Friends join us in the anchorage

On the 31st, we re-anchored Oestara to gain a bit more room around the boat before the upcoming blow. (Another boat anchored too close to us the night before; the boat’s owner wasn’t in town, so some of his friends had moved the boat from another anchorage over to the one we were in. We were there first, so technically they should move that boat…but we decided we’d just move.)

After that excitement it was time for school. As we were finishing up school, our friends the Goforths on Rex pulled into the anchorage and dropped their anchor, which was exciting. We hadn’t seen them since Virginia! We planned to have lunch together at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, but they had some issues to deal with when they got to the anchorage, so we wound up having lunch on our own.

We went grocery shopping in town after lunch.

We ran into Rex on shore once they got themselves sorted out. Cecelia was excited to see Jonathan and Preston again.

We were also on shore to collect an Amazon order! Total experiment on our part. Getting stuff here in the Bahamas is a challenge. We had been accumulating a list of things we’d love to have if visitors came to see us, and it got to be a long list, so we decided we’d just go ahead and place an order. Makers Air, who flies from Ft. Lauderdale to several Bahamian islands, would receive all the packages, repack them, and fly them into Staniel Cay for us, for a forwarders fee, of course, plus a price per pound, plus import taxes and VAT. So….not cheap, but the best (and kind of only?) option if we wanted things we couldn’t get here. Anyway, we had placed the order and been in touch with Makers, and our packages were meant to arrive that day on the flight arriving at 4 pm. It turned out the flight arrived early and our packages showed up at the yacht club while we were talking with the Rex crew. It was like Christmas unpacking everything to get rid of the packaging and transport the items back to the boat, and in all the excitement I took no photos of that whole experience. It was fun though! We picked up some gas and diesel at the fuel dock and set back out on the dinghy to head alllll the way back to our anchorage.

We tried out one of our new items as soon as we got back to the boat – an inflatable lounger that you don’t have to use a pump to inflate. We thought Cecelia might like to use it on the beach. She tried it out on the bow of the boat and it seemed to be a winner.

The next day was another school morning, and in the afternoon we hit the beach with Rex.

February 2nd was a special day because it was Preston’s fifth birthday! We joined the crew for cake to celebrate, and had a quiet day on the boat, otherwise.