Waiting for weather in Georgetown

Weather system passing through Georgetown from Cuba, which was not predicted. We got an abnormal two days of consistent rain and this morning we decided to just catch rain for our fresh water tanks so we wouldn't have to fill up from the dinghy dock using our two 6 gallon water tanks over several trips. On top of the fact that the rain water we caught was much better than the reverse osmosis (RO) water that the island provides. We talked with another cruiser and he told us what we already knew on the water quality. Luckily, I brought a Brita water filter to help purify the water to drink and we have another water filter for the sink to help remove particulates. The water is free to anyone so that is nice. On the other hand, diesel is $5.05 here in Georgetown and gasoline is even more expensive. We see a long line of people waiting to refuel on the single gas station in town. There is no longer Bahamian bread available in Georgetown as the people we bought bread from last year went out of business and the person who normally makes bread during the high cruising season doesn't come around anymore. :( We liked the spicy chicken sandwich from the Driftwood cafe, which was relatively reasonably priced at $6.50 for just the sandwich. It was a quaint, cute little cafe with A/C. :) The Pet's Place (blue) deli/internet cafe has super sweet freshly squeezed lemonade for $3, but free wifi is really nice! :) During the times without wind or with very little wind results in swarms of no-see-ums along with mosquitoes and other bugs. We have been dealing with these hungry bugs on the boat as they got in our cabin due to their small size fitting through the mesh that would keep out mosquitoes and other larger insects. We have resorted to wearing long sleeves and pants with socks so we have less exposed skin, but they will go after any exposed flesh such as ears, necks, and hands. My mosquito netting is not protection enough against these tiny but ferociously poisonous bugs. They do sell netting to keep out no-see-ums, but you may as well use a sheet because it will not allow wind to pass through and in the summer it is a coin toss between the heat or bugs. I think I would choose the heat over the bugs because bug bites last longer with itchiness and scars. I wonder what feeds on the no-see-ums?

Being back on the boat has its pros and cons. Pros being in beautiful places with a pool at your doorstep and enjoying nature and nice weather and having peace and quiet, away from the hustle and bustle of daily routines and working. Cons being limited freshwater supply, limited fresh foods that can be expensive to obtain, no air conditioning, no refrigeration to keep foods fresh, no shower aside from the ocean, and of course bugs. :) The boat is a slow method of travel, but we are moving faster now that we dropped our fin keels and some bad food. :) I definitely overstocked the boat with food and I think we will even have food left for the rest of this summer trip and the next time we return to the boat with some to spare. In my own defense I was stocking the boat to be gone for a year or longer so it is not too bad. :) Needless to say when we are on land we eat completely differently than on the boat for many reasons. We are limited in our ingredients as well as cooking methods with our two burner stove in the galley and a small grill on deck. It is interesting to try out different things with what we have here on the boat. However, we have yet to make acceptable bread on both land and water. :) I would love to learn how to make delicious breads and of course any other foods for that matter. Yum! :)

Back on the boat again! :)

We splashed the boat this morning and brought the boat back up to Georgetown to refuel and get more water. We are enjoying the air conditioning along with coffee and lemonade in the Blue deli that has free wifi.

It was windy and rainy last night and today it is just rainy with little to no wind. Frodo is doing well and all systems are go with respect to the engine and the other electronics. We encountered no problems putting the boat back in the water and the lift dropped us in the water in less than 20 minutes. :)

We enjoyed lunch (grilled chicken sandwiches & fries) along with a few Sands & Kalik's at Chat N' Chills before setting our anchor outside Georgetown.

We checked our food and fuel inventory on the boat and had to throw a good bit of food away and removed about a gallon of fuel. We also dropped our bilge keels and repainted the bottom while at Master's Harbor Marina. They charged $400 (!!) for a gallon of paint with tin to help prevent growth. After we left the harbor we found the boat was much more maneuverable and swift! :) We were traveling at 5 knots with just the engine going (maybe at half speed or so) and with just the head sail and very light winds we were going at 2.5 knots. This is much better than before with the fin keels attached! :)

We look forward to our travels ahead this summer and much more so now that we have lost some "fat." :) We hope for fair winds...

More of Staniel Cay

Well I made the decision to accept the job at a new school in their IB Program and I am feeling good about it. I am going to make an effort into changing my past teaching habits to keep the stress and work load down while still doing a good job with the kids. I got the official job offer from HR and it will get finalized after July 4th holiday. I haven't gotten any emails from my old school after I sent them my decision to work at another school. Well, the new principal didn't even want to give me a phone interview so I don't know what they expected from me. I guess I will see what my old colleagues say when I get back to the U.S. I feel better knowing we have a plan. We called several marinas and boatyards in Abaco, Nassau, and Georgetown to find out no one in Nassau would store our boat on the hard and the boat yard in Abaco was completely full so we have no choice but to bring the boat to Georgetown unless we decide to sail back to Florida, which is something we really don't want to do because we would have to go back to Green Cove Springs for cheap boat storage or go back to Miami and leave the boat on a mooring for the same cost as Georgetown, Great Exuma. In the end, we finally decided to just continue south to Georgetown and book some plane tickets back to Atlanta. This way we can maximize our time and already have the boat in the Bahamas the next time we come back to Frodo. We talked about coming back in December because I will have over 2 weeks vacation for the winter holidays. We are feeling better about leaving just knowing when we will be coming back to Frodo. We spend the rest of the day jumping in the water to cool off and climbing back on deck to dry off in the sun. Until we get a visit from a man from the catamaran that just anchored next to us to invite us to dinner. We gladly accept his invitation and look forward to meeting new people. I decide to clean the canned foods from the center floor board and the ice box because I found they were getting rusty and moldy. I was able to reallocate the food from the center floor board to other cubbies, but I had to replenish the food from the ice box because there wasn't enough space to move all the canned food to some place that wasn't as humid. I was able to finish just in time before dinner and I got cleaned up. Then we headed over to Entrepreneurship (50' catamaran) and were welcomed by the owner, Stefan (German) and captain of the boat, Berry (American). We met Oliver (French) who was the one who invited us earlier, Christian (sounds like Carson when they pronounced his name) and Katherine other Germans. Later we met Liz (Canadian) who was the cook on the boat and we ate some pita bread with roasted peppers, cream cheese, and pesto spread (delicious :). There was also angelfish pan fried served as an appetizer, which Stefan caught earlier. They also had grilled lobster, which we didn't eat because there was only one tail and it was covered in flies. I chatted with Katherine for a while and found out she teaches children from ages 1-6, but it is much better as she only has 5 children at a time. With the small class she can do a lot with them and that is good. Then before we knew it dinner was served of pesto stuffed chicken breast with risotto paired with a cold glass of white wine. It was delicious. Then I talked with Stefan and Oliver about their business in Boston involved with software for purchasing apparel online. They were the first in the business, which is why they made so much money. I found out that Stefan's wife isn't really into the sailing thing, but just got her certification to be a yoga instructor. I told him about the book Yoga On-board and he was thrilled to know about putting their two interests together. It was nice getting to know everyone and I found out why their boat was named Entrepreneurship. Christian was the liveliest 61 year old man I have ever seen and probably in the best shape as he didn't look old at all. Actually, Stefan was really young looking as well and others joked about him starting his business at age 12 and is now 18, when in fact he is about to turn 40. He was talking about being from East Germany(Eastern block) and going to university during those times. The sky was clear and we enjoyed the cool air at the front of the catamaran. Christian turned out to be in a band and pulled out his guitar to sing some songs. JR joined in singing with a few of his favorites. Then we put on some salsa music and danced for a little while on the bridge, until we were tired. We chatted for a little while longer had a end of evening toast and then decided it was time for us to head back to our boat. We had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone and it was too bad they were flying out the next day to go back to Boston or Germany. We made it back to Frodo just in time because we were sitting on deck for only a few minutes before we felt the cold winds of a squall hit us. We rushed to make sure everything was secured on deck and hurried into the cabin before the rain hit. And boy did it hit us! We saw our instruments read a continuous wind speed of 45 knots and someone else reported the gusts were up to 61 knots! It was too bad our wind generator had to go on self regulation mode because the wind was too strong to be on because we really could have used the wind power to recharge our batteries. We haven't been getting enough wind or sun lately to get power, but enough to have on the fans and lights of course. The boat was rocking back and forth with the winds, but we had on the GPS to notify us of the anchor dragging and the alarm never went off so we were fine. The next day we saw the anchor was tripped, but hooked a great deal of sea grass and held on tight for the rest of our duration on Staniel Cay.
We decided to stay at Staniel Cay for the July 4th celebration because we heard they had an all American gathering with burgers and hot dogs. We made reservations early at the yacht club that day for dinner, but found out the menu was actually roast pork and turkey instead of the burgers. We were disappointed, but still looked forward to some tasty food. The dinner cost a whopping $23 per person and we found out later it was not including anything but some side dishes (rice or mashed potatoes, veggies, and stuffing), salad and water. People also exclaimed they couldn't believe that we only got one plate of food, but we found the food was sufficient to fill our bellies (we don't eat as much these days). We headed back to the boat and watched the surprisingly long set of fireworks from the deck. We saw Sampson Cay also had set off some fireworks, but it was nothing compared to the show we saw on Staniel Cay. I see now where our money went towards from the dinner. It was the longest set of fireworks I had seen in a while. We had a wonderful time and glad we got to experience it. But paying the exorbitant fee was acceptable just this time. :)
We spent our time enjoying the cool clear waters and I cleaned the hull of the beard and some barnacles growing on the bottom. The cleaning process was completed over several days due to the strong currents making it difficult to swim and dive under the boat and taking breaks to snorkel around the anchorage. After talking with the people from Entrepreneurship, we were convinced to go see the swimming pigs out on Big Majors Spot (on Pig beach). We took the dinghy over with a few food scrapes to feed the pigs and were patiently waiting for the other boaters to feed the pigs, take their pics and leave. Then we got our turn to feed the pigs and I snapped some pictures of them swimming and eating the Bahamian bread (they loved it), potato (one of their favorites according to Oliver), an apple (loved it), and a lime (they don't like these). It was pretty funny to see a pig carry an apple in his mouth while swimming to shore to eat so the other pigs couldn't steal his bounty. :) I had a grand time feeding them and taking pics. I even got to pet them! :) On the way back to the boat we discussed the locals using this as a tourist attraction to have us feed their pigs and later they would be slaughtered for food. I enjoyed myself feeding the pigs and I think JR did too. :)
We have been feeling the effects of summer heat down here in the Bahamas and no wind. It is pretty miserable unless you are in the water. Ergo, we spend our time getting in and out of the water. Snorkeling around until we are tired and then drying off on deck. Eating when we are hungry and the cycle repeats itself until sunset. We don't like to be in the water at night because that is when the sharks come out to feed. We have only seen nurse sharks, but Stefan saw a lemon shark as well when he caught his angelfish the other day. We are going to play it safe and not put ourselves in harms way. I enjoy finding all types of conch, whelks, sand dollars, fish and any other marine life around. While I was cleaning the hull I had three small curious fish swimming around me and playing with me while I worked. Towards the end of my time in the water, they were nipping at me or something as I couldn't see what they were doing and rubbing up against my legs. Another day while I was cleaning the hull I saw the smallest Sargent major fish that was the size of my pinky nail or smaller even swimming around me. It was so cute! :) I really do enjoy having these interactions with marine life.

Holy Nurse Shark Batman!

We set out on a true adventure when Dan & JR decided to try and catch (yes, I said catch) a nurse shark. The nurse sharks are quite common in the Thunderball area and we have seen them scavenge the area when we clean fish on the beach. We found out from both locals and the internet that nurse shark meat is very tasty and so began our adventure. First Dan caught a parrot fish and then we went to a small beach to clean out the fish and JR hooked the fish head with a metal leader line to his fishing pole and tossed it into the water to attract the sharks. The current was taking the fish blood in the wrong direction, but eventually a shark came to check out the beach. Interestingly, it left without ado and then it or another one came back around and found Dan's piece of fish attached to a hand line. As expected the shark ate the piece of fish right off the hook and didn't even break the line. Then after a few passes back and forth the shark came to eat the fish head off JR's rod line. But JR used a bigger hook (#2) with metal wire (90 lb strength) attached to his rod and reel with a fighting belt to help pull in the shark and tire it. The shark fought hard, but we expected a lot more fight from a shark. Eventually JR was able to reel in the shark to the beach and Dan proceeded to kill it with brute force using a fish billy club and a hammer to bludgeon it to death. It was amazing how resilient the shark was and crazy how long it took to kill the shark. We all felt bad for its suffering and pain. We were able to get an up close look at the shark and learn about its anatomy after it died. The colorful mosaic patterned skin of the shark felt much smoother than we thought and much tougher than anyone would expect. It was impossible to skin the shark with the tools we had to be able to save the skin for future use and I was disappointed at the waste. We read online also about the huge liver having a lot of oil good for lamp fuel, but we didn't know how to extract it so that also was given to the seagulls. We cut up the meat and split it between Dan's family and us, but the remaining meat was thrown out to sea to be recycled and eaten by other fish and organisms in the water. While JR & Dan were preparing the shark meat, I was cracking open my first conch after Dan showed me how he does it. It took me a long time to crack open the conch and I had to destroy pretty much the entire shell to get the organism out. I used Dan's hammer and I found out how hard the conch shell was because some of my strikes didn't do much damage to the shell. It was interesting to see a bright yellow-green ink that was emitted by the conch which has stained my hands before. The slime that accompanied the conch was very sticky and I has a difficult time cleaning it off. Eventually, I was able to get at the conch and found him quite tough to pull off the remaining shell. After removing the conch I removed all the parts except for the white muscle to the foot, which is the edible portion of the conch. I tried a small piece of the conch and found the meat to be quite tasty after all the slime removal of course. Then we returned to the boat and we hurried to prepare the shark meat for lunch. We pan fried a filet of shark with salt and pepper finishing it with a little lemon juice. We found the shark meat to be delicious. I was amazed how it wasn't fishy. Then I ate the conch meat thinly sliced with a little lemon juice. Unfortunately, some parts were a little chewy while other parts of the conch were tender. I suspect it was because it was not consumed immediately and I had it sitting in a Tupperware container under the shade of a tree for a while. Then I cleaned up the boat and we grilled some shark steaks for dinner with only pepper and little Teriyaki sauce. It was very good. We watched a movie and later Dan came over to do a movie exchange and chat. When I woke up in the middle of the night I noticed the shark meat was glowing with phosphorescent organisms on the surface of the meat and within the meat. I have seen these organisms floating in the water, but never inside the flesh of another organism. It really freaked me out and the glowing animals probably came from my washing the shark meat with salt water with no filter, but it doesn't explain the glowing from within the flesh. The shark meat was no longer appetizing to me and when we woke up the next morning we found the shark meat was covered with hordes of flies that had gotten in even with our mesh screen up. We threw out the meat and I didn't protest. I noticed some small itchy bumps on my torso, which I am not sure what their origin was from the shark meat or conch. But either way I wasn't going to eat any more shark. I have eaten conch before in conch fritters, but not raw. So whichever is the culprit I may never know, unless I decide to try and crack some conch again. :)
The next day we went to shore to buy some bread ($5), three onions ($4.80), and a small block of cheese ($6). We also found out about the international phone card from BATELCO so I could call back to the US for my interviews. Then we returned to the boat for lunch and afterward I worked on cleaning the beard off the hull. When I was tired from cleaning the hull we went to shore to hike on the trail to Ocean Beach. It was a short hike there and the wind felt great to cool us. We saw white caps and waves probably 2- 4 feet with winds around 15 knots. Then we returned to Frodo for dinner and a long talk about what JR plans to do. We said our goodbyes to Dan and his family because they were planning to leave the next morning to continue south towards Georgetown and eventually to Dominican Republic for hurricane season. It was really nice traveling with them and we learned a lot about spearfishing. We have met a lot of really cool and interesting people during our travels. I look forward to seeing them again some day. :)
When we woke the next morning Dan's boat was gone already and the anchorage seems empty with only our boat on this side. We went to shore and bought a couple of phone cards ($30 worth) from BATELCO because calls to the US cost $0.51 and I needed to make sure I enough for the phone interview. We found out that the marine boat yard in Georgetown cost $0.35 per foot per day and $11/ft for a haul out. We were surprised to learn it didn't matter if we were trying to leave the boat there long term and after doing the math decided it was too expensive. After my hour long interview I got a very good response and not officially offered a job but essentially I was given the position. I have one more interview and I informed them I would give them my response as soon as I could after talking with the other school. It was so hot in the phone booth I was sweating profusely and as soon as I got off the phone I went to sit on the porch of the Staniel Cay yacht club bar & restaurant with JR and got a nice cold Kalik to celebrate. After sitting for a while chatting we were driven away by a dirty flea covered dog that kept following us. We returned to the boat and had some lunch while watching the end of the movie we didn't finish from the day before. We jumped into the cool waters because it was so hot. Then I did some laundry in the cockpit while JR looked for other boat yards to leave our boat for a while and plane tickets to fly back home. After I finished the laundry we snorkeled around for a while to cool ourselves. I am going to miss being able to just jump into the clear cool waters when I got hot. It is like we have a pool right outside our house that completely surrounds us and is beautiful with marine life everywhere. We had our dinner and a movie then spent some time on deck star gazing, which was a particularly great night due to the absence of the moon reducing almost all the light pollution from the sky. Millions of stars could be seen and we saw a few shooting stars before we headed back into the cabin. I read myself to sleep but awoke in the middle of the night pondering my decision about work and which job I wanted. After finishing the phone interview I actually felt excited about returning and doing something different. I really hope things will be different when I go back to work because if not I am doing something wrong. I need to make changes to reduce my work load and stress level so I can enjoy my job more. I really do enjoy working with kids and teaching them. :)

More of Staniel Cay

Today we went to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club to watch a World Cup game (Brazil v. Portugal) with Dan and Amosh, but instead we watched Korea v. ICD because their ESPN2 channel worked while ESPN didn't. We ordered a Kalik ($4) at the bar and watched the first half of the game, then we left to see if we could catch some fish with bait and a line. We found that the current was too strong and the dinghy was pushed in a different direction with the wind so we gave up and headed back to the boat. We were able to get internet miraculously on the boat and we used it to check our emails and get weather information. We ate a light lunch and JR went back out around 3pm with Dan & Amosh to go fishing. When JR came back they had caught a flounder, 3 groupers, 3 squirrel fish, and a parrot fish. They had even hooked a nurse shark but it was too strong and broke the line. It turns out hermit crabs are good bait and of course using the head of a small squirrel fish was good as well. I gathered the fish cleaning materials and hopped into the dinghy to help JR clean the fish on the nearest beach. We filleted the parrot fish for Amosh because Dan didn't want any fish. We were asked to not clean our fish at that beach by the people visiting the house because the two children wanted to go swimming and couldn't with us cleaning the fish there. It was interesting we had seen a sign posted in town regarding the fact that all beaches in the Bahamas are public just yesterday and now these people are telling us we can't be there to clean fish. We told them we wouldn't clean fish there next time because it really isn't worth the trouble of dealing with these kind of people. We are doing our best to live stress free and karma will come back around. So we finished cleaning the fish and headed back to Frodo to clean up ourselves from all the scales and fish smell. We steamed the two squirrel fish but over cooked them due to using too high heat for too long (5 min), but we still enjoyed them. Then we boiled the bones and fish heads for a fumet to make fish bouillabaisse tomorrow with the fish fillets we saved from the grouper and flounder. On a different note, we saw that the weather will still be windy so we won't be leaving for a few days until it settles. This is the life on a boat with weather dictating your travels.

Staniel Cay

Today we went back to Titta Emil's Bread House and picked up some freshly baked Bahamian bread for $5. Then we went to the Blue Grocery store, which is right next to the pink grocery store, to pick up some eggs ($3.90/dozen). Then went walked back to the beach and enjoyed the cold waters during the hot morning. After cooling ourselves off we headed back to the boat and ate some lunch of bread mostly. I worked on my sketching and then we set off for Thunderball around 1:30pm because it was low tide. The moment we got into the water we had tons of fish surrounding us and coming up to us without any hesitation. Later we learned that some people feed the fish and that is why those fish were so friendly and one even brushed up against the inside of my hand. After snorkeling around outside of the entrance to the Thunderball cave we entered with a current against us, but we made it inside and looked around us at this huge cavern inside this rock. It was pretty neat, but the fish surrounding us really made the moment really cool. Schools of fish were just following us around and I suppose now they were just waiting around to get a morsel of food. I was naive in thinking these fish were just curious about us and not afraid. There were Sargent Majors, grouper, parrot fish, snapper, angel fish, and so many others swimming around us and so many types of coral with even a donkey dung sea cucumber hanging out by the sea fans. Later we found out there was so much life around these rocks because they are in a protected area and that means it is a no take zone. We took the dinghy back to talk with Dan and then picked up my camera phone so I could take a pic of Thunderball at low tide since the entrance was exposed, too bad there was now a whole group of people in the cave. Then we snorkeled around the grotto and then took the dinghy past the rapids to check out the ship wrecked on Fowl Cay and when we brought our dinghy to the beach we didn't stay due to the boat getting a little swamped from the strong waves crashing into our dinghy. We turned the boat around and bailed out a little before jumping back in and motoring out of there. We went through the rapids on the counter current side which was much calmer and we could actually see the bottom of the water, which was very deep. Then JR dropped me off at the boat and went with Dan to try and spearfish near the moorings. They turned up empty handed because the grouper were very scared and retreated into their holes when you were within 10 feet of them. I worked on my sketches while he was gone and began cooking up some fried rice when JR returned without any fish. We ate an early dinner and I did the dishes and cleaned up while JR napped. We planned out the rest of our trip and determined we wouldn't make it to Georgetown with the weather against us and my time constraints due to going back to work. Well, I have about a month left to soak up the sun and make the most of my time out here in the beautiful waters of the Bahamas. I am very lucky to have been able to go on this trip and have the experiences on Frodo.

Sampson Cay

The holding was very good as we didn't move at all, but we had the GPS set just in case the anchor tripped at night to sound an alarm to wake us. We slept well even with the strong winds and we were much more protected than in Warderick Wells because we weren't bouncing around even with the stronger winds here. We are glad we left Warderick Wells to come to this anchorage at Sampson Cay because we are much more comfortable. After having some breakfast we headed into shore to use the internet at the Sampson Cay Marina. We were there all morning and I checked out the store to compare prices of food. The Bahamian bread cost $7, the chicken cost $10.29/lb, steak was $14, shrimp cost $38/bag, and the French wine we got from Nassau for $5 was $9 here. They also didn't have any eggs which we were looking to purchase. I snapped pics of wildlife and scenery while JR was on the computer and then I got on my email long enough to reply to a couple people and quickly updated my blog without attaching any pics due to time. Then we headed back to the dinghy and we saw a nurse shark right on shore in the shallow waters! This is the first time I have seen a shark on my trip and it was really cool. I was able to snap a few quick pics with my camera phone and then we headed out to Frodo. On our way back we saw several nurse sharks swimming at the bottom of the water very close to the marina. Then we pulled up our anchor and headed out of Sampson Cay around 1pm and headed for Staniel Cay. We took the inside passage during low tide and it got a little rough when we approached the opening into the Atlantic where we could see white caps. The wind was blowing 15 knots from the southeast and we motored the entire way not bothering to put out our sails. We got to the anchorage near Club Thunderball around 2pm and saw the Hungarian family anchored here. The current is very strong here and we had to get through some rapids to enter the anchorage. We threw down a second anchor to help pull us out of the strong current and then went inside to eat some much needed lunch. Then we looked at the charts and decided we didn't want to back track to get into a better anchorage so we pulled up both anchors and got closer to shore so we wouldn't be in the strong current area. Then we rested and read for a short while before heading into shore looking for the general store and the dinghy dock. We took the dinghy all the way past the small bridge to Isle's General Store and found that they had their own dinghy dock, which is nice. We looked around and saw there wasn't much as far as groceries so we asked if they had bread and eggs, but they didn't stating the supply ship would be in the following day and to come back. The lady did suggest for us to visit a yellow house for some bread and so we hopped back on the dinghy and headed into town to search for this yellow house. It really is too bad she was not more descriptive because there were several buildings painted yellow around town. So after wandering aimlessly we went into a BATELCO building and asked for directions. They gave us directions and we were off... we walked and walked until we passed the yacht club and saw some new development so we asked the man walking from a house and he informed us that there weren't any shops where we were and we were far from the bread house. So we listened and followed his directions bringing us back to the dinghy parked on the beach, which we made a pit stop to get some water as we were dehydrated by this point in the hot sun. We continued walking down the main street and eventually saw a yellow house, which we didn't think was the right building because it just looked like someone's house. JR kept walking down to the Happy People Marina and I saw that the yellow house we just passed was indeed the place of the bread. So I got his attention and we made our way into the kitchen asking for some freshly baked bread. We were too late in the day and there was no more bread so we would have to return the following morning around 9:30-10am when they are finished baking the bread. We found the Pink Pearl Grocery store up the hill from the bread house so I decided to check it out since we were here. We bought a couple of Kalik's and drank them at the counter while chatting with the old woman working the store. She was quite delightful to talk to and we discussed all sorts of topics. We finished our beers and walked back to the beach to cool off in the nice cold water. As we got in our dinghy we saw a couple nurse sharks swimming near the shore line. Then we decided to stop by Thunderball Grotto to check it out. We set our anchor and tied a stern line to some rocks on shore and gingerly stepped off the dinghy onto the sharp, uneven rocks. I wore my wet Crocs sandals (bad idea) to climb up the sharp, craggy rocks with the assistance of an old rope to see the Thunderball cave from above and snap a few pics. My sandals slid out of place and my big toe got a small laceration from a protruding rock while I was walking around the top of the big rock taking some pictures. JR found the top of the cavern and it was really neat to see how big the cave was inside and to see the blue water below with the light on the other side of the rock shining through the water because it was high tide. Then we hurried carefully off the top because we saw all the stress cracks from the top of the cave around the opening we were looking through, which we never know when it will give out. So now we knew more about Thunderball and we would return the next day at low tide to explore the underwater area. We headed back to Frodo for some dinner and a movie because with all the wind we have been getting our batteries were full from the wind generator. I completed a sketch and read to end my day.