Happy Birthday Amy and Playing the Frog

December 8 - 14, 2007

Saturday, December 08, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning the winds picked up and it looks like they are going to continue to build for the next several days. NOAA is predicting the possibility of a tropical storm forming south of the DR, but they're saying it will track due west and miss us completely.

The bad news is that the wind will build up to 30 knots by Tuesday and stay there until Wednesday night or Thursday morning. It sound like no one will be coming in or out of the harbour for several days.

In anticipation of the weather worsening, we moved the boat as close as possible to the shore to get the best protection we could. Amy went in to the beach with Donna from Carriba for yoga while I worked on installing a newly rebuilt pump in one of our two bilges.

Around 1 pm, we went in to the beach for volleyball with Ollie, Ed, George and Jon. The games were pretty decent despite the blowing wind. We were back on our boat by 4 pm and cleaned up soon after. At 5 pm, we joined Pam and Ollie on Carriba with Toby and Donna for dinner.

Donna made an excellent chicken dish and everyone ate their fill. We hung out telling stories until 9 pm and then returned home to bed.

Sunday, December 09, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

And welcome to Amy's birthday. Today she turns 33, but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say it, so you didn't hear it from me.

After breakfast tacos, Amy went in to the beach to yoga and I made bread. Other than that, we just hung out until 2 pm when we went into the beach at Chat and Chill. Pam from Dejarlo made a birthday cake for Amy and a group of thirty or forty cruisers gathered to sing happy birthday to her.

Around 4 pm, we left the beach with Ollie and Pam and headed to their boat where Pam made us birthday dinner. Tonight's feast was beef tenderloin with veggies and a nice salad. While we were over there, I fixed a couple of problems Ollie was having with his computer. We hung out until the ultra late hour of 10 pm and then returned home and to bed.

Monday, December 10, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind continues to build. We had a sustained 25 knots through out the day. I braved a trip to town for soda's and fresh veggies and I got completely soaked on the way back.

I spent most of the early hours today working on sanding our salon step up on the beach with the power sander. It took a while, but I was able to sand off the damaged finish, bleach the wood to a uniform color and then apply two coats of stain. See said step, side right.

In the afternoon we went in to play ball, but only three people showed up so we returned home and read books instead. I finished copying the 6 new movies Ollie lent us by 4 pm and then we headed in to Monday night poker. We had 17 players show up and neither Amy nor I finished in the money.

As a side note, tonight marks our last time playing poker as we have both decided that we are completely pokered out. It's actually somewhat of a relief knowing we won't be playing any time soon as with the boats returning to the harbour, there are now more and more opportunities to hang out and make new friends.

We were back on the boat by 9 pm and Amy and the weasels turned in while I sat up and watched the movie 300 and I was really impressed with it.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I had to get up in the middle of the night and close the hatches when rain started falling around 3 am. The rain stayed with us off and on until first light. With 25 knots of wind, it was an all around generally miserable morning.

I spent a couple hours cleaning up the storage room and then re-mounted the salon step that I stained the other day. Around 1 we headed in to play ball, but the high wind made it almost impossible. The games were not stellar to say the least.

After ball, we returned home and got cleaned up in time for Donna and Toby to come over for happy hour. Donna brought a bunch of food with her, so happy hour turned in to dinner and we didn't have to make anything ourselves. Nice!

Donna and Toby stayed until 9 pm swapping stories and catching up. They also brought their laptop with them for a little help in fixing a few minor problems they were having. While they were here, we broke out the head set and called folks back in the states so they could see how VOIP works. After a couple of calls, Donna was hooked.

Anyhow, they left around 9:30 and then we cleaned up a bit and turned in for the night

Wednesday, December 12, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind continues to howl. It was a solid 25 all day today, so it was tough to do much.

In the morning I worked on cleaning up the cockpit. This entailed putting away the multitude of tools that seem to migrate that way with startling regularity and then using a mix of hull cleaner and water in a spray bottle to wipe everything down.

As I was finishing up, Jon from Freebird stopped by and borrowed our cordless rip saw as he is collecting firewood for the first bonfire of the season, to be held Friday. He came back an hour later when he realized that there was no blade on said saw. I had never installed it because I have never had cause to use it.

It took Jon and I twenty minutes to figure it out, but eventually we were good to go.

In the early afternoon, Amy went into the beach to yoga while I took the dinghy across to get more water. It was a mega wet ride on the way back and I got soaked.

We didn't even try to play volleyball today as the wind was up so much so that it would have been tough to keep the ball in play. We instead hung out on the boat and read books until dinner time when I cooked up a Nassau Grouper and some rice.

Afterwards, we watched Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and it was pretty good.

Thursday, December 13, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind slacked off ever so slightly and was only blowing 20 knots this morning. The weasels and I had breakfast in the cockpit around 5:45 and then went in to wake Amy up by having wrestle mania 54 on her side of the bed. She was less than pleased.

Around 6:30 she headed in to the beach to do yoga with Donna while I was left behind to play video games online. By 9 am she was back and it was time to get on with the day.

First up, we picked up anchor and moved back down to Volley Ball beach to get out of the small swell that had started creeping up the harbour. Once we were settled back in, Ollie brought his two grand kids and their parents (who are here for the week on vacation) over to participate in the running of the ferrets.

The little kids, Rachel 9, Matthew 7, really liked the weasels and played with them to the point of exhaustion, which only takes 45 minutes, but when your not used to little people it seems like an eternity.

The kids were really funny to watch and we hope they come back over before they head back to Toronto.

Post weasel activities, I launched my wind surfer and spent the rest of the morning sailing around the harbour. At noon, I stopped for lunch and then we headed in to play volley ball with George and Speedo Ed. Speedo turned out to be a no show, but Sky and Ben from Whisper as well as Norm from Carpe Diem were there and we played 3 on 3 for an hour and a half.

Afterwards, it was a quick swim and then head home for dinner, which consisted of lobster and noodles with fresh home made garlic bread. Amy read books until bed time while I practiced shooting people online. See you tomorrow.

Friday, December 14, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning I made another trip over to town to get more water and to try and score some veggies. The water was easy enough, but there are apparently no vegetables to be found on the island. I'm not sure what is causing it, but ever since Hurricane Nole, the quality of supplies at the Exuma market has really sucked.

Anyhow, back on the boat I spent another hour looking at our port side engine and trying to figure out why it is acting slow to start. I may be sneaking up on a motive, but nothing is definite yet.

We met up with the guys to play ball at 1 and were back on the boat by 3:30. After cleaning up, Amy took a nap in anticipation of tonight's 7pm bonfire up on the Monument beach. While she slept, I played with the weasels and did some work on a web site we are building for our friend.

Amy woke up in time for a pressure cooked rib extravaganza and then we took our mosquito spray, our beach chairs and our long sleeve clothing and headed up to the fire. Jon (Freebird) already had the blaze roaring, so it was easy enough to find in the dark.

We stayed for 2 hours listening to various cruisers play guitars. Euta from Pipe Dream brought a bag full of percussion instruments, but Amy and I did not partake. Others did and I actually got to watch Joann from Freebird play the Frog. I bet you didn't know there was a percussion instrument named the Frog, did you?

We had about twenty people show up for the fire and it was a nice, quiet affair. There was a meteor shower going on at the same time and we spent a lot of time looking skyward and watching bright objects shoot across the sky.

Back home and to bed by 10 pm