Black Point

Delighted with our newly rejuvenated engine and after almost 2 weeks at Staniel, Latitudes was ready to move!  Fortunately for us, friends Marion and Greg and Wim and Dorothy were ready to head to Black Point, home of the Exumas best laundry.  A short 1 1/2 hour SAIL from Staniel and we were already anchored in Black Point, a mere 9 miles away.  Laundry loaded (and garbage), off to the Laundromat we headed.  I won the most loads contest - 5 full loads of laundry.  Boy, is it great to have clean linens, clean towels, and clean clothes.

The laundry here at Black Point is a multitude of things.  First and most important, a good wash/dry for $7 per total load. And how many laundromats have THIS view!

 But Ida, owner of the laundry mat, is quite the entrepreneur.  She does haircuts.  Wim   decided it was time for one.

Ida also will braid your hair and offers 8 minute showers for only $4, fresh home baked cake for  $1/slice, a few marine supplies, gifts (mostly handmade jewelry and baskets), fried conch fritters at lunch time, free internet, book exchange, some household goods, and home made "pies".  These pies are half moon shaped, filled with either meat or chicken, and a lot of curry.  I'm not fond of them, but they are very popular and inexpensive.

With the flush of clean laundry, the group decided to have dinner at Lorraine's.  Lorraine takes orders in advance and serves up dinner later.  Our dinner slot was 5:30, dinner was served at 7:30.  Very typical and lots of opportunity to grab your own beers or make your own drinks.   All is on the honor system.  We had grilled fish, warm potato salad, a veggie or salad (depended on which plate was placed by you), lots of rice with black beans, and warm cake for desert.  Very good.
Lorraine's mom is the island baker.  We ordered a loaf of cinnamon bread and half a loaf of coconut bread before leaving.  Picked them up this morning - yum!!  Not a great picture, as I didn't turn on the flash before asking Lorraine to take our picture, but here is Lorraine's Cafe.

The wind has picked up again.  The forecast of increased winds did influence our decision to leave Staniel yesterday.  Last night Luke turned on our chart plotter and set the drag alarm and radius alarm.  We do this any time that the night is not still.  The chart plotter shows the swing and drift of our boat relative to our anchor.

That little black boat shaped spot is Latitudes.  The anchor symbol is ---- you guessed it! ---our anchor.  The black and red hatch marks are where we have been.  This is good - a nice straight line an equal distance from our anchor.  If we drag away from our radius or swing too far away from it, an alarm goes off, alerting us to come check things.  Luke is a good anchor guy.  Only a couple of times have we actually dragged after setting anchor.

The wind is supposed to blow hard for the next week, so after a day of beach combing here, we will move our boats to a protected anchorage about 15 miles north of here.  Not south like we planned, but it will be for only a week or so to wait out the blow.  And besides, being sailors, we go where the wind takes us!