Happy birthday to me, Great Sale Cay, March 17

photo #1: approaching Great Sale Cay
photo #2: perfect birthday bread
photo #3: laundry at sea

[Hilde's log]



This is certainly the most unusual birthday I have spent. Raven and crew have been tethered to the anchorage all day as the wind honked past at 20-25 knots, just as forecast. My accomplishments for the day: two loads of clothes! David also washed one load (read, large bucketful). It’s an interesting process: for the stinky stuff, we first soaked them in a bucket of seawater and pine-sol for 30 minutes. Then we washed them in Joy detergent, then rinsed them, then rinsed them again with clothes softener (all in sea water – the clothes softener is supposed to get the salt out). The proof will be in the wearing. They’ve been flapping in the wind and sun all day, making us look like real cruisers. One of our neighbors dragged anchor about mid morning, and he and our other neighbor ended up pulling up their anchors and motoring across the anchorage to set their hooks nearer shore. David and I laughed that they probably wanted to upgrade the view, not being taken with our unmentionables flapping on the lifelines. Several of the other boats left this morning and others have come in this afternoon. There are 10 of us here, but no one is anchored near the underwear boat. Fine!

I have also made a loaf of bread. It has dutifully risen to twice its size, I’ve punched it down, and now I am waiting for it to rise again before baking it. David is down to his last 6 pieces of bread, hence the baking operation. There just aren’t many 7-11s around here! Now when we run out eggs, we’ve got a problem. I used the recipe Judy from Anastasia gave me and I am anxious to see how it turns out. It will be my birthday cake. David gave me a lovely birthday card, but that’s all the evidence there is that it's my big day.

I studied my Spanish for about 2 hours this morning, which was lots of fun. I am determined to have some kind of vocabulary by the time we get to the Dominican Republic in June. My goal for this year is to learn to speak passable Spanish. Hopefully, with six months in the DR, it will be even more than passable.

So that’s what I’ve done today: study Spanish, wash clothes, cook breakfast and lunch and wash up after both those meals, make bread and wash up, read out of “Your First Atlantic Crossing” (David’s book, not mine! I just want to cruise the Bahamas, thank you), have tea, and now I’m working on this entry. And that took the whole day. I will be glad when the blustery wind settles down a bit, so we can continue on. Tomorrow the plan is to leave around noon and anchor on the NW side of the island, outside the basin, and then the next day continue on eastward to Fox Town or environs when the wind clocks around to the south again and before the next norther roars down on Thursday. I’m really glad we stayed here today; such strong wind is tiring.

And that’s about it – I’ve requested a movie tonight, so the generator is running to charge the batteries so we can do that. There’s the alarm to preheat the oven – cross your fingers for the bread.

PS: Bread turned out! Underwear did not - stiff as a board. Will rinse in fresh water when it rains and we can collect some in the dinghy.