A Great Start to the New Year

Jan 1^st & 2^nd, 2010

The winds blew and the rain fell during the night but the morning dawned bright and beautiful.  It was still a little windy but nothing too bad, especially in the pond.   We took the dingy out to the reef and spent the morning hunting.   Mike found and speared his 1^st lobster of the trip.   Since we had been out so late the night before we spent the remainder of the day reading, resting, and then taking a walk in the afternoon.    Mike scared a small mammal on our hike but, I did not get a good look at it.  I will try to find out what mammals are on these islands.   Mike thinks it was probably a rat.    We had a great Surf and Turf dinner that evening.       The next morning we got out our bicycles and dingied over to Kingsley’s house again and rode the bikes down to MacDuffs.  We took the computer as they have the only internet access on the Island. (Unfortunately it was not working that day).    MacDuffs is located right next to the local Airstrip.   Mike suggested we ride to the end but halfway down we noticed a plane coming into land and had to move off to the side to get out of his way.   So much for Bahamian Airport Security, I kept waiting for a loudspeaker to blast, “Security is at a level Orange, please report any suspicious behavior or bicycles on the runway to Airport personnel immediately”     We hiked up to where the Columbian Drug Lords house used to be and left our name along with many other cruisers inscribed on what remains of the walls.   We had lunch at MacDuffs and exchanged a couple of books at their book exchange.  We also ran into Kingsley and his family again as they were preparing to fly back to their main home.  We got to thank them again and give them one of our cards to keep in touch, we hope to hear from them soon.   We rode back to the pond.  The tide was low again upon our return trip so Charlie and Rosie were called on again to take us to deeper water.    We are looking over the charts and will move south tomorrow to Exuma Park at Warderick Wells.  We won’t be doing any hunting there as it is a land and sea reserve but there should be some great snorkeling if the weather holds.   There is some great information at http://www.exumapark.info