New Orleans and Back Again 04/16/13

 Well, it’s been a while since I’ve sat in front of this computer!  Since we last “talked”, Rob and I enjoyed a few days in the Nassau area enjoying the company of new dock neighbors and furthering our knowledge and familiarity of the area before catching our flight back to the states for a great reunion with family.

Before heading home, we had one particularly fun day in town with Nia from Boundless where we hiked endlessly in and around Nassau.  We visited a fort built in the 1700’s, walked the Queen’s Staircase and had midday “Sky Juice” from a local restaurant.  Sky Juice is the beverage of choice here in the Bahamas.  The concoction is made with gin, coconut rum, coconut water and a drizzle of sweetened condensed milk all blended together in a yummy but deadly slurry!  Needless to say, that day didn’t end up being our most productive!

The big event of the past two weeks was our journey back to the states to visit my Mom in New Orleans.  The French Quarter Festival is an amazing event.  21 stages throughout the Quarter have live, local music with a new band every 1.5 hours for 12 hours each of 4 days.  Hundreds of bands in just about every style perform surrounded by food and beer like only New Orleans can provide! 

My mom’s been holding a brunch for over 100 of her associates and friends during the French Quarter Fest for the past 12 years.  She lives in the heart of the Quarter and the event is always a big hit.  Our family converges on her place throughout the preceding week to help out in whatever ways we can.  My brother and Rob handle all kinds of miscellaneous household projects while Mom, aunt, sometimes sister and the rest of us chop and cook feverishly.

We all have our favorite bands to catch and always enjoy just wandering around the Quarter people watching, catching the opening parade, eating the amazing food and enjoying the music.  There’s always something new to see or hear but, with my mom’s influence, we all generally gravitate to the Cajun/Zydeco stage and dance ourselves silly!  If you’ve never witnessed Cajun music or dancing, all I can say is that you haven’t lived until you give it a try.  Of course this wouldn’t be legitimate at just any local Cajun Festival!  A visit to Louisiana would be in order!  Anyway – you get the idea.

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So we had a marvelous week.  I was able to enjoy my Mom’s company, talk freely with my kids on the phone, have a long, hot shower every night, get an amazing amount of business caught up and all the while thoroughly enjoy my family and the fest.  Not bad!

The time to say goodbye again came quickly and we returned to the Bahamas meeting an good friend, Steve, at the airport on the way.  Steve has joined us for the return leg of our journey.  He and his wife live aboard their sailboat and plan on beginning their adventures this summer.   Although they have a lot of sailing experience, none of it has been offshore so Steve’s along for the experience for the next few weeks.

We spent our first day together re-provisioning and preparing the boat for the voyages ahead.  We checked the weather, got things in order and were ready to go the next morning.  First order of business was just to get back off the dock!  After living afloat for so many months here, being tied to the dock felt stagnant!  We left bright and early yesterday morning and made our way around New Providence to Rose Island where we enjoyed an afternoon snorkel and a short but nice beach walk.

Unfortunately, the anchorage was well protected from the wind but not from the offshore swell and we had a very long night with the boat pitching nonstop from side to side making sleep all but impossible!  Although we were all barely coherent, leaving the poor conditions was much more favorable than trying to rest and we headed out early today to cross over to North Eleuthera.

It was quite a day of sailing.  With winds somewhere around 20knots – we’re guessing a bit higher – we tried every sail configuration available to Moonshadow.  We saw speeds most of the day over 6 knots but some gusts produced speeds of well over 8!   The boys were endlessly challenging themselves and each other to trim the sails to perfection – leaving me to hang on for the ride! 

Despite no sleep and an exhausting day, we cleaned all the decks and restored order before launching the dinghy for a trip ashore.  We caught a ride with the owner of the local shopping store here and did a bit of restocking and bought some beautiful fresh grouper from “the guys” on the dock.  We prepared an amazing dinner with fresh fish and veggies while we listened to the VHF as a may day rescue transpired.   Rob helped out by relaying messages between parties and, last we heard, at least one person was recovered okay. 

Rob and I hit town again after dinner to “score” on the local ice cream rumored to be here.  We reunited with a great kid, Travis, we met earlier on the dock and all had ice cream together – big double dips for $2 each!  It was the perfect finale for an already eventful and memorable day! 

So we’re BACK!  We’re aboard and sailing and doing what we do.  And I can’t find internet, the frig has gone down, the phone isn’t working and things are back to the way they are!  It’s all just a good thing!