Wednesday 6th December

Highborne Cay.

24 42.757 N
76 49.666 W

Happy Birthday Paul, we’ve had a drink for you!

We awoke today to the sound of rain which was no surprise as it had rained on and off all night. The good thing about that was that the decks were now cleaned of the salt that was covering them making everything sticky. We took forever to get ourselves moving – well there wasn’t any need to hurry as we hadn’t planned to move anywhere today. Once we were up, dressed, had breakfast and decided to go ashore the sun had come out and the day was looking quite nice. We gathered all the bits for the dink (oars, fuel, life jackets and tying up chain) and headed in to the marina – a short 5 minutes ride. It is a small marina which is bounded by a spectacular beach. After tying up the anchor we checked at the office to see if we had to pay to tie up at the dingy dock – that was a no – bonus! We asked if there was a café or restaurant for lunch – also a no –bummer! Then we asked if there was WIFI – that was a yes but only for marina guests – bummer!! The office had a small store which was stocked with essential items that the cruiser might need, we had a quick look around bought a loaf, 2 soft drinks and a cucumber for the princely sum of $15, we decided we didn’t need the apples at $1.65 each or the tomatoes which I would have thrown out if I’d had them in my fridge. I have to say that the store was clean and well presented with enough “essentials” for most people and the staff were friendly. They did offer for us to bring the computer into their office and hook up to the internet for $5 for 20 minutes, we thought about it but decided that we didn’t want to make the trip back again later. We did our good Samaritan deed for them – one of the other cruisers had left behind one of his bags of shopping and the store keeper asked if we would deliver it to
his boat. What surprised us was that he didn’t even know he’d left it behind when we delivered it, even though it comprised half of his bill and contained a book which he wanted to read! We can only assume his brain is pickled with alcohol. We saw a baby shark swimming around his boat so we didn’t hang around there long – you know how it is – where there is a baby there also has to be a mum and dad, I didn’t want to meet them. Back on our boat we cleaned the cockpit, entered a whole load of way points for our next couple of days travel, caught up with some bookwork and were entertained by a couple of very cheeky birds who landed on the boat and then proceeded to investigate it as if we weren’t there, eventually they flew off which was a relief – we didn’t need 2 extra bodies on board.
Gerry caught up with his study (the backs of his eyelids) whilst I put together a few statistics of our month of November (only covering 7th – 30th) so here they are for your enjoyment!

Nautical Miles traveled: 354
Average speed: 5.5knots
Fuel used: 69 gallons @ a cost of $179.86
Repairs / replacement costs: $1186.02
Meals ashore: Lunch 7, Dinner 3 @ a cost of $296.77
No of nights in marinas: 12 @ a cost of $951.10
No of nights at anchor: 10
No of nights sailing: 2
Loads of laundry: 7
Toilets rolls used: 8
Toothpaste used; 2 tubes
Loaves of bread: 6
Cheese: 2 blocks
Wine: 2 bottles
Beer: 12 cans
Coke: 36 cans
Rum: 1 bottle
Chocolate bars: far too many to admit to here!

Obviously there are plenty more but it might give you some idea of the logistics of what we have to carry on board. I’ll try some different items for December –so you know we aren’t living on Chocolate and cheese alone!
There were no new boats coming into the anchorage tonight so we were deprived of our evening entertainment. We fired up the bar-b-que for dinner, had showers and spent the rest of the evening relaxing watching the stars and clouds flying overhead.