After three days in Hope Town Harbour tied up to one of Truman Major's moorings, we left some money for Truman with his niece who works at the Harbour's Edge restaurant and headed out. We warily tiptoed, at low tide, through the shallow waters along the inside edge of Elbow Cay, four miles southward to Tahiti Beach where Sally dropped the anchor perfectly onto the middle of a nice patch of sand. We rowed to the beach and checked out all the marooned wildlife in the exposed tide pools then tried out some dinghy boarding drills. I've always had an inflatable dinghy in the past and had no idea how easy or practical it would be to climb back into our hard Dyer after snorkeling. It turned out to be eminently doable.

On Sunday we worked our way out of the shallows past Cracker P's and into the south end of the Sea of Abaco. We anchored behind Sandy Cay for lunch and thought about snorkeling on the inside reef there but decided it was too choppy to be much fun. With a cold front due to pass overhead that night, we sailed back to Buckaroon Bay and tucked into the anchorage there with protection from SW through NW.

Today, behind the front, we had a most pleasant broad reach south over mile deep water to Schooner Bay where we're spending the night. We had read some interesting reports on what was being created here and wanted to see for ourselves. We tied up to their dock and got the full tour. This is a development unlike any other I've seen in the Bahamas. Instead of Florida style mansions, the homes are small and look like what Bahamians would build for themselves. In fact, 70% of the buyers so far have been Bahamian. The idea is to attract small businesses to operate and live in the community. There's already an impressive farm that's going strong. Everything is done under the watchful eyes of the Bahamas National Trust which has an office in the community. It will be fun to see how this all works out. It's also a convenient stopping point between the Abacos and Eleuthera.

Tomorrow we'll continue on the Royal Island and Spanish Wells.