Lisa was already a certified diver.) That means they spent an hour or two in the pool with SCUBA gear and an instructor, then an hour or so in the water actually SCUBA diving. It is not a replacement for a serious SCUBA course, but allows you to get into a wet suit, strap on an air tank and try it out. Anyhow, our plan was for them to leave from Great Guana and go with a company called Dive Guana. The weather of course, did not agree so we had to wait a day. Now Great Guana is a nice island and has two great restaurants/bars, and a nice beach, but not that much else. So, while we easily kept everyone busy for the first two bad weather days, we were not sure we would have enough to do for the third, so we headed back to Treasure Cay. There, we arranged for Treasure Divers to take the kids out the following day. It worked perfectly. They got extra time in the pool and plenty of time on the reef. While in the water they saw turtles, lobsters, sharks and a whole bunch of other kinds of fish. I think the dive was a success.

Hopetown

After Treasure Cay and the dive, we went to Marsh Harbor for a day or so to catch our collective breaths and then headed out to Hope Town. Hope Town was kind of fun for everyone. It was more decorated than Marsh Harbor with the Lighthouse – as well as many of the boats – still adorned with Christmas lights. We ate twice at Captain Jacks and had a drink or two at the marina bar. (The kids over 18 and under 30 were allowed to drink, but preferred to take a sip or two from mom or dad’s cocktail and let it go at that – a very mature approach. I just hope they can keep the same attitude at college next year.) Everyone went up to the lighthouse, into Hopetown and over to the Atlantic beach on the other side Elbow Cay.

After Hope Town it was back to Marsh to prepare for departure. Everyone got out of Marsh Harbor easily enough, but if you will recall, there was a cold snap in the States and all the airlines were cancelling flights. The kids had their flight cancelled, too, but they were lucky in that they were only delayed a day or two. Anyway, everyone is now back in Twentynine Palms, wishing, I suspect, they were still in the Bahamas!

 ANN`S NOTES:   It has been a busy couple of weeks and Michael and I have had time to re-group and talk about how much fun we had with the `kids`

I must say that Traveling Soul did rather well with an extra five people on board, even with generator problems. I must thank the kids for being so accommodating when it came to taking showers; whenever possible they went to the marina bath house and took their showers. I know that does not sound very important but when our boat only carries two hundred gallons of water and seven people want to take showers, the fresh water tank can empty very quickly. We also had to share Wi-Fi time and we worked that out rather well also.

The Christmas holiday was different and wonderful. The pizza on paper plates continues and our tradition of having family to share the holiday is also safe.  We all enjoyed the small table top Christmas tree decorated with my hand-made sea shell ornaments. We also had a Skype session with Tim, Carrie, Caylin and Gavin which we all enjoyed. A few phone calls to and from Dave and Joan, Michael`s mom, and my mom and sister made the day complete.

We have become very good friends with Martin and Kathy on Autumn Sun. Martin has been so very helpful with solving generator problem and Kathy and I just became instant friends. She and I can just sit and girl-talk for hours. Martin is about ready to retire and Kathy is still working via computer and a few trips every once in a while. They plan on staying in Marsh Harbor for a year and see what happens next. It turns out they are good friends with Lee-Ann and Jerry from Bella. Jerry was the Ortho surgeon that we meet last year in the Exumas and advised Michael on the Achilles tendon surgery he had done at Walter Reed. We plan on seeing them later this session in the Exumas.

We did not send out a Christmas newsletter this year but we want you to know that you are in our thoughts. We wish you a very Happy 2014, full of health, happiness and new adventures. Blessings to each and every one of you…

Traveling Soul….OUT