Tuesday April 8: Still Enjoying the West End ....

Time to fish! Or at least attempt to fish. One guy Steve asked assured him that there are fish just about anywhere "out there".

But it was too rough to go out very far onto the unprotected waters of the Atlantic so we settled for the much calmer waters north of the marina breakwater.

It's very shallow for most of the waters surrounding Grand Bahama Island to the north (which is where we are headed) which is good for boating but bad for fishing.

We gave it our best shot though - as did Peter. He was mostly trolling and we were mostly still fishing - using an anchor to keep us steady and in one place. The thought was that fish need structure, right? Someplace to hide. So let's go near the rock retaining walls of the marina.

Finally - we were catching! But just little grunts mostly. And I do mean little. Definitely not on my list of things to clean - I don't care what Dave or Werner would say :-)

So we headed back into the protection of the marina breakwalls as the wind was still producing some fairly large waves. It's called surfing most of the way in on the three foot waves. And then the engine that could - couldn't. Dead in the water. Toss out the anchor. Get out the oars. Steve did a heroic job of getting us back to our slip against the wind that was trying to blow us to the rocks! Next job: fix the little engine ....

There was a small beach and breakwall on the other side of the marina - well protected from the wind and waves so we snorkeled there. Steve went back today and found better stuff. Starfish and small grunts were mostly what we saw.

Our expectations for the REAL snorkeling are quite high! Later in the trip ...

Today was another trip to town. Good exercise and Steve was after some conch. Why not just buy some from the conch guy and make chowder?

Great idea! But a breakdown on Cheryl's bike .. can Peter get it fixed or will he have to walk back (while Cheryl rides his bike of course - he's just that kind of guy).

No go on the fix-it-job but a great solution by Steve: just tow Peter using the two bike cables from our bikes! Worked like a charm although Steve accused Peter of putting on the brakes part way back :-)

Regardless, we did make it to the conch stand and for $2 each picked up 4 conch - cleaned and ready to be used. This is a pile of conch shells nearby - and there are probably half a dozen that we saw along the road. Only native Bahamians are permitted to harvest the conch now. Ok by us - we'd never get them out of the shell anyway!

It wasn't long after we arrived back at the boat and Steve was hard at working making the conch chowder.

It is excellent!! Back tomorrow though for more conch - he's thinking maybe a dozen so there will be some for the freezer.






One of the guys at the marina happy hour tonight had this t-shirt on. This is very much how our sailboat lingo goes! You'd think we'd learn a thing or two from Peter and Cheryl but apparently we haven't yet. (Be sure to click on the picture to make it bigger.)

I think the terminology works just fine myself :-)







As peaceful as the marina looked when we returned about 1 pm, the strong winds we knew were coming ....came. Gusts up to 35 mph. Not horrid but definitely not something I want to be anchored out in.


Tomorrow? Not sure. Winds have changed from S to SW and then tomorrow to the W and finally to the N. Once they change to E on Thursday, out we'll head. Along with everyone else in the marina from what we hear!