For Sally's birthday, I gave her an underwater camera, a GoPro 4. It's a cute little thing. Unfortunately, it comes without the necessary memory card. I asked the woman at the marina office in Cape Eleuthera if any place nearby might sell them. She said the closest would be Rock Sound and that I wouldn't want to back-track there. When you have no itinerary, back tracking is quite normal, so we sailed back to Rock Sound. There we found a memory card that's not the recommended type but seems to work.

With the wind still NNE, we had a nice sail across to the Exumas. We counted 10 masts in the small anchorage at Allens Cay so went around to the west side of Highbourne Cay for the night. There were 12 boats there but more room to spread out. We feared the Exumas would be as crowded as last year but it was not to be. The severe infestation of mega yachts that afflicted the northern Exumas last year appears to be in remission. There also were far fewer human sized boats as we worked our way south. About half of them were Canadian. Montreal is here en masse.

We spent a morning behind Lobster Cay and found some good snorkeling spots for Sally to try out her new camera. At Norman's Cay we spent a night with five other boats then sailed right past the park to our home town of Black Point. As we went by the usually popular anchorage at Big Major's Spot, we saw only four boats. There were seven at Black Point, reduced to three the next morning.

In town we found most of our friends doing well. The Adderleys had just celebrated their 50th anniversary. Ida Patton's laundromat, with the most beautiful view of any laundromat we've ever seen, had added a new gazebo overlooking the harbor. Zhivago Rolle had added a new porch onto his Scorpio Bar. Lorraine Rolle has a major expansion project underway at her cafe. Paymon, Lorraine's mom, was off in Nassau for some Christmas shopping but had left behind a loaf of her Best-In-The-Bahamas coconut bread for us. Paymon's brother Willie is not doing so well. His vision is going and his tremors have gotten worse but his mind is still sharp. Yesterday we had rum punches with Zhivago then a fish dinner with Lorraine. We're home.

From here, we'll head further down the Exumas then cross over to Long Island. We'll be back here in Black Point now and then. That's not back tracking. It's just enjoying all of this big, beautiful country our way.

I'll post some underwater photos from the new camera once we get a little more experience with it.