After more discussions with Carol's family, we decided it would be important for her to fly home to see her 96 year old father prior to his colon cancer surgery next week. With the wind forecast to come way down tomorrow afternoon, we made plans to travel the 30 miles from Calabash Bay to the Emerald Bay Marina on Great Exuma Island so Carol could get to an airport.
Since Calabash Bay is only 20 miles from Salt Pond, we decided to head over to the ocean beach at Salt Pond to check it out prior to staging the boat at Calabash Bay.
We really liked this sea glass art on this home en route to the beach.
We passed this large salt pond on the way to the other side of the island.
Though we didn't find any shells, it was a lovely beach with nice wave action around the rocks and some high sand dunes.
With the wind behind us, the 20 mile ride to Calabash Bay was very pleasant. The beach there is spectacular.
Once anchored, we contacted our friends, Gary & Beth Davis & told them we were anchored just off a couple of lots they owned on the cape. We told them we would pick them up if they wanted to come to Samba for sundowners.
The green flash tonight was the longest explosion of green any of us had ever seen. Wow! Beth tried to record it with her phone but it is really difficult to see. Sorry.
Once the sun disappeared, Gary & Beth invited us to join them for dinner at the Cape Santa Maria resort a few miles up the beach here for dinner. We took the dinghy to shore along with some extra line & tied the dinghy to a tree up on the shore. We were at low tide so we knew the dinghy would be afloat when we returned - - or so we thought....
Once at the resort, we happened upon some of their friends and had a wonderful time chatting and chilling!
After dinner, Gary & Beth took us back to the dinghy. It was afloat - - sort of. Ughhh.
The waves had filled it with water and sand so we went to work bailing it out so we could launch it & get back to Samba.
We figured we would raise the dinghy part way with our crane & clean the sand out. We had trouble getting it to drain so we put it back down & Jim discovered the bow compartment had also completely flooded and was holding quite a bit of water.
We finally got all of the water out & washed the sand out enough to bring the dinghy up. Phew.
Thursday morning dawned clear but windy. However, the wind was forecast to become light and variable in the afternoon which was important for us. The entrance to Emerald Bay Marina can be difficult and even totally impassable when the conditions are just wrong. Light & variable winds would maximize our chances of an uneventful transit through their small entrance - woo hoo!
Accordingly, we left Calabash Bay at 10:00 in order to arrive at Emerald Bay around 2:00. it worked out perfectly. Thank you Lord!
We picked up some fuel and then found our slip, right next to the office.
Carol found a flight back to Indianapolis on Friday afternoon. Jim will stay with Samba and work through his growing list of boat projects while she's gone.
Once we know our plans, we'll let you know.
