The passage from Sapodilla Bay to Mayaguana in the Bahamas was okay, we think. It was only last week, but neither of us can remember much. No fish. After many days of travel, things get blurry, but I always remember the fish.

Abrahams Bay is beautiful, but shallow and has lots of those black lumps in it, but visibility was good going in late in the afternoon, and okay going out the next day. Captains from four boats all went to check in, and I made banana bread (all the bananas ripen at the same time, so what can you do?).

Randy reported that checking in was lengthy, lots of forms, but the captains were warmly welcomed and it was pleasant, if protracted. Less pleasant was seeing a turtle being butchered on the dock.

Off to Betsey Bay that night. Pretty spot, crappy, crappy anchoring. We peered around for a sandy spot, and on the third try, sloooowly backing down, we seemed to park. No crowd, no wind to speak of, and none forecast, so we counted on the weight of the anchor and the chain to help us stay put. Charlie dove on his anchor, and reported that the bottom looked like the scraped, hard limestone roads in the Turks. They finally stuck when their anchor landed in a pothole.

We had several days of motor-sailing in light and variable winds and mild seas. Nice, but noisy and I suspect it scares the fish away. Only one strike in three days, and that one got away. We did see lots of pilot whales, dolphins, and to round out the wildlife news, we passed by the Plana Cays, the home of the Hutia! They look something like a fat, beavery squirrel, and are good eaten in a stew, unless they're the endangered kind. Now you know.

Atwood Harbour was a lovely spot for a few days rest, bread-baking (once you get going, it's hard to stop) and beach walking. From there to Landrail Point, and on to Clarencetown, which was an uneventful motorsail. I was changing fishing lures for excitement. Until we heard a faint drone - helicopter? plane? - and seconds later, two small stunt planes, one red and one blue, bracketed Nancy Dawson and zoomed by just about mast height and let loose blue and pink smoke trails. In seconds they caught up to Mi Amante, a mile or two ahead of us and buzzed them good too. It was wild! Thanks for the greeting, whoever you are. Made our day.

Clarencetown has a lovely harbour, mostly very friendly folk (and very helpful - the lady at the gas station only had huge bags of ice but she split one in two for us), good vegetables at the packing house by the government dock: green peppers, green bananas, green tomatoes, green plantain, and lovely rosy orange papayas. Down the road is Ansel's True Value grocery, and back around the corner to the basket shop and I bought a lovely woven tray. There's a Batelco office, but there's actually no Batelco office in the building, just the post boxes and the tiny courtroom. There are, however, pay phones with dial tones!

We went on down the road to the Flying Fish Marina, and later went back to do laundry. Which is when we had a chat with the owner, and while he was polite enough to Michelle and I (Michelle bought two new chart books, so he said we were okay, because at least we bought something), he described in no uncertain terms his intense dislike of sailboats and their crews. Apparently cruisers steal his toilet paper, come at night and use the showers and steal water, ram their boats into his docks, sit and use the internet all day, only buy small amounts of fuel, etc, etc. He was glad we weren't from a certain province in Canada, because "they're the worst."

At first, I was shocked that he'd had so many bad experiences, but then he told us that the people on the huge sportfishing boats in the marina had actually offered to pay him to tell sailboats that there were no berths available. Then I got creeped out and mightily pissed off. He was telling us because he wanted us to know nobody wants us.

We did need both fuel and water and got both the next day. He was barely civil, and wrote "Sailboat" at the top of our bill and charged us 30 cents a gallon for water, when he'd told Michelle and I the day before that water was 25 cents a gallon.

So I'm doing Mario at Flying Fish Marina a favour by telling all you cruisers to avoid the place. Pass it on. He doesn't know you, he doesn't like you, and he doesn't want your piddling bits of money. Perhaps if his business goes tits-up, he might find something else to do that he enjoys.

There, I feel better now.