Happy St. Patty's Day (I know, we forgot to wear green!)
March 18th - We docked at Orchid Bay Marina on Great Guana Key. Specifically met up there to all enjoy the "Barefoot Man" Concert at Nipper's Bar.
Overlooking view of the beach from Nipper's Bar
There's our Barefoot Man! He has quite a few CD's out there and they are hilarious!
Michelle, Faye, Carole & Donna having fun at the concert
Debbie & Carole having a blast dancing away! Nothing beats an outside concert!
Ian from 'Southern Flite", Grant from 'Prima Donna' & Bob from 'Elan'
Carole & Debbie
Off to Treasure Cay. We had quite the storm while anchored out in Treasure Cay again! This time, thank God, no one dragged into us. The winds were so strong that we were up on the helm holding the plastic windshield from blowing in!
Beautiful picture courtesy of Marsha Simmons from sailboat "Elan"
Bob & Marsha from sailing vessel 'Elan'
Girls heading out shelling
Bob, Roly, Ian & Michelle on 'Prima Donna' in Treasure Key
Grant & Marsha
Do ya think we have enough rods?!
March 27th - Happy Easter! Back to Fishers Bay.
Grabbers Bar & Grill on Great Guana Cay, Fishers Bay (Nice view at this Bar of the boats in the Bay)
March 28 - we left Fishers Bay at 11:00 a.m. and arrived in Hopetown on Elbow Cay in Abaco at 12:30 pm. Hopetown is a beautiful place if anyone is interested in visiting the Bahamas.
Hopetown Inn & Marina (we anchored just outside of here)
Looking out from Hopetown Inn & Marina
Hopetown is such a beautiful place with the cutest pastel coloured homes and cottages!
Very narrow streets and only bicycles and golf carts allowed
Ian snorkeling over a sunken barge
Jan & Pete from "Norseman"
Ian and Michelle from Southern Flite
While in Hopetown, Roly did some hunting for lobsters and caught a 4lb and a 2lb lobster. Had to look in the small underwater caves to find them.
Sunken golf cart just outside of Hopetown harbour where we caught our lobsters in the nearby caves
Carole surrounded by the beautiful plants and flowers at the Hopetown Inn and Marina. In this area there is a separate pool and patio for boaters to use where we can BYOB and lunch.
Roly and view of Hopetown Harbour
April 3rd - left Hopetown at 9 a.m. and arrived back in Little Harbour at 10:30 a.m. A thunderstorm crept up on us and the winds got bad enough that we put our life jackets on!
Grant & Donna on their boat "Prima Donna" while leaving Hopetown
Helios2, 169ft luxury yacht. It's for sale for only $14,500.000!
April 4th - left Little Harbour at 7 a.m. and arrived in McLean Town, Grand Bahama at 7:30 pm...long day! Anchored just outside of the town. Had a beautiful magical calm night with the stars as bright as can be, fireflies and sea sparkles which glow in the water when disturbed.
My beautiful wife (Gee thanks Roly!)
April 5th - Carole snorkeled a bit on a reef close to McLeans Town - nice colours and fish but no lobsters. We then left at 10:30 a.m. heading to Lucaya. Carole hooked 2 barracudas which we threw back. While Roly was putting out a line in the Lucayan waterway, a huge fish grabbed the other line, then took off! It left some nice teeth marks on the lure! We fished back & forth outside of Freeport, gave up and arrived at Grand Bahama Yacht Club at 6 p.m.
April 7 - 10th - We were fortunate to be in Freeport at this time as the Annual "Extreme Kayak Fishing Tournament Battle in the Bahamas" was going on. Kayak fisherman from all over the world compete in this tournament. Unbelievable how these guys can catch amazing huge fish that we would never think they could catch from a kayak, let alone trying to fit them on their boat! One year a kayaker caught a 300 lb marlin and got towed 11 miles out to sea for over 5 hours (see it on U-tube). The tournament was quite exciting to watch!
Gals love the dance deck on Southern Flite!
Dancing to "The Wobble" (a couple wine glasses got kicked off the boat that day!) lol
April 13th - My sister, Linda, Hal and Mitchell arrived for a visit. We knew they were coming but we had the biggest surprise when they showed up with our daughter, Lisa and our grandchildren, Lily and Austin! The best surprise ever as we missed them so much!
Our beautiful granddaughter Lily Walsh
Pepere with our handsome grandson Austin
April 14th - Went out fishing with the gang and my nephew, Mitchell Nemeth caught a nice 7lb Mahi. My sister, Linda & my daughter Lisa both got seasick....not too fun for them!
Mitchell and his proud catch!
April 19th - we went again to try to fish and snorkel but this time our poor little Lily got seasick so we headed back without any fish. Unfortunately she doesn't take after her seafaring grandparents.
Lisa, Lily & Austin in the beautiful pool of the Grand Bahama Yacht Club
Hal enjoying the ladies at the Junkanoo Parade & Airshow
Lily meeting a little friend...so cute! They both enjoyed time dancing on the platform
I'd say our nephew Mitchell looked like he was having fun too!
Quite the windy day for the airshow! We also had a downpour and were lucky to be under a tent. Good thing the rain only lasted a little while!
Linda, Hal and Mitchell had an awesome room in the Coral Hotel in the Taino Beach Resort
Mitchell was happy with his room up in the loft!
Our future little captain, Austin!
Spent a good day enjoying the Lucayan Market
Lily got a nice purse at the market. The lady was kind enough to sew her name on it.
Princess Lily at the market. Our little princess also took off right after having lunch in the market and we couldn't find her! Talk about panic! We all scattered in a hurry throughout the market and after 5 minutes she came walking out of a Jewelry store right next to where we had lunch. She had followed 2 kids into the store! Can't keep our eyes off her for a second! With so many of us together, everyone assumes that somebody else is watching her and within seconds, she's gone! Carole ordered her a 'Kids GPS watch'. Hope it comes in soon! One day Carole caught her up on the roof of our sundeck throwing all her beautiful shells overboard one by one, lol! Thank God she had her life jacket on!
Our friend, Michelle Demers from Southern Flite and Austin in their matching outfits. Michelle was the one that found Lily walking out of the jewelry store...thanks Michelle!
My sister Linda holding a sea fan at Peterson National Park.
Linda & her son Mitchell
Lily having fun on the beautiful beach at Peterson's Cay. There's also Ben's Cave back on the opposite side of the road. Her and Mitchell had fun watching all the bats in the cave.
The birds were attracted to Mitchell's red shirt
Feeding the sharks from Pier One Restaurant
Bull shark!
Lily having fun playing with a little girl at the Smith Point Fish Fry which is held every Wednesday night. For those who aren't familiar, the Fish Fry is an area where Bahamians serve up local food, whole fried fish being the specialty. Many of the Bahamian islands that we've been to have an area called the fish fry. Roly loves the snapper, head and all! Carole loves the great party and dancing at the beach bar.
One night around Carole's birthday, she was dancing and this local guy with his pants hanging down to his knees, like Justin Beiber, started dancing with her. After a while, she just couldn't help herself, thanks to the tequila, and got up close to him, grabbed his shorts at his back and pulled them up as high as she could, lol. Everyone thought it was pretty funny even the guy, good thing he had a sense of humour! Later on every time he would go by her, he made sure to pull his pants up!
There went Lily trying to take off again! Not that she doesn't want to be with us (we hope) but as soon as she see's other kids, she follows them to ask them their names and wants to play with them. Thanks to Hal, she didn't get too far this time!
What can we say, he's just adorable & his mommy doesn't look so bad herself!!!
Mitchell was great with Lily
Roly chopping a coconut - a little too loud for Lily
Karaoke night at the Ocean Reef Resort. It was very nice to see Marion again (a fellow karaoke girl that Carole had a great time with).
Notice the dolphin jumping above the boat!
Down the canal from us, there is a 'Swim with the Dolphins Experience' and some mornings they would go by the marina to train the dolphins in open water. My sister Linda noticed them going by, so some of us hopped in the dinghy and followed them. Once they saw us, they made the dolphins perform. Lily was just loving it! The next day, Carole noticed them going by again and waved them over. They came right behind our docked boat at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club and had them perform for us again. What a show!
At the Lucayan market and all the girls loved Austin and wanted to hold him.
Lily was so tired that night from a long day that she just decided to lay down on the stage and have a nap while the others danced, lol
She got her second wind on the way home!
Their last morning before leaving. Carole just had to cuddle up to them in bed and didn't want to let go.
Glad that they all had a great time but so sad to see them go
April 24th - We left the Grand Bahama Yacht Club at 2:30 pm and arrived at West End Inlet around 6pm. We had the fishing lines out all the way and didn't even get a bite! (North Winds?)
April 25th - We left West End at 7am. 4 to 6 ft waves on the beam by the time we got back to Florida. It was pretty tricky trying to get into the St. Lucie inlet! Once we arrived at Stuart Landing Marina it was 5:30 and we had a mess to clean up down in the galley. Even the TV that's bolted down had tipped back, stuff flew out of the oven, etc.
For the 2015/2016 season, we logged a total 910 nautical miles. For you landlubbers that's 1047 statute miles or 1685.3 kilometres.
May 1st - headed back home with the truck full and pulling the dinghy to use back home on good old Lake Erie....the End (until next season).
Our beautiful 'Rol & C's...bye for now!
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