Second Place!

Dave and his crew placed second overall in the postponed Boxing Day Regatta! The wind kept easing during the race so Ron, Ted, and Dave changed their head sail to a bigger and lighter jib. I have a feeling they may have won if they had started out with that sail, because they only trailed the leader by 5 minutes on corrected time with adjusted handicaps. That's about how long it took them to change the sail. Then again, the bigger sail at the beginning of the race would have overpowered them. It's all a compromise and everyone is happy!

Many thanks to Will Heyer (race course) and Catherine Allin (awards) who take our fabulous HTSC photos.

Wind Fatigue

For the past three days we have been having 20-30+ mph winds, unfortunately from the east, which blows right onto our porch. It has been impossible to open up the door or windows and if we don't hold the glass French door tight when we go in or out, it slams into the wall outside, or slams shut. This morning I tried to look outside and could barely see out. The sea spray in the air has been so bad that the windows were actually dripping. That's a first!

This afternoon I went out with a bucket and sponge and wiped everything down, so at least we could see out just a little bit. Tomorrow, when the wind is forecasted to ease, I will go out and do a better job, but if I hadn't washed them with water first and with all the salt spray, everything would just smear. Even the bushes and trees are losing some of their leaves. They are turning yellow and burning from the non-stop wind, almost like what happens in a hurricane, although we haven't had much rain. The advantage of that is that we can see through the trees now and our view has increased (when the windows are clean anyway😉).

Tomorrow Dave will be out racing and skippering Milton's Capri 25 Sunrise for the first time this season. The Boxing Day Race (Dec.26th) was postponed due to...you guessed it, too much wind!

Scrape & Paint

It is time to think about launching our Abaco Dinghy Dandy. First it needed a little bit of touch up work. Luckily the boat is kept covered during the summer and so it didn't take too much work. The inside white paint was starting to wear thin, so Dave gave it a new coat of white. It takes both of us to do this so that I could tell him where the worst spots are, while standing on the opposite side. It is hard to see when you are painting almost upside down. It's nice and shiny now and this was our Christmas day project.

Then it was time to scrape off what was left of the old barnacles and 'fur' on the bottom from last season. 

 It is a tough spot to get into while the boat is still on the trailer.

Now fresh black paint is on and Dandy is ready to launch right after the new year. 

Dandy certainly will live up to its reputation as a show piece for the 3 months it lives in the water!

It's Here!

Christmas is finally here. We wish you all the best during this holiday season and for the coming new year. Most of all, thank you for following my blog!

Rare Sighting

We had a rare sighting of a very different kind of bird yesterday afternoon...a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flew over the settlement and harbor.

It was flying quite low and the side door was open, so they must have been looking for something or someone in particular.

Or perhaps this is how Santa arrives here?!

Tree Topper

I wish I could use this little Bahama Woodstar hummingbird as a Christmas tree topper. Not a bad photo considering they hardly ever sit still and are camouflaged in the corkwood trees. Plus they are only a few inches long. I believe this is the female since the males have an iridescent purple throat.

We are having some chilly weather now and my feeder has been busier than usual. We are loving watching the bird life!

Christmas Is Coming

We have been in festive Christmas mode during the past week. First, the sailing Club's Christmas party, which was beautifully set up and accommodated 70+ members! The food was delicious with the meats coming from a local restaurant and the appetizers, side dishes, and desserts made by the members.

Dave and I made our popular penguin appetizers, to everyone's delight. 

The Children's Christmas play "Annie" was fantastic! The kids had rehearsed every day for 10 weeks before the program that ran for 3 nights. The main character was very talented and quite the singer, but all the kids were great little actors.

The Christmas Village here in Hope Town was a huge hit, with the ballfield transformed into a winter wonderland. Delicious food and drink, singers to entertain, crafts and goodies for sale, ice skating complete with snow (and lots of it!), and games for the kids and kids at heart.

Yum, Funnel cake, a rare treat in the Bahamas!

This year's newest and most favorite booth was the Piggyville Races (Piggyville is a popular spot in the northern Abacos where people go to a deserted island and feed and water the pigs). Dave and our friend Ron made the race course. It was hilarious with these little battery operated stuffed pigs slowly 'oinking' their way down the track toward the feeding trough. Dave even won a race, which was rather ironic.

There was also a drone photo taken on the beach for Christmas cards that were sold at the Village. All proceeds from the whole Village event benefit the Community Center.

Tonight was the last big night of celebration with caroling through town and out to the final night of the Christmas Village where Santa arrived to end the event. Tomorrow, everything has to quickly come down and get stored...before a huge cold front arrives on Thursday with winds in the 40+ mph range! Then it is back to projects, especially getting Sunrise ready to race in the Boxing Day race, held the day after Christmas. It is hard to believe how fast the time is going.

Thank you Catherine for being my photographer!

Tasks Galore

We have been working on all sorts of tasks lately. Dave has been helping several friends with boat issues, we moved the remainder of the dock pilings that were left in the back pond where the racing sailboats tie up, and Dave even helped repair the sewage pump out golf cart, and the bandsaw that is used for rebuilding the Abaco Dinghies (temporarily anyway...the belt that broke, he jury rigged with the one from the pump out cart, but it had to be returned so the cart could go about its 'business' 😉). We have also been doing lots more decorating, not only here at our apartment, where my little tree was put up for the first time in a couple of years, but also at the sailing club. Lots of helpers that day!

Today we helped to repair and clean up the Sunfish in order to get them ready to race in the HTSC winter series. This Waverunner has been abandoned on the harbor beach since we arrived, and Dave used it as a staging area for the epoxy repairs on the Sunfish that needed to be done.

Meanwhile inside the clubhouse, volunteers were removing old sails and installing new ones on the rigs. Now they are ready!

Tomorrow we help set up for the annual Christmas Village, including the famous ice skating rink. Then it is time for the kids' Christmas play and the HTSC Christmas dinner.

What a busy time of year, so you know I will be posting about it all soon!

Fill 'er Up?

Not quite. This is the biggest yacht we have ever seen at the fuel dock here, but it 'only' took on 500 gallons of diesel fuel...at about $6.00 a gallon!

Lighthouse Work

For over a year, our red and white striped lighthouse has been under much needed repairs. Recently the inside was completely sand blasted to remove the flaking old pink paint. It actually looks better left natural now and more of a patina. They also painted all the metal on the spiral staircase.

Outside on the top, the workers sand blasted and chipped the rust off the metal, repairing where necessary, and repainted it. What a job when you think about how high up they were. Then came the replacing of all the glass around the top that houses the Fresnal Lens. That was a huge project and very expensive too. All the repairs are funded though donations. It is a bit hard to see what transpired in the banner I took a photo of,  but if you click on it, it may show up better.

It looks like they are ready to start repainting the outside of the lighthouse now. This also is a gigantic project and should be interesting to watch as it progresses and they climb higher. The scaffolding only reaches so far.

A friend told us the story about how during the last time the lighthouse was painted, they first painted it totally white and he was so shocked and confused when he got close enough in his boat to see it. I bet he was wondering where he made the wrong turn!

As you can see, it's time to get this only remaining kerosene lighthouse back to its former glory. They are on the right track though!

The Christmas Season Begins

Christmas decorating starts early here in Abaco. Today we put the lights up on the lighthouse. This year we strung them up with small ropes attached, in order to hopefully support them better. In our windy winter cold fronts, they blow around a lot and chafe through, making it quite difficult to keep them lit for the whole month. It was a time consuming effort of 2 1/2 hours, but we had a fantastic group of about 12 tenacious people to assist.

Wow, it was the hottest day we have ever had to complete this project and we kept trying to find the least little bit of shade we could find to string out the lights and attach the rope.

Then they were carefully hauled up the outside of the lighthouse to the guys at the top who secured them while they were also secured on the ground.

Even the chickens 'helped out'....sort of. They started getting so close to our feet I thought they were going to peck at us.

Tonight it was totally calm and the lights on the lighthouse and our marina look awesome!

And so the holiday season begins!

We Are Done!

Tonight was our night to host the appetizers for the sailing club's stand-up. All went well and there were about 40 members and guests that attended. I even put Dave to work this year, and he became very proficient at making my ham and cheese roll ups.

We also made bacon mushroom bites and a taco dip, and our ever present flavored almonds.

There were only two couples scheduled to make food for tonight , but everyone sure had plenty to eat. Barry made flatbread pepperoni pizzas and Barb made deviled eggs and stuffed celery. 

Everything went over very well with not much left over, which was perfect. Now we can relax at the rest of the get-togethers and not worry about a thing. YAY, it's over!