Good bye ECLSP

Okay, Friday was a busy day getting ready to leave ECLSP.  We changed oil, cleaned the windows, changed the fuel filter, inventoried our food for the Nassau provisioning trip and got our final Internet coupon to do a final check on the weather…. Hold on sailor, the weather for leaving was okay but not looking good for Nassau 2 days down the road (65 nautical miles across the great Bahamas bank).  Okay we’re flexible, we’ll leave Sunday.  But wait, again the weather would be more settled for anchoring if we waited until Monday to leave (16 knots at night versus 23 knots – see “weather game” below).  So, we ARE leaving (or did leave by the time you read this) for Normans Cay in the morning (home of nasty insect bites - Mary has officially ruled no one will go ashore at Normans!!) and with nice winds behind us we’ll be at Rose Island (near Nassau) on Tuesday evening.

Since we extended our stay (have I mentioned lately how beautiful it is here???) we have done our best to visit at least one new beach every day, tough work but someone’s got to do it!  Our disappointment came early when yesterday (Saturday) we ventured to loyalist beach not only to find foot prints in the sand, but people on the beach!!  We’ll just have try harder today.  We did trek over the island to the sounds side where we caught a glimpse of Johnny Depp’s island and his mansion under construction.

The ECLSP has a Saturday night happy hour (HH) with the park ranger – just a reason to share snacks and swap stories.  The big news is that at the HH, we got to see one of the ‘endangered’ Hutia.  They may be endangered elsewhere, but to this untrained cruiser, there are signs of them everywhere and it looks like they are destroying the native vegetation.  At the HH one lady was just going gaga over how cute they are, I hated to do it but I did…. burst her bubble by remaindering her they are just glorified rats. *smirk*

Also on our last day we checked out the work of some of our good friends; Mike, Angie and Bruce.  These folks volunteered to reassemble the remains of a beached pilot whale.  As you can see, it was like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle with many of the pieces missing.   The end result will make a nice display addition to the park.

CHeeRS!

m & d

*the weather game

Planning around weather is much like a game of chess, it’s not this move you’re concerned about, its how this move sets you up for the next series of moves.  In our case, the weather maybe just fine today (or not) but what about 2, 3 or 4 days down the road?  We’re trying to look at the best places to be when the weather really turns nasty and knowing we can find shelter after the 3^rd or 4^th move. 

Carins at the park

Guess who?

Pilot whale team, Angie, Mike and Bruce

One of the lives Mary saved today!