JANUARY 31, 2008

CONCH CHOWDER
BAHAMIAN SCAFFOLDING
COOLASS SUNSET
OUTSIDE OF DOUBLE D'S
JACK AN HIS OL" LADY




THURSDAY JANUARY 31, 2008
Hey everybody. This is the JL, also known as Scratchy. (everybody here has a nickname, usually starting with S, and ending with Y. Don’t ask me. It was either that or Squeaky for me, which I liked, but Ruth said Scratchy was better. So she’ll be Spunky. Anyway, we’re about to pull out of G-town, and head south down the Ragged Islands, Jumentos, and off to the west to explore as far as Duck Cay. Not Duck Key in Florida. Different place. So don’t expect to hear anything for at least three weeks, because even though we know where we’re going, and there will be other boats going alongside us, there will be no internet all through the rest of the Bahamas, including Long Island, Great Inagua, possibly the Turks and Caicos Islands, and until after we leave the Bahamas, and get to the Dominican Republic. So don’t get y’all panties in a bunch. We’ll be there when we get there, and the only thing that would make us unsafe is if we try to sail in bad weather to get somewhere in a hurry to let you know we’re okay. So we’re going to take it on faith that you won’t worry, and that you’ll just trust us till we write again. Remember, people used to do this stuff alone, without other boats, without any idea where they were going, no charts, no GPS, and they didn’t have boats that were positively buoyant and impossible to capsize like ol’ Fiberglass Vengeance.

The bottom line: we're going to miss out on the Groundhog's Day celebrations, which as you might know, is the best day of the year. Oh well. You have to make sacrifices.

Anyway, so the last two days we’ve been provisioning, getting gas, water, extra water jugs, sewing ripped sails, and buying everything we need so we can install electric water pumps on the boat, and automatic pilot on the tiller. That should be pretty nice. We’ll clean up the boat, probably head out tomorrow and go and catch some fish. The places we’ve been hanging out have been vacuumed clean by all the traffic, so we’re going to try these side alleys for a minute.

We’ll take pictures, don’t worry. We love you all, and we’ll talk to you soon.

XOXOXOX
Spunky and Scratchy