By mid March, Starship was back to her barebones crew. It was just Jason, Dylan and I again after weeks and weeks of visiting with family and friends. Despite all of Jason’s efforts, it wasn’t until after our company was gone that he and Dylan started spearing tons of fish and lobster! During our continued stay in Staniel Cay, they would return to the boat each time with a bucket full of fresh catch. So far have been finding trigger, snapper, lion, lobster and grouper. This has resulted in some delicious meals onboard. Lobster season in the Bahamas just closed for three months, but as I type this, we still have three lobster tails in our freezer!

We had been in Staniel Cay for quite awhile so it was time to continue on. Our next destination was a place called Black Point. We thought this was a new place for us but we were wrong. Walking through the friendly and lovely little settlement, things quickly started to look strangely familiar. We weren’t sure until we saw a restaurant called Scorpios! That’s it! I could see the table right there where we enjoyed a dinner out with Wolfe and Lu years ago! Black Point is a terrific stop. It had a few little grocery stores, several restaurants and a great laundromat. On one of our walks, we started talking to a few local musicians who invited us to the evening church service. There was no time for us to go to the boat first before it started but they assured us that the casual shorts and t-shirts we were wearing were perfectly appropriate. We are so glad we went; it was so much fun! The band and singers did a great job of making everyone feel welcome and we had a great time singing and dancing!

It was in Black Point where we had one of our hottest days. I am not sure what the temperature got to that day but I remember us walking aimlessly and slowly through the little town stopping for cold drinks, ice creams and to hang out in that one lovely grocery store that had the air conditioning delightfully cranked.

From Black Point we sailed to Farmer’s Cay and that brought more incredible experiences to us. I have said over and over again how the amazing people we meet truly help make this trip tremendous for us. Our time in Farmer’s Cay brought some terrific ‘fast friends’ into our life. It all started with us seeing a beautiful Sabre 44 monohaul come in to anchor by us. Her name was Prima and she had a sexy navy-blue hull just like Starship’s. Onboard were Kim and John and we noticed they anchored a bit close to us. When we started talking to them, we found out why. Right as they went to anchor, their windless broke. A windless is a motorized attachment some boats have on the bow used to release and lift the anchor.  Starship doesn’t have a windless. Unfortunately on our boat, Jason’s bicep muscles are our ‘windless’!  Jas decided to jump into the water to go down and check our anchor so he went over to look at Prima’s too. John and Kim were happy to hear Jas report back that both our anchors had set very well and deeply into the sand. With both boats content on their anchors we could relax to go explore. It was a couple days later when the results of currents, and weather really began our friendship with John and Kim. Until then, Jas, Dylan and I enjoyed some snorkelling close by and my guys speared more fish. We had met another boat in the anchorage, Freya, and onboard were a lovely French couple, Laurentian (Lau) and Phil. We had them over for dinner one night. We were thrilled when Phil shared that he was a musician! I quickly put our guitar into his hands and he did not disappoint!

Another day we met up with Lau and Phil to go for a walk. It was a hot day and our focus was on finding a nice spot to enjoy a cold beer (or a few!) together. Lau guided us on a long walk around the island that led us to Ty’s! Ty’s Sunset Bar and Grill was a great stop and well worth the walk. Located on a beautiful beach we spent the afternoon relaxing. When we first walked in, we saw a sign saying that the credit card machine was not working. We had only enough cash on us for a couple beers and a pop for Dylan. Very soon after, Dylan was asking us if he could order some French fries. We said it was fine for him to go see if Ty was able to resolve the credit card issues. It was after Dylan’s third time checking in with Ty that he miraculously was able to get the machine going. We think he realized he really needed to find a way to get this kid some fries! We ended up ordering a few orders of those fries once we tasted them. They tasted exactly like super fresh McDonald’s fries!

Off the beach we saw a lemon shark and sting rays. Dylan and I went for long walks down the shore and saw a bunch of crab holes in the sand. Before we knew it, we found the creators of the holes! We saw little white crabs and chased them down the beach. At one point we saw a dinghy coming in. Dylan immediately jumped up to see if he could lend a hand landing it on shore. It was too funny when I heard the guy in the dinghy say ‘Oh, hi Dylan’! I know my child is very social but I had never seen this man before in my life! His name is Mark. He and Lea were anchored nearby on their Morgan 38 monohull (also with a sexy navy-blue hull).  Their boat is called Mischief Managed. Turns out Jas and Dylan had met Mark and Lea on one of their dinghy rides. They are a super fun, adventourous couple and we are so happy our life paths crossed with them! Anyways, our little party had grown a bit and once night fell the beach bonfire was lighting up the gentle waves breaking on shore.

I think it was the next day that I saw an interesting looking forecast on our Windfinder app. We quickly realized that we needed to now prepare for a couple days of big weather. The forecast also showed that during that time, the winds were going to be shifting dramatically. First strong from the east before switching right over to the west and really honking hard. We started looking at all our anchorage options. After awhile we came to the conclusion that where we were was truly our best option for protection from both wind directions. Farmer’s Cay, though, is where Starship got her nickname ‘the dancing boat’. The currents were very strong in our anchorage, especially at high tide, and Starship danced all around moving on her anchor chain. This, at times, got us uncomfortably close to Prima.

How bad was the storm? Did Starship ‘dance’ into Prima? You will have to watch for my next blog to find out!

The blog below talks about why we have decided to add the above Coffee button. 😊

Random acts of kindness