Friday NOAA issued its last statement on Andrea, one of the earliest named storms ever. Let’s hope this early start doesn’t signify an overly active hurricane season. Our Noah waved goodbye to the kids from Iceni as they headed out towards the Northern Abacos to explore some of the more remote cays and stage for their crossing to the United States. We visited with four other Island Packets that made their way into White Sound; Galatea, Our Turn, Three Bells and Wind Dancer.
On the morning of 10 May we took a slip at Bluff House Marina to make it easier to pick-up Brenda and have power to install the parts she was bringing. We spent much of the day cleaning and organizing to make room for another crew member. We’re all excited to have her here AND to have an extra adult aboard for the passage back to the USA.
Brenda arrived on the 1600 ferry from Treasure Cay. Noah was very excited to see her and ran down the dock to greet the ferry. After being initially impressed at how lightly she packed, we realized that her luggage hadn’t made the trip with her!
Sunday started out hazy as the smoke from the fires on Great Abaco was blowing over this way. Higher in the atmosphere we were seeing the smoke from the Florida and Georgia wildfires. Noah presented Beth with a nice hand made card and we all celebrated Mother’s Day by going up to the Bluff House for lunch.
We had planned to attend a beach potluck for dinner, but mother nature had other plans. A squall came through and gave us 30 kt winds and the opportunity to top off our water tanks. Noah was just as happy to stay aboard the boat as he has been glued to the Lego catalog Aunt Brenda brought in the “important” mail folder.
Brenda spent most of her first day here on the computer using Skype to try and track down her bag. By evening she had learned that it had actually arrived in the Bahamas.
The Durham Burgee hangs over the Marina Office here at Bluff House in Green Turtle Cay
Monday we woke Brenda up at 0630 so she could get into our boat routine of listening to the weather on the SSB radio. Unfortunately the news was not good for crossing. Chris Parker, our weather guru, said that he didn’t recommend leaving anytime this week. Locally, the wind shifted from southwest to east, so the skies cleared and conditions were calm on our side of the Sea of Abaco. After a frustrating morning of talking to ferry boat captains and airport baggage handlers, Brenda and I took the dinghy over to New Plymouth as a diversion. Had a fun walk around the town and meet several other cruising families in the Hardware store. Explored Black Sound by boat and passed a local work boat with the creative name of Tugnacious. All the ferry captains knew that Brenda was looking for her “big red bag” and would slow down as they passed us to say that hadn’t seen it yet. On the way back to White Sound we heard squawking in a tree along the shore. Four large parrots took to the air, the first we’ve
seen in the Bahamas. This area is supposed to be the home to rare Abaco Parrots.
The long anticipated event occurred at 1600, with Brenda’s bag arriving at the dock, 48 hours after her landing. We celebrated by heading to the pool to cool off and have hot conch fritters and cold drinks. The kids from Stella Marris, Stardust, Firelight and Second Wave all gravitated to the pool while the adults pondered the weather forecasts. We were back at the boat by sunset so Noah could show Brenda the tradition of sounding the conch. She caught on right away and received some applause from surrounding boats.
Tuesday morning we gathered around the radio hoping that the forecast might change. It did, but for the worse. Chris is now saying not to plan on going anywhere for the next ten days — arghh!
Noah put down his Lego catalog after breakfast and dug into his schoolwork. He and Brenda wrote and put on a puppet show for his creative writing project. After that he worked on his other subjects on his own while the three adults started on the installation of the replacement parts Brenda brought. We had the knotlog/temperature sensor installed by lunch and the new LED stern light installed by dinner. 
Winds were in the twenty to twenty-five knot range all day long, with only a trace of rain. The boat systems are ready to go, we are provisioned and have a great crew. Now we just need a good weather window.
Linda on Second Wave shared a good definition of cruising. “Cruising is waking up in the morning with nothing to do and not being able to get it all done by bedtime.”
Mark