Friday, May 1, 2009

We're Off...

One last post before we head out! We've had a great 24 hours - dinner at the Poop Deck last night, reading at the pool today. Life is very good. Our biggest struggle right now are mosquitoes, the buggers manage to get in even with screens over the hatches and they Definitely find me much more tasty than Martin! We are feverishly working through season 3.0 of Battlestar Galactica in the evenings and geeks that we are, we're obsessed :)

The other day we noticed signs around the pool area that said, to paraphrase, "if you're sitting or walking around this area then you agree to be filmed" (we didn't sit anywhere near that area!) Today, while on route to our favorite river raft ride, we saw the film crews and actors as they were filming. It's a reality tv show called "The Superstars". It's like Dancing with the Stars but sports rather than dance. we took a couple pics of what we saw and put them on the pic of the day. We don't have a tv so we won't see that episode!

Lucky is almost ready to go. Martin has done the requisite engine/systems checks and plotted our course on the GPS. I've done the usual cleaning/straightening up that I like to have done before we head out. We only have 34 nautical miles to go (about 37 miles). We can finish packing up tomorrow since we aren't supposed to leave until late morning. According to our guide book, you want to wait until the morning sun is not in your eyes so you can see the coral heads and shallow water. I've also been reading about the Exumas, the Exuma Land and Sea Park, Thunderball Grotto (snorkeling/of James Bond film fame) and Staniel Cay and I'm getting really excited.

I'm looking forward to life on the anchor and what it will be like. It should be more bug-free, very quiet, gorgeous and surrounded by a swimming/snorkeling pool... It will be a challenge to not run the air except for the few hours we run the generator to make water each day. Plugged in at the marina we keep the temperature on the boat at a comfortable 78 degrees. We'll be very careful about garbage production and dumping biodegradable foods overboard since we'll be paying about $2.50/a garbage bag to get rid of it. I think we'll be swimming a lot more, hopefully using the snuba and even scuba. I'll try to keep up doing my exercise videos since I won't be doing much jogging...

Here are a couple of websites with info on the Exumas and where we'll be going... There are islands with iguanas, another with wild pigs that greet you by swimming up to you in the boat as you arrive, the park has tons of aquatic life with fantastic snorkeling. Oh, and the water is filled with sharks ;P

http://www.bnt.bs/parks_exuma.php
http://www.bahamasgateway.com/staniel_cay_exuma_bahamas.htm

We'll post again as soon as we can!

2 comments:

Louise said...

Neal said I had to check out your new haircut, so I popped over to Pic O' the Day to see. So CUTE! I love it!

Steph said...

Thanks Louise! I love having short hair again (it's been about 12 years since it was short) - I'm keeping it like this :)