Monday, March 08, 2010 Black Point, Great Guana Cay, N24*06.128 W076*24.115

     After the weather and coffee we headed over to the Rockside Laundry with our laundry bags. While the T.V. doesn’t seem to work now, the laundry facilities are still nice. They’re very clean with an attached store that sells cakes, oil treatment, and hand made trinkets and an attached barber chair. I brought one book to swap but noticed that they had a hefty amount of magazines too. I asked after Miss Eunice – on the walk here I didn’t see her couch out near the road. I was sad to learn that Miss Eunice passed away last May. She was getting ready for her evening bath when she passed on and wasn’t found until later that night. I heard that her funeral was quite large. People from Nassau came to it and her son from Washington made it home too. I’d have like to have met him to tell him how very proud she was of him and how she enjoyed her trip to Washington.

     I guess I decided to make you brownies to late Miss Eunice. I’d have enjoyed chatting with you again and hope you can feel the hug I’m sending to you…

     Everyone must have been laying in wait for the Laundromat to open. It was a busy morning and I had to wait for washing machines to open up. How busy was it? My last load stopped mid-cycle for half an hour because the Laundromat ran out of water. It seems that everyone on the island waited to do laundry, and water chores until today. The water supply was cut off (I didn’t learn that until later though). Oops. But there was enough in the holding tanks evidently to finish my load. At the time I originally thought we ran out the tanks and they were refilling but that wasn’t the case.

     While standing at the window, I noticed that Flextime was anchored outside the Laundromat and called them on the radio. They came up to do laundry too and really had to wait for several hours to have enough water to finish their laundry. After we finished ours we loaded up the dinghy to take the laundry back to the boat and pick up the computers to head to Lorraine’s Café for lunch and Internet. On the way to the boat we spotted another Bayfield coming in and anchoring – It was Mad Cap :) So we buzzed by to say hello and our dinghy quit! After chatting a little, Wayne decided we’d row back to the boat to fix the motor (spark plug cleaning time again). Once it was fixed we grabbed our computers and headed for Lorraine’s.

     Conch snacks and a burger for lunch with Mad Cap and Reflection (SSCA Operation Bahamas Project – Books for Boaters). FlexTime and Finisterre (means at lands end in French) were there on their computers already too. I chatted briefly with FlexTime & Finisterre then joined Wayne with Mad Cap and Reflection. Bruce & Marilyn (Reflection) coordinate the books for boaters program for the Bahamas so I had to learn more about it. Hopefully we can bring some books down to Black Point next time.

     The conch and burger were terrific, the Internet slow to non-existent, but - I did manage to download email. So today we were able to do 4 loads of laundry and desalt the cloths (4 loads at $28), meet up with fellow cruisers and enjoy a nice lunch and download email. The blog update will have to wait with possibly no pictures posted either. Flextime and Finisterre are heading for Little Farmers Cay tomorrow and I’m not sure where we’re going yet. Wayne had mentioned that some other boaters were going directly from Dotham Cut (just north of here) to Georgetown. So I don’t know if we’re going to Little Farmers or Georgetown. There’s weather moving in this Thursday or Friday and no good anchorages on the western side of the islands. Little Farmers offers some protection but it’s small and sounds like there will be a lot of boats ahead of us. It’s about 52 miles from here to Georgetown – long day against the winds and waves. We’ll see…

     This bay holds a lot of boats. I couldn’t believe the amount of boats that have come in here this evening. It’s impressive. For the amount of boats in this harbor, none look like they’re crowding anybody else.