Assorted photos

I found these guys hanging out in Spanish Wells.
A guy stopped his car and actually asked them
how they were doing!

Typical tidy homes of Spanish Wells on the waterfront

Spanish Wells was clearly one of the more affluent of the Bahamian communities that we visited.  The manager at the marina told us the community did well because it did not depend on tourist dollars.

We met this guy in Warderick Wells Land and Sea park.  Although he did a nice job of cleaning up the crumbs in our cockpit he was a bit of a pest.  He moved into our cabin.  It took a little coaxing to get him to understand that we didn't want him there!
I thought I saw some blue-gray birds in the surf during our rough passage from Georgetown to Cave Cut but no - they were flying fish leaping out of the waves and gliding 60 feet or more.

Here we are on the pink sand beach.
There is the slightest of pink hue in the wet sand.

We made it to Harbor Island from Spanish Wells by way of the Devil's Backbone.  We cheated.  We took the high speed ferry.  At points it seemed like we could reach out and touch the beach as we flew past.  Some of our new friends hired a pilot to take their boats across the Backbone but the shoal depths made me wary even with a pilot.  It would have been a quicker way to get north to Little Harbor in the Abacos but it wasn't for me.  We rented a golf cart with Alan of "Unabated" and toured the island that is reputed to be the vacation destination of the rich and famous.  The famed pink sand beach was a little less pink than I was expecting - but nice.

Here's the Bo Hengy II our 25 knot aluminum
catamaran ferry to Harbor Island and back.
It felt like sailing in fast forward mode!

An example of the cuteness factor in Hopetown.
This was on someone's front lawn complete with
the Hopetown Lighthouse

This path was lovely - no cars allowed - but the telephone
cable didn't even clear my head!

Hopetown was almost too cute but as you can see from my picture some of the infrastructure in the Bahamas is a little below the standards we have in the states.

If you have money you can do anything you like.  We saw more than one big motor yacht with water slides like this.  They usually also sport 4 or more jet-skis.  Who decides to market water slides to these guys? http://freestylecruiser.com/
This is the latest in "must have" toys for the big boys.    You can't buy them off the shelf - they have to be designed "to the exacting standards of your yacht."
We'll be ordering one of the first slides designed to be deployed from the spreaders of a sailboat.

The ubiquitous Bahamian lizard - chameleon?

These little guys are everywhere all over the Bahamas.  We were surprised to find one in our cockpit at anchor.  We couldn't figure how he got there.  I carefully unfurled a ziplock bag and tried to urge him to enter it.  I'm a little squeamish so I didn't really want to handle him.  He was not happy with the bag.  He preferred to jump onto my hand.  You'd be surprised how sticky his little feet are.  I reflexively shook my hand but he wasn't leaving his perch.  I also used some salty sailor language but he was unmoved.  Finally with my hand in the bag I was able to rub him off and give him a ride to shore.

Alan from the Pearson 424, "Unabated" and I explored a ruins on Royal Island.
It doesn't take long for tropical plants to take over the structures. 

Royal Island was our jumping off point for about a 65 mile sail out in the ocean from the Eleuthera area to Little Harbor in the Abacos.  Our AIS showed plenty of ship traffic traversing the Northwest Channel.  We even saw a 3 masted sailing ship shortly before we were hit with a drenching squall.  Fortunately, there was no lightning and very little wind associated with the downpour.  One of the boats sailing with us reported seeing huge whales that they thought might be sperm whales.  I'm sorry I missed them - Maryanne is not.