31 March, 2015

Buenos Dias,

Saturday, the 28.  The wind was calm last evening, but it’s coming up now, and the waves are starting to build as they roll into Buckaroon Bay.  Suz and I make the call to move back over to the anchorage on the west side of Tiloo Cay, “Erben Renewal” will stay here until we report in.  Sunny, cool, and the wind is howling as we make our way across the Sea.  Waves are breaking on the bow, sending walls of spray across the pilothouse.  We thought we’d tuck under the point where Tiloo juts out to Tavern Cay, but the waves are crashing on shore here, so we move to the north side, where, paradoxically, the seas are calmer.  The seas are on the bow, so the Girl is resting well at anchor.  After reporting in to S & J, they decide to stay put in Buckaroon.  A good day to do some office work and boat chores.  Suz still can’t get the SIM card that we bought in North Bimini to work, so we bite the bullet and sign up for Bahamas WiMax.  Their ad says that they cover the whole of the Bahamas, and have unlimited data for $105/mo.  The speed turns out to be FAST, and the signal is strong here (note to self for next year).  We have a quiet evening, watching 2 of the “Elite Eight’s” games from the NCAA basketball tournament.  After a calm night, we drop the tender and head over to some coral islets just south of us for some snorkeling.  Although the visibility is not great, the swim is pretty good.  Some small coral heads scattered along the sandy, grassy bottom provided shelter for a variety of fishes and invertebrates including: French and Queen Angelfish, Yellow Snapper, Blue striped Grunts, small Grouper, Parrotfish, Squirrelfish, Blue Wrasses, Sargeant Majors, a Moray Eel and etc.  Suz spotted a Lionfish (unfortunately, because this South Seas native is invasive here, has no predators, and is a voracious decimator of local species’ juveniles.  They’re now found from the Caribbean to the Carolinas, probably introduced, hopefully inadvertently, by humans.)  Invertebrates included: Anemones, Sea Cucumbers, Cassiopia Jellies, Starfish, Sponges, but sadly, no lobsters.  After warming up with hot showers, we headed over to “Cracker P’s”, a beach bar a few miles away in the hopes that cable TV was in residence.  The games were on CBS, which we don’t get on satellite (long story-see “The FCC are idiots”).  Good news, we parked for a few hours as we watched 2 pretty exciting games.  When we returned to the Girl, we found “Erben Renewal” had arrived after getting “waved” at Buckaroon.  While watching the games, the wind had come back up as the cold front rolled in.  By Monday morning it had clocked to northwest, and a cool 66 degrees.

-Later