Good and interesting info. There's not enough of it on this list. Please keep it coming, David! Best, John "Seahorse" > I explored the town a little more today, looking for the local restaurant that I want to try this afternoon, the pharmacy and the smaller grocery store. I found all pretty easily. The smaller store actually looks like it caters more to visitors than the other. I was able to buy a half chicken, Tostidos Nachos, Lays Potato Chips, hot dogs, and most importantly Oreos!!! Yea, I know, not a good diet. But, after weeks of healthy food, you do get cravings! They even have canned anchovies. So, I had dogs and potato chips for lunch. Yum. Tonight I'll check out the restaurant. I've been running the watermaker a couple of hours every morning before the water gets stirred up and looks clean. The harbor here is open on two sides so gets plenty of flow through. The alternative is going into the public dock and loading water. It might be feasable before or after work hours, but not during the day. There just is too much tour boat traffic. So, I'm trying to avoid that. More boats came in today, one a Swiss boat. I'm thinking we need to start a net soon. THere are 5 cruising boats here now, but no one is talking / socializing. We'll see. I spend the mid morning and noon purusing the guide books and charts for going up to the Bahamas. The first passage is 180 NM and an overnight passage that we will need to do careful weather planning. After that, it gets much easier except that we will have to become expert Bank navigators. There are several coral banks that we will have to transit on daylight passages where the depth is very marginal. I'm talking 8 ft. with occasional coral heads peaking up. Scary, but all part of the experience. Boats do it every day. So, we should be able to master this. The next several passages are island hops in the 20 to 40 mile range. Not bad. Then we face one 90 mile passage up to Rum Cay that is fairly protected, but again will require a nice weather window. The locals say we should be here for Easter festivities. That is April 12th, so we might begin north right after that. We're supposed to get strong winds out of the north tonight and tomorrow and the boats just swung around to the north. So, it looks like the front is coming in. I've been looking for a well designed flopper stopper to stop our rolling at anchor. I found the design I want, but it is made in Australia and not available in the US. So, I sent an email out to two good boat yards I know to see if they would give me a price for making two of them. They are small sea anchors with a 2 ft diameter stainless steel hoop at the open end. After using Jenny's drogue in Colombia, I am sure these will work well, in as little as 8 ft of water and be easy to store. More later. **************A Good Credit Score is 700 or Above. See yours in just 2 easy steps! (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1219957551x1201325337/aol?redir=http:%2F%2Fwww.freecreditreport.com%2Fpm%2Fdefault.aspx%3Fsc%3D668072%26hmpgID %3D62%26bcd%3DfebemailfooterNO62)