More Fun in Great Exuma

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More Fun in Great Exuma

We are still in GeorgeTown, Exuma enjoying the warm weather and all of the social activities planned by the cruising community here. Nancy’s sister Gayle decided that she had endured enough ice & snow in Baltimore and put together a trip to George Town during the last week in January. As soon she told us she wanted to visit, Cameron began ordering boat equipment that we decided we needed to improve the cruising experience. These included lights for the dinghy, a solar shower for days when we did not need to run the engine and a toilet rebuild kit. Nancy asked for things like brownie mix, beef sticks and some pictures of family to display on the boat. The list seemed to grow day by day with “just one more thing”. By the time Gayle arrived she needed the biggest suitcase I have ever seen just to hold our stuff.

We started out her visit with the strongest cold front of the year to reach George Town. We were having NE winds at 25 knots with gusts to 30. This meant that we were unable to meet her at the airport or in town since the bay was too rough to cross in our dinghy without getting soaked. Fortunately we were able to book “Elvis” the water taxi to bring Gayle to Double-Wide.

By Monday the weather settled down and we could resume the normal cruising lifestyle. We went back to beach walks and shelling, playing volleyball, and enjoying beach bonfires several nights a week. Gayle joined us for Trivial Pursuit night at St Francis marina. This is a weekly event where an MC asks 40 trivia questions during the evening and then the table at the end of the night with the most correct answers wins a bottle of wine.

Cameron took a week long course in “Total Immersion Swimming”. This is a new form of swimming used by many Olympic athletes and many Triathlon participants. It is a new stroke that supposedly only uses about 20% of the effort of the standard freestyle. It consists of gliding on your side with one arm extended as far forward as possible. Then you turn to the other side and push your other arm forward to take the lead position. Most of the forward motion is generated by the hip movement not by pulling the water or by kicking. It is very smooth when done right. The class practiced for two hours per day and Cameron was declared most improved swimmer at the end of the final day. Of course he had an advantage because he had the most room for improvement.

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Photos

Cameron, Nancy & Gayle
Dinner at St Francis

On The Hard
Note lack of blocking under hull