Kayaking

Ricky wanted to come along but we left him behind - don't think he would have been much help, he could only do the dog paddle.

Unloading the kayaks.

I took to this like a duck to water - loved it.

Paddling through the mangroves was very serene - except of course when you tangled the paddles in the tree limbs.

Check out the clarity of the water; check out that paddling form!

Richard neglected to mention how far we'd be paddling! All of us were novice kayakers, except of course him so after about 4 miles we took a beverage break and decided that we'd better head back, just didn't think we'd make that last mile. It was either wait for the tide to go out (2 or so hours) or paddle against the current. We opted for paddling - we were hungry and lunch was waiting down the road at Bishops.

At first Gerry didn't notice I had tied my kayak to his for the return trip. As it turned out I didn't need a tow, managed to paddle back all on my own, coming in in 2nd place - Gerry put on a burst of energy and got in first, although if Richard had tried he would have beat us all by a mile.




View from Bishops - best cracked conch on the island.

The MacGregor

Last year Richard towed the MacGregor over from Florida and despite the Bahamians reluctance to let Gerry import the boat (didn't see why he needed 2 boats here) it's an official Bahamian boat. Much easier to pay the duty on the boat once, than to sail it out of here every year in order to obtain a cruising permit - don't know why they could not understand that.

Getting ready

What with people coming to look at Dulcinea, sailing to Florida and back, sailing with Chris & Les we didn't have time to get her in the water. Anyway, we finally managed to launch it yesterday with Gary's help.

Gary holding up the mast

Outboard trouble couldn't get it to go down.

The outboard is really too big for the motor mount as well as the boat - makes steering difficult and gives trouble when you want to pull it out or put it into the water. The sheets you see in the photo are not for the main sail, it's an auxiliary backstay to keep the motor from falling into the ocean.

Sailing out of the canal