Today we motored in calm winds and dead flat seas 25 miles from Exuma Land Sea Park to Club Thunderball. Once out of the park we put "lines in". We got nothing until we approached Sandy Cay. I turned us straight to the little island and changed course to drag the lures across a large patch of coral 12 feet down. Bingo! We got a large Mutton Snapper. Karen later cleaned him for dinner.

We looked around and decided to take a mooring at Club Thunderball. The harbor off the club seems to have ideal protection from all headings. Simon Says is off on the Big Major anchorage. We all decided to pay the $12 each for the Club’s evening barbecue – most everyone is in agreement that it is high time that we have a night off the boat. I hope our friends on High Cotton make it over. They are at the dock with electrical problems. This is no place to find a repairman. Their best hope is to get a full charge at the dock and go to Georgetown.

Everyone is worried about batteries after 2 weeks living on the hook. High Cotton decided that everything was OK after 24 hours at the dock charging. They do not have a generator. I guess that they are not getting enough engine hours to fully recharge. We are running about 8 generator hours per day and our batteries are doing OK, but they are always reading low. We are not able to really "top them off" – ie. get that last 10% to 15% of charge. We pretty much have the generator on all times we are aboard.

Yesterday we made pancakes, did school and lunch, and then met Simon Says at the underwater cave at near low tide slack water. The cave was spectacular, words can not describe, and there was no way we could take our digital camera in there. So words will have to do.

You swim into an opening big enough for a dinghy, but with only a foot of headroom. Once inside you are surrounded by thousands of fish. It’s a good thing you (and everyone else) has brought food for them, because they are hungry and very demanding! The bold ones will eat from your hands, and will give you a little bite if you don’t serve it up fast enough. The cave is large and deep. The ceiling of the cave is way out of reach, and there are holes letting in sunlight. There are 4 or 5 entrances to the cave, including one big enough for a bus, but mostly under water at the deeper end of the cave. A strong current is pushing through this opening, back out the one you just swam into. That end of the cave is all a sandy bottom. If you swim up to this opening you can relax and drift back for a tour of the cave courtesy of the current. Everything is very well lighted due to many openings in the ceiling and strong shafts of sunlight coming down. There are about 4 or 5 rooms to explore, all with different rocks, coral and resident schools of fish. After about an hour you are tired and cold and you’ve seen it all so you swim out – into blinding light of day on a tropical coral reef! At least for me, I wanted to warm up a little and go right back in. It is a one of a kind experience.

Our evening was dark, and boring. The kids played computer games while we cooked dinner. We ate the fish we caught along with fried potatoes and carrots. The kids watched E.T. which means that we have just finished watching again all the movies we have for the VCR. We are all reading new books, but it is not possible to read all night. Karen had an adventure and fell off the dinghy trying to take Duncan to shore for his bedtime walk. Otherwise, the evening was very quiet. I guess it’s going to be time to move on soon. The plan for today is for the "fleet" (High Cotton, Simon Says, and Indiscipline) to go to Little Farmers Cay and then go on to Georgetown the next nice day.

Karen and I have been talking and we are pretty much decided to see if we can get weekly dockage in Georgetown while we are there. Living on the hook with our family of four and the dog is difficult. We are always wet (from dinghy rides) and so much more crowded. We are getting over our anxiety, but it seems we always choose the wrong place to set up the first time. There are so many boats and the winds and currents are so strong. Living at the dock for a few weeks would be good, then we will begin to make our way home.

We left around 10 for a 25 mile cruise to Little Farmer’s. It was flat and calm all the way. This is the way we were expecting the Exumas. We took the inside, shallow draft route all the way just for something different. High Cotton and Simon Says were on the rhumbline from Warderick Wells to Little Farmers while we wandered along the shore of several cays. It was a very nice day and we saw some interesting anchorages for the next time. So everyone was anchored long before us when we finally arrived. We made out way in close to the shore in a small group with our friends and dropped the big Danforth. We set this one and laid to it in the quietest and calmest anchorage we have seen. Our rode hung limp the whole time and not a ripple rocked the boat. After a few hours we took the dinghy into town. The cay is a very small village settled by two families a long time ago and has grown by marriage and time. We enjoyed walking around and imagining the way of life of the people on this isolated and quiet island. We bought sodas at the general store and some ice cream and exchanged some paperbacks at a very nice club up the hill. At the marina we were able to call the US and leave messages on everyone’s answering machines.

Our venerable Onan generator has developed an oil leak. I have found that a fitting on an oil line is the cause. Out here in the boondocks I think it is just best to add some oil now and then – I don’t want to mess with it and perhaps make it worse until we get to Georgetown.

The next day we waited for high tide and left for the inside route to the research station near Rat Cay Cut. Once we were in the entrance to Galliot Cut, however, we found the Exuma sound was flat and the winds were calm. High Cotton was already out there and reporting good conditions, so we followed suit and ran for Georgetown. We put Indiscipline up on plane for the first time in 2 weeks or more.

It was about a 33 mile run from Galliot to Conch Cay Cut, the entrance to Elizabeth Harbor on Great Exuma Island, where Georgetown is. We ran this down in about 2 ½ hours, leaving Simon Says behind, and passing High Cotton on the way. The sound was a little choppy and there was a large, but gentle, swell running and we had no trouble making our speed and staying warm, dry and comfortable, even with all windows open.

About 3 miles to go I saw fish jumping all around the boat. We slowed down and got lines in. It was only about a minute until we had a fish on the Rapalla. It was a very exciting fight. I thought it was a tuna right away from the way the fish swam. Tunas let you bring them into near the boat and then dive deep, fighting in a big vertical circle. That is just what this fish did, diving deep and tearing line off whenever we got him close. After about 5 to 10 minutes we landed a nice 10 pound Skipjack tuna. We continued trolling and trying to find the jumping fish but also heading in. I think if we had worked the area we could have caught a lot more. However, as it turned out this one fish was quite enough to feed us about 5 meals or more (there was so much meat on her).

Following the complicated course into Elizabeth Harbor, we decided to take dockage for a week and try to fix the generator. We have quite a list of maintenance items: the generator oil line, the batteries need water, the rudder stuffing boxes are leaking and need adjustment, the main shaft stuffing boxes need adjustment, and of course the isinglass windows need more sewing. We are happy to be here, tied up, plugged in and still floating! We went to the store and bought treats: fresh fruit, sodas, cookies, and ice cream.

Day 2 saw us sleeping in so late that we missed the morning announcements. There is quite a radio show on channel 68 at 8:10 AM. We did school, removed the oil line, cleared the lazerette for adjusting the rudder posts. It was hot! Late afternoon we got a brief rain shower. Welcome to the tropics! Randy and Billie came over and we dingied across the harbor to Sand Dollar Beach for swimming and shelling and got eaten by sand fleas. After some exploring we went to dinner at a place that was advertising 2 pizzas for the price of one. It was crowded and a long wait but we all felt that we needed to celebrate making it here after all those miles!