Day 165, Year 10: Farewell to Kevin and Claire
Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Weather: Partly Sunny, Winds SW 8-10
Latitude: 24 05 851 N
Longitude: 076 24.214 W
Location: Anchored at Black Point, Great Iguana Cay, Exumas
We left Windbird at 7:15 am to take Kevin and Claire to the airport. I love that we can take the dinghy right to the airport and either beach it or tie it to the community dock on Staniel Cay. This morning we opted to tie to the dock. We arrived at the airport before 8 am and found one other person already there. We started talking and found that this guy owns one of the little islands near the stromatolite site where we went snorkeling at the south end of Warderwick Wells. He explained that the bigger island we could see from that site is owned by a Hollywood director and that he owns the smaller island next to that one. He is a surgeon from Montana and I think he presently lives in Minnesota when he is not down here on his island. He has a private plane that he keeps at the Staniel Cay airport, but today we was flying via Flamingo Air to Nassau and then back to the US. We talked about his island ‘neighbors’ being Johnny Depp, a Hollywood director whose name I can’t remember, and a very rich man from Saudi Arabia who owns Bell Island. Claire joked with him that their ‘block parties’ must be quite interesting. Mark and I left once the Flamingo Airline plane came in and we hope Kevin and Claire had a smooth trip home. We so enjoyed having them with us for a week. It was all fun. If the people of the world can be divided into givers and takers, Kevin and Claire are definitely ‘givers’-they spread happiness and good will 24 hours a day. So not only did we have the most beautiful weather for the past week, we shared it with people who added to the experience. Thank you, Kevin and Claire.
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| 150324 Day 165a Bahamas–Kevin and Claire Leave |
When Mark and I left the airport, we walked to the Pink Store and the Blue Store to replenish some of the basics onboard Windbird. We found everything we were looking for except fresh broccoli and I’m sure we will survive for two weeks without that. We stopped at the Yacht Club to buy gasoline for the dinghy and then it was back to Windbird. I tried to start the engine but it would not turn over. I think it was missing Kevin and Claire. Mark had to jump start the engine from the house batteries, by passing the starting battery. We’re not sure what its problem might be, but it is working now. Anyway, we did get started and we motored against the wind to Black Point. This is about eight miles south of Staniel Cay. Once we arrived, we contacted Lee and Lynda and invited them over for an early afternoon Happy Hour. We had a couple of beers, talked about plans for the next few days, and then made plans to meet on shore at 6 pm to go to Lorraine’s Café for hamburgers and onion rings for dinner to celebrate our reunion. We will stay here tomorrow, do laundry, get water, and use the free internet. Then on Thursday or Friday we will head north. We have some strong northerly wind headed our way on Sunday and Monday, so we will try to get to a good anchorage where we can enjoy some more snorkeling before the north winds hit us. We have only two weeks to get back to Florida, so from here on out, it is a march northward and then to the west.
I forgot to mention the ‘blue’ birds we saw while having Happy Hour on Windbird. Lynda looked up and exclaimed that the white gulls were blue-green. We all looked up in amazement wondering if this was some color change having to do with mating. I took a couple of photos as fast as I could and then Mark and I got in the dinghy and went to the rock on shore where the birds were landing. They were white again. And then we saw one land and turn from blue-green to white. We realized that what we were seeing was a reflection of the brilliant blue-green water on the feathers of the birds. Simply amazing.
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| 150324 Day 165b Bahamas–'Bluebirds' in Black Point |
