Hi Bruce,

yeah, I heard some rumors that bastard Herb might be spreading lies about me, I suppose it's finally come to pass, eh? I presume the pic is one taken by his partner in crime, Bob Grieser, no? Had a great time with those guys last winter, running into them during the last few days of the Cruiser's Regatta in Georgetown turned out to be one of the highlights of my cruise, completely unexpected... the afternoon I arrived, took the dinghy into Chat 'n Chill for a burger, and Herb was literally the first person I ran into on the beach... LOL!

Glad you're still happy with your Chance, the more I sail mine, the more I appreciate she's a really Good Old Boat... Be forewarned, however - when you someday do make it down to the Bahamas, you will be cruising aboard one of the smallest boats in the fleet, by far... every year, it seems the average size of the fleet down here grows larger, it's getting to the point where anything under 40' seems pretty rare now, and virtually NO ONE is out here on boats as tiny as ours... (grin)

Sometimes, however, our relative punyness can have its advantages, had an amusing example of that the night before last... for the past few days I've been anchored in Calabash Bay near the northern tip of Long Island, right off the Cape Santa Maria resort... absolutely beautiful water and beach, friendly place with nice walking and exploring ashore, not to mention fastest and strongest wifi signal I've found anywhere in the islands this winter... (grin) But, this bay is very open to Exuma Sound, even in settled conditions it's usually quite rolly in here, and the breeze has been out of the NW since I've arrived here, blowing right into the bay...

So, the other afternoon, a flotilla of 5 40+ footers show up... ("Buddy-boating" seems to have morphed into "flotilla cruising" nowadays, lots of packs of 4-6 boats traveling in company down here now) Calabash Bay is quite large, but they all anchor very close to me, I suppose 'cause I just happened to be the little "anchor" symbol on the Explorer Charts...

Watching these boats lying at anchor as the sun went down, it was amazing how much they were pitching with the moderate swell that was rolling in through the breaks in the reef... I was just riding like a duck, up and down, but it was obvious that their greater waterline length was in some sort of precise harmony with the wave period, they were all hobby-horsing like crazy... LOL! Of course, they all had massive RIBs with large engines still mounted swinging from stern davits, which has to be creating a considerable additional lever arm to their pitching, but no one attempted to reduce that by putting their dinks in the water - perhaps they all had misplaced the remotes for the electric davit winch controls, or something... (grin)

Listening to their radio chatter, it was obvious they were all having a miserable night in there (bet they were all secretly cursing me, having spotted my little boat in here to begin with, and made the assumption it would be fine) and they couldn't get out of here fast enough, yesterday morning... LOL!

Other major impression/takeaway from this winter, is how freakin' OLD we've all gotten, out here... sure, I've seen some younger families out here, but they are pretty few and far between, but I don't think I've seen a SINGLE boat this winter with 20-somethings aboard, a far cry from the Good Old Days, there are virtually NO young people, as far as I can tell, out here doing it in bare-bones style, on modest little boats anymore...

The pic is from Samana Cay, which some scholars believe was actually Columbus' first landing in the New World, as opposed to San Salvador... who knows, I may have walked in his footsteps out there? (grin) Marvelous place, wish I could have stayed longer, but the weather has dictated everything this winter, to a much greater extent than usual...

Anyway, thanks for the compliment, hope spring comes early for you this year, and you can get a head start on a wonderful summer of sailing...

best regards,

Jon