Making the most of our freedom…….

before the curfew starts this week end. The T&C’s is famous for it’s coral reef’s, so after a very good leisurely Carnelley breakfast we set off to a reef in a national park called Coral Gardens. It’s on the other side of the island to where we are and was in the middle of Grace Bay, a gorgeous long white beach bay. We could see an area of coral that was surrounded by buoys and assumed it was to keep boats out, we had the most glorious snorkel with turtles, a ray and loads of fish life in beautiful coral. It was only after about an hour we could hear a shrill whistle going off and discovered that we were being chased out of the enclosure…..nobody is meant to enter. Well we never saw anything to tell us that on the way in, but did spot a small sign on the way out! It was lovely to be off the boat and on a deserted beach. It is incredibly built up here and very smart, loads more money than anything we have seen in the Bahamas. The flights are closed so there is nobody about, it’s another ghost town. We met a few locals, one couple who have been here 14 years, have never seen it this quiet and the beaches so empty. He said you seldom get the reefs in Grace Bay to yourself for snorkelling. At least we are getting some benefit to all this mayhem.

Some of you have been asking why the tracker on the website isn’t working. Well we got an urgent message from our satellite provider to tell us we had exceeded our budget as there was a call every 10 seconds – we discovered it was the Predict Wind software on the blog. It really shouldn’t be doing this but there is some issue going on and sadly until Rowan has a response from Predict Wind you stalkers will be put on hold! It’s always reassuring getting our ‘so glad you made it’ or ‘saw you sail through the night’ messages from Janice. So glad someone is keeping a beady eye on us. Actually I don’t get messages but have a suspicion that Chris Thomas also keeps tabs on us too, very reassuring!

We drove around the whole island, which doesn’t take that long, but it certainly has a lot more infrastructure than anywhere we have seen before. Loads of very smart homes and resorts. We decided to stop at the large supermarket on the way home as we heard there was a bit of a rush on it with the looming curfew. It had a very orderly queue with a red tape marking the two meter distance to stand apart. With hand sanitiser wipes at the entrance. So sensible! I popped in to try and stock up on a bit of wholemeal flour for my bread, but sadly they only had white flour, but it was a good opportunity to stock up on a few basics. Who knows when things will start to run out on these islands?

A steamy sunset with all the talk being the Americans leaving tomorrow and heading home. It will be just the three European boats left!

Those rum punches are going down so well!