Black Point Settlement, Exumas (anchored)
April 11, 2022
The wind is blowing 20+mph with even higher gusts. It’s continuous and Lailia is always moving. The temps are in the low 70s and with the wind, it just feels chilly to me. John offered to take me to shore but I don’t feel like leaving the boat today. The dinghy ride home from dinner last night was cold and damp and I am not up for that today.
John worked for five hours to target how air is getting into our fuel line. It’s clear that it’s coming in before the Raycor fuel/water separator because we can see the bubbles there when we prime it. He’s finally come up with a work-around of switching to our other fuel tank. We ran the engine for 50 minutes using this method before we turned it off. That’s the longest it’s run today.
I am very much missing living on land today. I miss the convenience of stores, easily accessed internet, my own car, and a home that’s not constantly moving.
April 12, 2022
It’s still very windy and looks as if it will be for the foreseeable future. Lailia moves all of the time – it’s not rolly but we are moving on an endless arc of current and wind around our anchor.
We took our dinghy to the government docks so we could do laundry, find groceries, and donate some school supplies.
The laundromat here is exceptional. There is a manager on site who will point out which of the 10 washers and dryers to use and will even move clothes out machines if the owners aren’t around. The view is pretty incredible, too
There’s even a place to sit right on the water where customers can wait for their laundry. The water is so clear it’s easy to see sharks and rays swimming.
We met up with some boat buddies at Lorraine’s Cafe. This little restaurant has really good food and a large outdoor seating area. Since there’s about 38 boats in this harbor today, finding seating is important. We’ve been crossing paths with many of these buddies for much of our trip. We’re able to share plans and resources as well as talk to folks who we don’t live with.
Grocery shopping is a bit hit-or-miss on small islands. We did get a tomato, a few oranges, and a green pepper, but there were no eggs today. Of course they did have peanut M&Ms (there’s ALWAYS peanut M&Ms and Snickers).
John did his best to minimize wave splash on our ride back to Lailia – we had several bags of clean laundry that we didn’t want to get wet.
We’ve been tying the dinghy to the side of Lailia for ease of access but last night the waves and wind were pushing the dinghy into the hull, which adds on to the sounds of the wind and the wind generator. Sleep is really difficult for me these days and all that sound isn’t helpful. John tied the dinghy to our stern this afternoon in an effort to minimize the nois
About an hour or so later, another boater came around with our dinghy. The wind and waves apparently conspired to loosen the lines. These very wonderful people saw the dinghy floating by and retrieved it when we didn’t even know it was gone. It’s attached in three places (including a cable and lock) to the boat and making noise. We’re really glad we had boat neighbors at the right place and the right time; the dinghy is the way we get to shore when we’re anchored.
I have a virtual meeting tomorrow so we’ll head back to Lorraine’s Cafe since she’s got a really strong connection. There are two internet providers in the Bahamas: ALIV and BTC. ALIV seems to provide the best connection in almost all of the islands EXCEPT the Exumas. We’re right in front of a BTC tower but we can’t buy a BTC sim card in this settlement. The closest place is about 3 miles from here, as the crow flies, which is too far for a dinghy ride. if we get to George Town (about 45 miles south of here) we should be able to purchase one there so I can do a virtual visit at the end of the month.
I don’t know that we were aware how often we were going to need to hole up and wait for better weather. Pictures can be misleading because we’ve had really bright sunshine with these high winds so it looks like every day is perfect. The water is perfect clear and the skies are gorgeous but the wind is very often a constant presence.
Life on Lailia 
Wishing you calm breezes!
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