Wet in G-Town

Austin and I made a quick trip into town yesterday to replenish some of our fresh provisions, get some water and top up our fuel so that we can make a mad, long dash to Florida once we've finished our short sight seeing in the Exumas. The wind has been blowing 12 - 15 knots so the harbour was a bit choppy but made for fun surfing the dinghy on the way in. On the way back I think that we should have brought our snorkels and masks! We were loaded down with 20 gallons of water, 24 gallons of fuel, two people and about 25 pounds of food. In other words, we were riding low and going slow right into the waves across the mile wide harbour. Now those waves that we were surfing on the way in were crashing over the sides soaking us through in seconds. About every 15 seconds we'd hit a large one and the air would go white and liquid so we had to hold our breath until it passed. I think Austin said something about looking forward to grocery shopping when we get home where the worst wet w
e have to worry about is the rain! When we got back to the boat, Austin just slipped over the side and went for a swim and I had to wash salt out of my beard.

Later in the afternoon we put up the rain catcher just in time for a massive downpour. Between the water we got from shore and all the rain, we were able to nearly fill our water tanks and do a load of laundry in the water that the dinghy collected. All of us had nice refreshing deck showers from the pelting rain. The flying rain stung a bit but deck showers always feel great! It's still a novel concept to be comfortably warm in the pouring rain.

Today we slipped away from the anchorage early and were treated to a fleeting farewell from a couple small dolphins in about 10 feet of water. We first mistook them for turtles, speculating if they might be leatherbacks - we were surprised to find dolphins in the shallows. We threaded our way past the sand banks and coral heads and are now back in Exuma Sound trying to get as far north up the island chain that we can in one day. We'd really like to snorkel Thunderball Grotto and see Warderik Wells before we have to leave these islands in a couple days. After that, we're looking at various routes to get us to FL as quickly as possible. Taking the offshore route around Eleuthera Island and through Providence Channel is tempting as it gets us far enough away from the islands that we can sail through the nights and make more miles per day but the seas are bigger now (6 - 7 feet) so it won't be all that comfortable.