Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas
23.31.160N
75.45.475W

Today, as a couple of days ago, Dale took off for town a couple of times to fill up our water can and to check with the two stores that receive mail from FedEx and DHL (international type of FedEx).  No joy on the mail and parts but at least they know we’re expecting something. 

In the meantime, I learned from the cruiser’s net that Puerto Rico had a major earthquake exactly where Gerry and Nicky had been anchored prior to moving on to St. Thomas.  Not good for us, as we had plans of refueling and reprovisioning there.  Guess we’ll have to play that one by ear.

There was another anchoring “seminar” today on the beach just for the big blow that is expected tomorrow evening and Thursday.  We met a couple of Aussies and Ralph and Leslie off Now and Zen another Manta from Jacksonville.  The Aussies, although very friendly, didn’t fill me with warm fuzzies about selling our boat in Australia, although they seemed to back track a bit when they learned that we had a catamaran.  Apparently, cats are in high demand there. 

Ralph and Leslie dropped by on their way to play poker at St. Francis this evening and we had a nice visit.  We learned that 2 more Mantas are here in the area too:  Sojourn and What If.  What If was actually one of our dock mates at NAS Jax a few months back.  Somewhere in the conversation, Leslie and I were talking about where and when we checked in and it dawned on me that we hadn’t been planning on spending very much time in the Bahamas when we first got here.  She suggested that I check the date in my passport visa to make sure we were still covered.  I’m glad I did as we were given a month; which is up in 4 days.  There is a Customs office in Georgetown within walking distance and 1^st thing tomorrow (although the wind will be howling) we will be transiting the channel to have our visas extended.  There’s always something to get your heart to pumping.  Dale, ever the comedian, wanted to know if it was the possibility of over extending our welcome or more likely the anticipated wet ride.