January 1, 2014 Happy New Year!!

Rita!

Rita hailed us on channel 68.  She invited us over to their boat, sv/Whisper, for a little New Year's Day soiree at 1:00.... with Keith & Trevor, sv/Rising sun, and Billy & Ilene, sv/Circe.  This was such a pleasant surprise!  Everyone was contributing food to the afternoon meal.  All I had to take was a bowl of fruit but since I had made chocolate chip cookies this morning, I took them also.  I know everyone loves chocolate chip                                                cookies!!

David

Once we got to sv/Whisper,  we could tell that Rita was upset.   David had
just been checking his engine compartment and discovered the transmission fluid had been leaking.  They have a relatively new engine and transmission,  a 2 year old Kabota, with a little over 400 hours on it.  What a bummer.  This should not be happening.  Plus, who knows how soon, not to mention the cost, to fix their problem.   To make matters worse, they had just called for reservations at a marina in Nassau.   They were planning on leaving with Keith on Jan. 3  so they could get to Nassau by the 10th.   Trevor has a plane to catch and Keith's son is flying in on the same day. It's not looking good that they'll be tagging along.  :((

David, Ilene, Chuck

Chuck, Me

Trevor, Keith, Billy

On the brighter side, our luncheon was wonderful.  All eight of us were nice and cozy in the cockpit.  We had turkey sliders,  corn/bean salad, deviled eggs, potato salad, fruit salad, and cookies. What could be more perfect than eating in the cockpit of a sailboat on a hook in the middle of Marsh Harbour.  It can't get much better than this!!!  ~~_/) ~~

Shelley, Greg, d/Kait

From sv/Whisper, we motored out to sv/ Simplicity II which is a Hylas 44'.  Greg & Shelley are a couple from Victoria BC, Canada, that we've also been hanging with. They have a daughter Kait that is always in our marina.  They wouldn't let us leave until we had a glass of wine, crackers, and cheese.  They are planning on heading out to venture further south so there's a good possibility that we won't ever see them again.    After a nice visit, we climbed over board into our dinghy to head back to HHII to boil some lobster tails which we bought off of a local that came to our boat.....8 for
$35....I did't think that was a bad price.