Paradise Found

Everyone can stop looking for Paradise. We found it on Long Island, an island in the Bahamas. Paraddise is THE BLUE HOLE near Clarence Town. It is a spit of a beach at the end of a dirt road. When you roun the bend you see this amazing BLUE HOLE and gorgeous little beach. We rented a car with our friends Anne and Chris, Jason and Laura...The Blue Hole is 660 feet deep...You can sit at the edge in 6 inches of water and shimmy yourseld into deeper water and then snorkel over it. It is the deepest Blue Hole in the world. The World Freedive Championship ios held here each year. The guy who won went down 300 feet w/o any fins...just a bathing suit. Amazing! The scenery is breathtaking....The water is deep, deep blue....See pic...Also to our delight when we cruised over to Long Island we (John) caught a 25 lb mahimahi....what fun it was watching him fight with this beautiful fish...Great dinner for 8...SWEEET!!!!!!

South Bound

We finally made it to Georgetown in the Exumas....We motor sailed from Little Harbor in the Abacos to Royal island...then waited 2 days...(with our buddy boat Blue Blaze)and then we left on a very lumpy and bumpy ride to Georgetown...24 hours almost to the hour. The nite was extremely dark and when the sun came up...I can't explain how great that makes you feel. Then sailed into Georgetown which is like a huge camp for cruisers. The anchorage is HUGE...about 240 boats are here. The water is turquoise and very clear. Our other buddy boat, Cloud Messenger is also here with 2 visitors from California. We have been eating extremely well...Italian one nite, Greek the next. I need to back up for one moment. I have a pic of John from Marsh Harbor...he had Jason shave his hair off..Surprisingly (ha!) this occured during a "happy hour" at the JIB ROOM. Jason and John left for a while and when they came back, John had no hair. Quite the entertainment....Back to Georgetown...all 3 boats are leaving for Long island (Bahamas) tomorrow the 21st and then Rum Cay on the 22nd...we will wait out some weather on the 22nd at a Marina...Rum Cay sounds pretty exciting...pirates etc...Attached is a pic of John and yet another gorgeous sunset...

Pickle-Ball

That's right Pickle-Ball...That is the name of the game when you are waiting for friends to come back to Marsh Harbor and waiting out a really windy cold front...As we listened to the daily cruisers net that comes on at 8:15 daily, we heard them announce that anyone interested could join in a game of pickle-ball...Laura, John and I arrived (Barry watched, wrong shoes)to learn a new game. Bob, a fellow cruiser (79 years of age)tried to explain the game. It is a cross between tennis(think of a tennis court about 3/4 the size of a regular court), oversized ping-pong paddles (padded like ping-pong paddles) ....you can play singles or doubles, whoever gets to 11 first wins...Great fun...The ball is like a wiffle ball..plastic with holes in it, about the size of a baseball. The wind did not do us any favors as we tried to win against Laura and another cruiser. John and I did finally win but the best part was the new found game and the exercise...to offset any drinking or eating...that is an ongoing challenge....Bob, at 79 is amazing. He played during the morning and then was going to play a tennis game in the afternoon...maybe there was something to this pickle-ball thing after all....No pics today....