Good times in George Town

We got back to George Town on May 3, 2014. The idea was to buy a new outboard for the dinghy and, after breaking in the engine, start going north again to get to the Abacos. From there, we'll cross to the USA again, in preparation for hurricane season.

We did buy the outboard and are quite happy with it. Our older one was fine, but it didn't have the enough power to get us on a plane. There are normally 4 of us, plus snorkel gear, fishing gear and anything else we want to carry; it was too much for the old outboard. This resulted in us taking our sweet time to get anywhere. So we bought a more powerful outboard. Wow, what a difference! The kids are so excited that every time we get to the dinghy they start yelling “go faster, daddy, faster!” The new outboard needs to be serviced after the first 10 hours of use, and so we had to stay put in George Town for a few days. The few days easily turned into almost 3 weeks.

In the meantime, we met two kid boats, Viatori and Horizon. Viatori is a Canadian boat from Edmonton (small world!) with 3 boys. Horizon is an Argentinian boat (did I mention a small world?) with a girl and a boy. Naturally, we got together with them immediately and started spending a lot of time with them.

We fell into an easy routine. School in the morning for me and the kids, while Ernesto did maintenance stuff on the boat, dinghy to town to get groceries or do laundry. Then came lunch at varied times. And then, inevitably, we all ended up in Sand Dollar Beach, where the kids ran, played in the sand, snorkeled and had lots of fun. The adults chatted, and drank mate. And also had a great time. Sometimes, we had dinner together when we were able to accommodate the Canadian and Argentinian dinner times :)

Body boarding with Viatori

This turtle and its mom appeared almost daily next to Taia. Super cute!

Horizon and Taia crew, enjoying the beach.

Viatori, Horizon and Taia's crew

The girls had a sleepover aboard Horizon!

Walk to the Exuma Sound side of Sand Dollar beach

Ernesto scrubbing the bottom of Taia. More than 2 hours of scraping and Taia is finally algae-free.

Ernesto and Jonathan, from Horizon, went spear fishing a few times. So eating fish became a habit too. The kids are becoming experts in identifying fish and get super excited about the catch of the day. Fortunately for us, they like to eat it too!

A few times while snorkeling, they ended up swimming with a female dolphin that was very curious and friendly. She would just come around and start swimming close to them. An out of this world experience!

One afternoon, when we were coming to the boat from Volleyball beach after a lunch at the Chat 'N Chill restaurant, we saw a dolphin swimming in circles around an anchored boat, very close to shore. Immediately, Ernesto jumped to the water. And soon after that, the four of us were in the water with the dinghy securely tied up to the empty boat. We spent more than half an hour being in the water with the dolphin. What an experience! I'm sure this is going to be one of those moments forever ingrained in our memories.

Another ritual is looking at the sharks, trying to decipher what type they are, when Ernesto cleans the fish and throws the remains in the water and after a few minutes, silently, a shark or two or three, appear after they smell the blood and start circling Taia. More than once I was tempted to jump into the water to look at them, but of course, being the chicken that I am, I always stay on board Taia and admire them from above.

Shark! I think it's a lemon shark.

We also had the pleasure of getting together with Distant Shores. Paul and Sheryl are a Canadian couple who have been sailing for many years. They make videos of their travels that they then sell and show on TV. We have watched all of their episodes, dreaming of the day we'd do the same thing. We met them first a few years ago, when we took a cruising seminar in Toronto. We had a great time with them and are really glad we ran into them.

Soon, very soon, we'll all go our different ways. It will be sad to say farewell to friends again. But there's always the hope that our paths will cross again. And the kids keep piling up friends!