Our first full day in Mayaguana was pretty grey with sporadic rain. We spent the morning and afternoon on the boat tidying, entertaining, and watching some project runway. While we did this Eben went spear fishing with some other boating buddies. He returned with a huge rock Grouper and a smaller triggerfish. He cleaned them, accidentally punctured our dinghy with his fillet knife, and then fed the carcass to the bull sharks that were circling our boat. Jaala even gave the “shark feeding” a go while Eben tried to catch it all on film. We finished all this fun with Eben giving me a quick haircut and we were ready for our evening.
That night we all gathered on s/v Bendecida for a potluck and to enjoy the spoils of their afternoon catch. We ate some great fish tacos and shared sailing stories and plans for our next leg.
The following day Eben took the morning to patch our dinghy’s fish-cleaning war wound and to instal a fuel polishing system since we had a lot of sediment in the diesel from our trip from Georgetown. In the afternoon we went into town and got a ride from some locals to go to Pirates’ Well to do a diesel fill. While we did this, for our boat and two others, Bob from s/v Bendecida and Jon from s/v Jackasso hand pumped water to fill jugs for the three boats. It was nice to see another part of the island, although there wasn’t much over there either, it was a change in scenery and an adventure to go on. After all our “work” we returned to Abrahams Bay to do some groceries and then hit up the bar once again. Eben and Jaala learned to play Bahamian dominos, which is a very loud and aggressive game taken very seriously here. And both did very well. I used this time to hop online and update the blog and load some pictures. Hanging out with the locals, sitting around, and just enjoying doing nothing when there is nothing to do was very rejuvenating. We returned home for a late supper, some of Arias’ school activity books, and an early bedtime.
Although the days have been slow and there isn’t a ton to do here we have managed to fill them, mainly with checking the weather repetitively looking for a window and a game plan, and taking this forced relaxation before we set sail again.
Today was a later start for some on the boat, and for those of us that were up earlier we went back down at nap time. Once everyone was fully awake we went into town for some interneting, some time on the playground, and a couple last cold drinks. We ran into our buddy boats in town and reconvened on s/v Bendecida for a weather get together. We sat and went over three different weather sources, checked our charts and decided that tomorrow will be the take off for Turks and Caicos and possibly straight through to DR depending on how the day sail goes. Once everyone was agreed and happy with the plan we returned to our boat to prep for tomorrow’s departure, meaning restowing, hauling the dinghy up on deck, and checking the engine for air in the fuel since Eben just installed our new fuel polisher. It will be an early night for an early start.
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