The Abacos

In Atlantis, Nassau.
Here we are in the bar again!  Daryl looking like a rabbit in the headlights, having been told to 'open his eyes'!
Simon is trying yet another cocktail, before flying back to England the next day.
It was sad to see Val and Simon leave, but hope they will be back for more sometime.

The Aquariums at Atlantis were absolutely fabulous, with a huge selection on fish, including the huge and graceful manta rays, sharks etc. all in huge numbers.

Never one to miss a party!  Joining in with the parade through the Atlantis Marina.

The best way to look around these islands is by golf cart, it's great to able to see and hear what's going on, but keep cool at the same time.

The day we were there happened to be election day in the Bahamas.  All the shops were closed and the locals were out in force promoting their party, driving golf carts and shouting out the name of their party to anyone that was listening.
Apparently the Progressive Liberal Party won the day, ( the yellow team) and we loved that 'No Rehearsal' was dressed in the colour of the winners!

Pete's Bar in Little Harbour is a great place to chat to other cruisers over a  rum punch or two.    Hung from the roof are hundreds of old T shirts and odd bits of memorabilia that have been left by passing yachts and their crew. 

Next to the bar, there is an art gallery and most of the sculptures are made of bronze which is cast in the foundry just down a sandy path.  So we went along to watch a pouring.  As if the temperature was not warm enough, the heat inside was extreme and the poor guys were covered in fire-proof overalls too.

Georgetown in the Bahamas

Near the end of April there is a regatta in Georgetown.  It is a beautiful sight to see all these boats racing.  They have a great way of 'hiking', on a plank of wood, fixed amidships and then pulled through to the other side after a tack.  Great to see.  The competitors bring their boats in from the other islands by ferry, and the locals set up wooden stands to sell beer and punches.

Good friends, Val and Simon from London joined us in Georgetown for ten days on the boat.  One of the important features the holiday was rum punch and here are Val and I getting to grips with a recipe that Daryl found on the internet!  The first jug was measured out precisely as per the instructions, but after that, we got a bit sloppier with the measurements!

One of the local specialties is conch.  There is quite an art for getting the creature out of it's beautiful shell.  Here is A J from Chat and Chill, a beach bar, giving Daryl a lesson on the trick.   You have to make a hole in the shell and then prize the conch out.  It is a rather tough meat, but softens in the local salads with lemon and orange juices added.  Then some chopped tomatoes and peppers and viola!  Delicious!





When the unwanted bits of the conch are thrown into the sea, the rays come into the beach for a feed.  AJ gave us some scraps and the rays, now familiar with this deal, appeared.  They seemed to enjoy being stroked every bit as much as being fed!  It was a wonderful experience and they were unexpectedly soft to the touch.

Kailk is the local beer here in the Bahamas and this pile shows it is rather popular!

The Abaco Islands

Having checked into the Bahamas, we now can cruise around the beautiful clear waters of the Abaco Islands, enjoying snorkeling on the reefs and the fine sand of the beaches here.

The quaint town of Hope Town is watched over by the rather famous Elbow Reef Lighthouse.

Sam, the resident lighthouse keeper, is in charge of lighting the wic

k when the sun goes down each evening. The light runs on kerosene and has to be hand wound every two hours throughout the night.

The light can apparently be seen for 17miles, but there are times when the wick will not ignite, or the boat with the kerosene supply aboard, does not arrive in time, so a little unreliable!

At the top of the lighthouse, after 101 steps!

You can just see 'No Rehearsal' anchored in the background.

We joined the weekly 'dingy drift'.

About sun-downer time everyone gets their tenders, armed with something to drink and food to share, we head to the upwind side of the bay. The dinghies are all tied together and they drift slowly through the anchorage, chatting and drifting! We counted 25 boats, all rafted together and picking up more participants and more volume as the flotilla floats downwind and tries to avoid colliding with the moored yachts!

Cape Canaveral

Good friend Felicity kindly hosted a farewell coffee morning at her house.

It was a beautiful morning to sit outside and chat with the girls.

I shall miss the daily chatting and the good coffee when we get back to the boat though, so keep up with emails and news from Kerikeri please.

So we flew back to the boat, saying goodbye to Lisa and Jay at the airport in Auckland, which was a bit of a tearful scene.

The boat was all in good shape, a little dusty after three months on the hard in a working yard, but nothing a wash-down won't change.

We shall get over the jet lag, and then start on the list of jobs, which is always endless.

We found time to visit The Kennedy Space Centre.

Last November we saw a rocket launch and so I was keen to find out a little more about it all.

The Centre was great, with plenty of rockets to see, one absolutely massive at 373 ft.

There were plenty of films to explain it, very well done, and a great day out.

The port of Cape Canaveral is a great cruise ship terminal. The ships come in at dawn and leave in the evening, and there are always two in at a time.

This is the new Disney ship leaving the port, their horn playing 'when you wish upon a star' as they leave!

Here are George and Ricky, the polishing team.

They did a fabulous job on 'No Rehearsal', and she has never looked so good, we have to be careful not to slip on the shiny surfaces now!

When we docked the boat, someone asked if it was new!

We decided to replace the old solar panels with newer, bigger ones, that will hopefully give us a lot more electricity.

It was easier said than done and the old panels were stuck done with strong silicone. We had to prize them off carefully, and even then they shattered and left the boat covered with shards of glass.

At one stage we wished we hadn't started at all!!

The new panels are in place and we are back in the water again, which is bliss after two weeks of camping type life on the hard.

We are looking forward to getting cruising again, but one of the engines has a fuel problem, which needs sorting before we leave here.

Meanwhile it is St. Patrick's day here and we are off to a lunch date! Can't work every day.

Three months in NZ

Just a quick update of the last three months and what we have been up to.

Christmas day.

The family under the tree about to open the presents.

We decided not to go the dry turkey lunch and have a Spanish style lunch of suckling pig.

The local butcher managed to procure one and Daryl did a great job cooking it on the b'que. Janine is keeping an eye on the job.

It was delicious!!!!

New Year's Eve.

Lisa and Jay had a whole bunch of friends to stay and had a good party.

I got up in the morning with trepidation, but not too much damage to speak of!!

Auckland weekend with the girls for the ladies tennis final of the ASB Classic.

It was a really horrid rainy weekend and we spent a lot of the time sat around, drinking wine and waiting for news.

Managed to watch the doubles final, but missed the singles because of the rain.

We happened to be in Auckland for the arrival of Team Gallagher.

James Blake was among the intrepid crew who had rowed across the Tasman from Sydney to New Zealand on a trip that took 51 days.

The weather had not been favourable, with a lot of easterly winds knocking them back. Meaning that they had to spend Christmas at sea.

This is the one day that we went to the beach. Lisa and her boyfriend, Dane swimming, well it could be anyone really!

The latest family photo taken in our garden.

There is a week left to go and so we are running around getting all our jobs done.

South to Florida

Our fleet of catamarans waiting in freezing conditions in the Rudee Inlet, just south of Norfolk, for a weather window to head south to warmer climes.

We needed full wet weather gear just to take the rubbish ashore!

Finally in Florida, after 4 days and 3 nights at sea, we had good winds with us most of the time, but had to do a fair amount of motoring too.

Now safely alongside the quay in Scorpion Marina in Cape Canaveral.

Fabulous to be warm again. When we left Norfolk it was 5C and the first day here I saw 30C on the thermometer, what a difference 650 miles make!

Thanksgiving dinner with the full Turkey experience was a first for us, but great fun. A bit like a practice run for Christmas really!

Some generous locals asked us to join them, an offer we could not refuse.

Visiting the local Art Festival was fun.

This is a the largest pot of popcorn I have ever seen cooking though.

A rocket launch to Mars!

What a fantastic sight and all from the marina, well we are in Cape Canaveral after all!

Now we are due to leave here tomorrow, the boat is out of the water and we are working hard to get all the jobs done in time.

I must go and pack..........

Deltaville, Virginia

Heading south is a cold business!

I look at though I am in the Antarctic, we must be getting soft.

Can't wait to head south again.
The leaves are changing colour now and it is a beautiful sight.

We are stuck in the marina, whilst the engineers look at the engines.

There has been rather a lot of white smoke coming out of the exhausts and so we are having new injectors fitted and the pumps have also been serviced. We cross our fingers that this will sort out the problem.

Here in Deltaville marina we are getting lots of jobs ticked off the maintenance list.

Here is Peter up the mast, fitting our new Wifi cable, when this is adjusted, we shall be able to have better internet on the boat.

It is not actually working at the moment, but we hope that tomorrow, he will be back again to check the wiring.

The Tiki Bar:

Here in the marina, the majority of the slips are covered and the locals will come down to their small motor boats for the weekend.

Behind each boat is plenty of space and some of the owners set up their own kitchens and bars, with huge fridges and b'ques. This is one of the most outrageous.

They are very friendly folk and we are always invited to join them for a drink at sunset.

This guy was determined to get his catamaran out of the water and we stopped to see if we could help.

He had a small trailer that was not wide enough and the boat kept falling off! He finally managed it, but we decided to leave him to it, afraid of the thing falling on top of us, him or his wife.

Daryl and I sampling some of the local fare at the Urbanna Oyster Festival. It was a huge event, they close the town for the weekend and the locals and visitors descend on the town to enjoy oysters cooked every way possible.

We decided that raw is best, covered in batter, they really could be anything!

And no festival is complete without a parade. This was a rather retro affair, with lots of old cars and huge bikes, this float was playing 'All you need is love' and other Beatles songs!

There were majorettes, swirling their batons, and several school brass bands.

Good fun to see it all and the weather was cold, but sunny too.

There are some big people here. I think the baddies would have a pretty good chance at running away from these two sheriffs!!