Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 We started the day over at the hut, just getting things a little more situated for the party....

John and Sandy volunteered to bring over some long bamboo poles to replace the ones that got washed away in the hurricane.  These will be used to support the huge black net sunshade.

Otherwise, just a bunch of various chores - cruisers came over to the hut all morning to chip in.  Ron and Dee from Ursa Minor.

Bob from Two of a Kind cleaning up some trash with Duane.

Jerry spent a long time out in the sun cutting up all the driftwood we'd pulled over and piled up.  This will be used to keep the cook fire hot!

 

Diane from Two of a Kind and Rick from C Language moving some more sand.

 

After lunch, we took advantage of the calmer weather to go snorkeling.

 

On the way back to the boat over the sandbar we could see a shark - Duane took the dinghy near it for a quick photo.

 

The sunset was lovely with a small green flash at the end.

 

I still haven't figured out my camera settings for night photography....Ron made a UHF announcement that we could go out an see the SpaceX rocket launch...it was fun to watch, crystal clear to my eyes but the photo is worthless!

Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 Another busy day!

In the morning, we went over to the southern little beach to retrieve the piece of plywood/tabletop that had gotten washed ashore there during Hurricane Michelle.  It's in rough shape but beggars can't be choosers out here!  We removed all the nails and carefully got it on our dinghy. 

Slowly took it over to the cruiser hut.  Maxine had sent some 2x4's and nails/screws over yesterday for us to use to rebuild the table.

 

We put it all together - after lunch we came back with Jerry & Donna to get the table back usable.

 Jerry and Duane doing some measurements.

And then they just proceeded to build the support legs.

  

 

Chris from Solaris joined in to help.

 

And Bob from Two of a Kind joined as well!

 

Support legs complete, tabletop was attached.

Finished table....very sturdy but not very pretty.  It will be perfect for loading up with "auction" items for Saturday's Valentines party. 

 

 That all done, we were back to the boat for a rest....and later we heard a welcome shout from outside.  Lori from "42" was there for a visit.  We had given her our old jib to use to make bags and such.  As a thank you, she made me a custom bag out of our sail components!

 

 

It's absolutely lovely and creative!  She used the sail cloth itself, the rope was from the leech line imbeded in the sail (I think) and she polished one of the brass "hanks" that hold the sail to the forestay to use as a closure inside the bag.  She even included a piece of the sail where we had done the herringbone stitch to repair it as a memory of those hours of stitching before we decided to replace the sail!  So sweet of her! 

 

The tag says it all - "MADE BY LORI WITH LOVE & THE OCCASIONAL SWEAR WORD!"

 

 

 

Hog Cay, Ragged Island, Bahamas

 Busy day....the mailboat had arrived overnight so the plan was to go over to Duncan Town mid-morning.  First we dinghied over to Maranatha to do a bit of trading.  Their watermaker had failed so they were going to have to head to Georgetown.  Since they could get more gasoline there, we were going to trade a bottle of propane for  5 gallons of gasoline.  (We have extra propane on board but gasoline is hard to come by in the Ragged Islands!)  Duane offered to take a look at their watermaker - Marjane and I sat in the cockpit chatting.  Duane figured out that the culprit was a cooling fan failure causing the watermaker to overheat.  Fortunately, we have a spare similar (but not identical) fan that Duane thinks will work.  Repair on hold while we head over to Ducan Town.

 

 

 About halfway there, the dingy engine roars and the prop is wildly spinning....so we diagnose that we've "spun a prop".  Fortunately for us, there is enough friction on the shaft to turn the prop at idle.  So we putz back to the boat at idle.  It takes about 20 minutes at that speed.  

Fortunately, we have a spare prop also!

 

 It took Duane about 5 minutes to remove/replace the prop.   You can see the failed rubber inside the shaft.   Back to business heading towards Duncan Town. 

 

 The mailboat offload was still in progress....

 

 
 We visited a bit with Maxine and picked up a few groceries that I had not ordered. 

   

Were happy to meet up with Ralph and Leslie from Now & Zen for the first time this season!  Good catching up.  We'll see them again in the next few days leading up to the Valentine's party.

While waiting for our groceries from the mailboat, we visited with other cruisers at the Ponderosa....

Skye from Tangent joking with some local residents at the bar.... 

 

 Everyone hanging out waiting on their grocery boxes!

 

 After waiting some more, we determined that our wine order from Nassau had not made it to the mailboat.  We'll have to chase that down for next week.  Back to the boat with a speedy propeller!

 

 

Almost low tide!  Have to be careful with that pristine propeller, haha.

Back at the boat, Duane found a replacement fan and we headed back to Maranatha.

 

After about 15 minutes, Duane had things back running....fun day!

 

 

 

Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 We had a fairly uneventful day.  I made some hamburger buns to have something a bit different....I'm storing these in the freezer because they seem to get mold after a couple of days in the pantry.  They are made with an egg so maybe that causes mold more easily.  They freeze wonderfully.

 

 We went ashore to do a bit of repair to the old cooking grill there.  The bottom of the grill is completely rusted thru.  Duane used screws to attach some galvanized sheet metal -- just hoping for one more year of use to cook the conch fritters on Saturday.  (forgot to take a photo but it's not terribly exciting....)   Chatted in the shade of the cruiser hut for a while. 

 

We invited Bill and Marjane from Maranatha over for sundown....fun to visit but I really need to up my game on the photo front since no photos were taken....

Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 I forgot to include a little video of a turtle yesterday.  Was fun to watch it swim away, not too nervous about me watching as they sometimes are.

 

I am running short on sweet snacks....all my lemon sandwich cookies are gone....so I made some "garbage cookies" (oatmeal/coconut).  I store them in the freezer to keep them fresh.

In the morning, we went ashore and drug (dragged for you, Dee) some driftwood over to the hut to be used as firewood for the upcoming party.  It's a big pile of mess right now - hopefully we can get Jerry to use his rechargeable Saws-All to cut it up into manageable pieces.

 

Mid day we decided to move about a mile south to the "Windrush Bay" anchorage to give a little better protection for the wind shift over the next day or so.  Also will be a little closer to the cruiser hut....lovely crescent beach here.

 

 

The migration has started - about 10 new boats arrived during the day.  Looks like it might be a well-attended party. 

We took the dinghy in for sundown...busy, busy!!  A little loud, of course.