Pizza in Paradise

     The storms never made it to our little area of paradise.  We woke to blue skies and a cloud bank to the north.  Kathy’s husband, on Bandit, invited me aboard to see the radar indicating the storms had dissipated once they had hit the warmer waters of the Bahamas. We listened to the 8 AM weather forecast  broadcast over the VHF from Highborne Cay. They stated that the winds, which were only supposed to be for today, are now supposed to be with us through the weekend clocking around out to the northwest at  from 15 up to 25 knots. This will mean a sloppy ride northwest towards Nassau over the weekend.

     Heading up to the marina buildings to meet with John and Betty this morning, we spotted Runaway at anchor in the harbor.  We have been following their blog and crossing paths for a while. They, too, are from the Chesapeake and know the crew from Brunelle as well as others from CCYC. We finally met them at Thunderball Grotto last weekend.  When we heard that today’s specials here at the marina were 2 for 1 Pizzas, I hailed them on the radio to see if they would like to join Andiamo and us for lunch, to which they said, “yes.”

    Andiamo decided to join us to head back to Waderick Wells tomorrow as we need to be in Nassau no later than Tuesday so Pete can work.  That meant we needed to place our reservations for the mooring balls during the 9 AM “roll call.”  Once again, Andiamo could not be heard by the Park so I had to relay for them.  Later in the day, John and Pete pulled apart the pedestal on Andiamo and the panel down below to find that there is a problem with one of the VHF radios affecting the high power status. This just means that I will have to be both Pekabu and Andiamo for tomorrow’s Park roll call for confirmation and assignments. Unfortunately, John and Betty will have to see about a new radio.

    There was a lot of chatter on the radio about access to TV signal without use of cable in this area; with just an antenna, no digital box.  Apparently, some Miami stations are picked up and rebroadcast from Farmers Cay for about a 50 mile radius.  Everyone was interested in the 8.9 earthquake that hit Japan early this morning, which was followed by a devastating tsunami. The entire Pacific Rim was under a tsunami warning, with damage reported in Hawaii and California by relatively small waves. We picked up some sound bites from CNN News on Sirius Radio first thing this morning and the Internet when we could get on at night. The video is as unbelievable as it is surreal. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who survived and what they will have to endure in the next weeks, months, and years.

Tommy, Kay (Jubilee), Marty, Matt (Runnaway), Rose, Patrick, Dan, Martha (Brunelle)
John, Betty (Andiamo) and Pete (Pekabu)

     While Pete worked, I took care of some emails and other things. Before we knew it, it was time to meet for lunch.  Our group had grown. I invited Tommy and Kay from Jubilee. Dan and Martha, from Brunelle, along with Patrick and Rose, their guests from Chile, dinghied up from Big Major’s anchorage to join us.   The crust on this pizza was thinner that Mac and Manko’s, down in Ocean City, NJ, and just as good!  Between the 12 of us there was never a lag in conversations.

This seaplane arrived as we
finished lunch.

     I went over to check how John and Pete were making out on the radio.  Since they were putting things back together again, we sat and talked till the sun went down.

Tommy used my camera to capture
this shot.  Great job, Tom!

   It appears that tomorrow, Jubilee will begin heading south towards Georgetown to meet up with their daughters, while Runaway, Andiamo, Brunelle and we will be heading north to Emerald Rock.   .   .  but for our stay here at Sampson Cay is has been great company, great food, great times, great place. . .what more could we ask for!     (Editor’s Note: Best not to mention Internet here.)

 ~  ~ (\_~ ~ ~     Kathy and Pete