I had a great birthday. Adam made a pineapple right side up cake, Trevor stuck some matches in it (we didn't have any candles), and they sang happy birthday. We also had dinner guests on board, Doug and his girlfriend from panama who are really nice. Doug is into a lot of the same boats as me and has even built a couple of dinghys designed by
Graham Byrnes . He was also farmiliar with
Matt Laydens designs.
Thank you so much for my awesome birthday presents! I have been practicing the banjo (Taylors gift) and can now join in on ‘Wagon Wheel’ with Trevor and Adam pretty well. I need a lot of work on the harmonica (Paul and Dawn gift) but I'll try to get good at it. Thank you!
The capilene shirt is EXACTLY what I needed, I now have 2 of them and they are soooo easy to wear and cool. Thank you thank you thank you and candy is such a great luxury it seems you have no idea. yummy yummy.
We are doing only minor touches on the boat now and have the head cleared out enough that we can take showers in it using the pump sprayer, I did this the other day and felt soooo clean. The watermaker is poised for its first use. As far as water goes, we only used 30 gallons since our last fill up (in Nassau) which works our to about 35 people days of water and about 0.85 gallons per person per day. I think our tank is a little over 100 gallons so we have a lot of water and we should probably all drink more of it. We will be starting to refill the tank with the watermaker regularly once we enter central America and water quality decreases. Here in Georgetown we have access to free reverse osmosis (RO) water at the dinghy dock in Lake Victoria in Georgetown which we used to refill yesterday.
We did laundry yesterday but all told it cost 9 dollars to wash and dry our 1.5 loads of cloths from the last few weeks. We think it was not worth it and will likely attempt to wash cloths on board next time.
We have also discovered that once you get dirty enough, you kind of settle into a “not as dirty as you thought you would be” state and can get by with only washing some "key areas" of your body regularly. Ankles and wrists for example, no need to wash them. Also, regular swimming keeps you pretty clean.
We are anchored off Stocking island where there is essentially an older cruisers paradise that 50-75 boats just go to every year in the winter with their yappy dogs and corny jokes :) We joined in on their 9 on 9 volley ball games yesterday and were affectionately known as the yougn's. There is a big beach, sand volleyball courts, an outdoor bar and a barbeque every Sunday. Limbo night is Wed. Rock'n'roll dance night is Tues. etc... continuing on until about the end of April when they all go back to the east coast. Very interesting environment.
There were some younger cruisers there and we met them, but they were all on the move either to panama or the ragged islands not spending the winter in one spot. There is also a big cruisers regatta here in March with 100-200 boats and they have been selling T-shirts since we arrived in George Town.
We are the only boat we have seen so far except for one that has no outboard motor and rows their dinghy everywhere. A couple of times we have gotten a tow from a friendly dinghy through the higher current spots but mostly we do really well as long as there is not too much chop, and still don't think an outboard is worth the trouble. (Probably it is if you just live in George Town for the winter, rowing would probably get annoying).
I have been keeping up with the ships log but recently given up on trying to transcribe it electronically in real time. I just can't get into a regular typing schedule to type it up. Maybe some day.
We have tuned into the local weather forecast resources which include the NWS broadcasts from Portsmouth VA for the SouthWest North Atlantic region which covers the bahamas, and pretty soon will also have to monitor the East Caribbean zone as well but in Puerto Rico and the DR there is also VHF weather broadcasts as there are on the US coast. There is also a SSB weather broadcast from a guy Chris Parker who runs the "Caribbean Weather Center". He gives spot forecasts for paying customers but also broadcasts his weather predictions for the bahamas and the Caribbean for all to listen.
I think we will be hanging out in George Town for a couple more days to wait for a front to move over us which could bring squalls and then leave for the Turks and Caicos.
Alan
You may have seen [these] pictures of a giant red crab that I caught while diving about 75 yards from our anchorage in about 6 feet of water. 
