A White (Sand) Christmas!

I was so excited for Christmas and my family's arrival, I could barely sleep. My family was flying into Treasure Cay the next day (December 23) and were renting a house for a week. The house had a mooring ball in about 2 1/2 feet of water so the morning of the 23rd during high tide we moved over to the house on the other side of Treasure Cay. Ben put on his wetsuit and did some recon of the bottom. No rocks and about 3 1/2 feet of water under the keels during high tide.

We had Fritz at Cornish Rental Cars pick us up, and acquired my parents rental car to do some provisioning before their 4:35 pm arrival. In the Bahamas, we drive on the left side of the road so we had an interesting trip to Marsh where we also picked up the Explorer Charts for Ken and Sarah and had lunch.

We stopped back at the house, and since the car only held 5 I dropped Ben and the groceries off before heading to the airport. Unfortunately, the tide was more extreme than we imagined, and Whisper was touching the bottom.

My family's flight was on island time, but that was ok because I was running a little late too. We managed to get all five of us and suitcases into the car and back to the house with out any issues. (Treasure Cay airport quote: "oh, we better move, apparently this is also baggage claim.")

We decided to do Pizza night at Tipsy's bar at the Treasure Cay marina. It was a tight fit and an interesting drive, but we made it! The pizza was mediocre and the rum drinks were strong, but after 12 hours of traveling no one was too picky.

Christmas eve morning we traded in the rental car for a slightly bigger one - it could fit 3 across the front seat, so with 6 people it was a little more practical. It was also a much more comfortable ride, especially on the bumpy roads, and was a little easier to drive since the steering wheel was back on the left. The gauges matched the speed limit sign (in miles as opposed to km), but the speedometer didn't work and the odometer had stopped at 210,016 miles. Still it was a big upgrade.

Ben and I wanted to move Whisper because of the tides issue. It wasn't too big a deal, but a front is supposed to come through and we don't want her to be on the bottom in too much wind or wake. We decided to take advantage of the winter special at Treasure Cay Marina since between the storm the next few days and the time we will be in Costa Rica the deal already becomes cheaper than the daily docking fees. We took advantage of moving the boat to also take my family out for a sail! It was a perfect day for it and we just went straight out Treasure Cay towards Marsh Harbor on a beam reach for about an hour before turning around and heading back on a beam reach.



Christmas day was beautiful, but not much wind so it was a perfect day for the beach. We laid in the sun, frolicked in the (cold) water, and I built a sand sculpture snowman. Ben and I lost a volleyball game to Katie and Tony before we headed back to the car rental place to pick up 15 lobster tails for Christmas dinner.