The weather is starting to improve.

We are still here in Hope Town riding out the fronts that those of you in the US keep sending us.  We started our third week and said "the heck with it, we'll stay a month".  The mooring balls are full and if you leave and expect to get one when you return you are out of luck.  We bit the bullet and extended our stay for a month.  There is a discount the longer you rent and if we are going to stay three weeks we may as well take advantage of the discount and stay for two more.  We are paid up until the 5th of March.  Everyone says this weather cycle should be done by then.  It is officially the coldest February on record.

But things are improving and we are having a great time.  This is a small harbor and even with the winds in the mid to upper 20's we are able to go ashore and not stuck on the boat like we were in Marsh Harbour.  Monday, Wednesday and Friday's Cori is going ashore in the morning for a yoga class, last week was a music songwriters festival.  About 16 country songwriters were here and performed their songs at a variety of venues.  We got to two of the events and they were enjoyable.  Those are some talented writers, if you are into country music you have heard a lot of their songs performed by some great artists.  We are meeting a number of other cruisers and have been getting together with some of them for cocktail hours and such.

Yesterday the weather was perfect and we actually left our mooring ball, leaving the kayak to mark that it is reserved, and went out of the harbor and anchored off the island for the day.  I wanted to dive down and check and clean the bottom and Cori wanted to clean the boot stripe (the white stripe just at the waterline).  The bottom is not real clean but we have seen worse and most of it comes off when scrubbed with a stiff brush.  The problem is that I do not have a tank and can only stay underwater for a very short time.  We got a lot of it but I had to give up when I swallowed too much salt water and upset my stomach.  One of our new friends has a homemade dive hookah and he has offered me the use of it.  I will check it out, otherwise I may have to invest in dive gear and lessons.  It will save money in the long run since a diver costs 2-3 dollars a foot or more.

There are some great anchorages in the are that we want to go see but they are not well protected so we need to wait until we have better weather and more favorable winds to go there.

I also need to announce that Cori is getting real good at blowing her conch at sundown and one of these days I will upload a video of her.

That's it for now, we will post again when something interesting happens.

Still in Hope Town

We are still in Hope Town sitting out weather.  The fronts keep coming every two to three days.  The advantage of being here instead of Marsh Harbour is that if it is blowing in the 20's we can still get off the boat or move around the harbor in our dinghy.  The disadvantage is that we have to rent a mooring ball instead of anchoring.  Today we had a calm morning so we took the dinghy on an extended excursion down the length of the island,  We got to a narrow part of the island where we could beach the boat and cross over to the ocean side.  WOW!  Six to eight foot breaking seas and when they hit the rocky shore they threw water a good fifteen to twnty feet in the air.  It was something to watch.  Of course when got back to the dinghy the wind had shifted and we did not have nice calm water to run in.  It got downright bumpy.

We have decided to stay here another week, we get a discount on the mooring if we rent it a week at a time.  There is still a lot of the area we want to see but for now we need to wait out the weather.  The locals and the vruisers that have been here many times say they have never seen weather like this.

Elbow Cay/Hope Town

We finally got out of Marsh Harbour.  There was a two day window of good weather forecast before the next front comes through and we took it.  We motorsailed and sailed back to Elbow Cay but instead of going into Hope Town we turned right and followed the shoreline down to an anchorage and dropped anchor with two other boats.  We got out with the dinghy and went exploring.  We checked out the shore of Lubbers Quarter across from us and down to Tilloo Cut to see the breakers coming in. After that we ran up to White Sound and walked up to Papa Nasty' for lunch.  Then it was back to the boat to get Cori's shelling stuff and over to Tahiti Beach.  Once she was done shelling it was a ride across to Cracker P's Bar and Grill for a beverage.  Both nights we had a very bright full moon to light everything up.

All good things must come to an end and this morning we had to leave the anchorage.  The front was getting closer and the wind had switched to the South.  It was forecast to swing around from East, to South, then West when the front would hit.  We were protected from anything from North East to East and then the South but not anything that included West.  We motored back up to Hope Town and got one of the last mooring balls available.  Everyone wants to be in a protected harbor for the weather.  Just after Cori took the dinghy into town the winds kicked up and the rain came down.  After a couple of hours the rain was light enough that she could get back without getting too wet.  Now it is hunker down for the next couple of days as it passes.  Of course there is another front coming across Florida in a couple of days so we may just stay here for a while.  They offer a discount on the mooring price if you stay for a week.