Category: Mark

Hi all,
We’re now in Long Island – in the Far Bahamas. We have found a great beach bar/restaurant with super conch fritters, really tasty rum punch, and Wifi. With our newfound Wifi, we’ll be uploading a handful of posts – probably out of order. So, to help out everybody who is playing along at home – here’s the broad outline of where we’ve been over the past few weeks.

As I wrote a bit ago, we left Allen’s Cay and headed to Eleuthera. Julie has a post about that. From there, we headed back to the Exumas and visited Norman’s Cay, the Exuma Land and Sea park (Shroud Cay, Wardrick Wells, O’Brien’s Cay), and then Staniel Cay. From Staniel, we made a few more stops en-route to George Town – the cruiser’s HQ in the Exumas. We stayed in George Town for a week or so – and now are in Long Island.

I’ll leave the details to the upcoming posts… just wanted to give you the basic timing / order of our travels.

Have a great day,
Mark

Hi all – its been way to long since I wrote – a combination of not having decent internet access, some computer issues, and just getting behind,. Here’s an update from about 3 weeks ago. Here goes…

We sailed from Bimini to Allen’s Cay – a really smooth, beautiful 30 hour sail (actually – motor, as we were going directly into the wind for 80+% of the time. The only excitement in our journey was when we passed New Providence Island (the island with Nassau on it). Shortly after dawn – as Julie was driving and I was catching a few zzz’s, a really fast police boat zoomed up to us, slowly circled us, and then zoomed off. We think that they were confirming that we had checked in and cleared customs – and since we were all legal – no issues.

We arrived in Allen’s Cay a little after noon and headed into the relatively tight harbor. Again – no real issues – but we got our first case of having to rely on Visual Piloting Rules (VPR). Basically, VPR is when we have one or two people on the bow of the boat reading the water to make sure that we are staying in the deeper water and away from shallow sand bars or coral heads. After a few zigs and zags, we were safely in the harbor and heading towards the spot in the anchorage that we were told was the best by the folks in Bimini. We dropped our anchor and I hopped into the water to check that it was well dug-in. Everything looked good – except that there was only about a foot of water under our boat. Probably OK – as it was near low tide – but something we’d keep an eye on. Willie and I zipped into shore for a bathroom stop – and are introduced to the famous Allen’s Cay Iguanas.

These ugly guys are pre-historic iguanas – mostly docile – except for the largest ones who seem to take-on the role of ‘protectors of the flock’ (or whatever you call a bunch of iguanas). Luckily, they weren’t interested in messing with Willie – and he was mostly interested in just going to the bathroom and sniffing around.

As I was heading back to the dinghy, I ran into Atom – a really nice guy on one of the boats that was anchored outside of the harbor. He mentioned that his crew were planning to have a cookout and bonfire on the beach and invited us to join them. Great news!

We head back to the boat – and now I notice that there are only about 4 inches of water between the lowest point on our boat and the sandy bottom of the anchorage. OK – even though it is dead low tide, looks like we may want to move – as the next low tide is in the middle of the night – not the best time to deal with an issue. Easy enough to do – we just move about 100 feet farther from shore. The only downside to the move is that we are now in more current – which just made swimming off the boat a bit more of a challenge. After re-setting the anchor, it was time to head to shore for the cookout.

On shore, we meet up again with Atom – and meet Joe, Christa, and Wilson. Joe is the owner of the boat – and Christa, Atom and Wilson are traveling with him. Like just about everybody we’re meeting on this journey – they have a great story. Here’s how I understand it… Joe’s plan is to sail around the world – sailing for a few months at a time and heading home for a few weeks to manage his company in Oklahoma. One of the stops was in Bimini (a week or two before we arrived there). While the boat was in Bimini – and most the crew was back in the states – a fourth crew member stayed on the boat for ~3 weeks. In this time, he met and became friends Wilson – a Bahamian who was working at the marina. Turns out, Wilson’s dream was also to travel the world. When Joe and the rest of the crew got back to the boat, they invited Wilson to join them for the rest of their trip. Before I go any further – I have to mention that Wilson is awesome! Super nice, really hard worker, and a super fisherman, and all around good guy. After Joe and his crew left Bimini, they went to Nassau – where Wilson showed them the Nassau most non-Bahamians never see. They visited Wilson’s extended family, played dominos with some of his old friends, ate and drank in local places, etc. Sounded fantastic. Anyway – back to the story…

When we got to the beach, Wilson and Atom had already collected a bunch of conch and sea snails and had a roaring fire for cooking the snails and another one for a bonfire (in a fire-ring of conch shells). Wilson then showed us how to open and clean a conch. He then cut-up the conch he cleaned into 5 pieces for our family to try – fresh, out of the shell. It was fantastic. Really sweet, really tasty, and not too chewy. I was pleasantly surprised. Next came the sea snails. As the name implies, these are snails that live in the sea – and the shells are about the size of a clenched fist. They were cooked in a dutch oven of boiling seawater for one to two hours, pulled out of the shells and cleaned up, and eaten right away. Again – really tasty. As the sun was just starting to set, another boat pulled into the harbor and joined us. A kid boat – mother, father, 8 yr old boy, 10 and 12 yr old girls. Again – really interesting people – but I’ll skip the details on this one. We spent the next few hours around the campfire talking and getting to know each other. When it was time to go back to the boat, we realized that we didn’t leave any lights on – and it was now pitch black. Luckily, we had a general idea where the boat was – and with a little looking, we were able to find it. A great first day in the Exumas!

The next day, we explored the island – and had a few interesting moments. First, we had a face-off with an alpha-iguana. As we got onto the beach, a pretty darn big iguana ambled out of the brush and headed directly towards us. He stopped about 3 or 4 yards from us, struck pretty aggressive pose, and just held his ground. Since he was between us and the path we wanted to travel, we decided it best to walk around him – which meant we had to wade through knee-deep water to the other side of the beach. Once we got around him, we walked up and down a 100 ft path in the brush and ended up on the Atlantic side of the island. As we walked down the beach, we encountered two bales of marijuana that had washed up on the beach. The night before, Atom and Wilson had mentioned them – and Wilson was very clear that the Bahamian government does not mess around with drugs and we should stay clear of them (which we did – and would have even without the warning). Our best guess is that someone was smuggling the drugs to either the US or Bahamas, got spooked by the authorities, and dumped them overboard before getting caught. Anyway – made for an interesting stroll down the beach. Later in the day, we went back to the beach and scoured the rocks for some sea snails for dinner that night (they were that good!). After less than an hour, we had 20 or so snails, and posed for some pictures:

Right after this picture was taken, Sally’s snail decided to come out of its shell and attached itself to Sally’s hand. Here’s the result:

We’re still laughing at that one…

Since the wind was kicking up a bit and it was getting late, we decided against to starting a fire on the beach and, instead, opted to cook them in our pressure cooker onboard.
We also decided to ‘fancy them up’ a bit – and cooked them with a little garlic, butter, and white wine – served over rice. Super yummy!

The next day, we met-up with the kid boat folks and went snorkeling at a reef just outside the island. Later that afternoon, I went back to the reef with Rob (the dad) and Grace (oldest daughter) to try spearshing for the first time. Unfortunately, the catch of the day that night was rice and beans. I think I may have scared one fish with my spear – other than that, I didn’t get very close to getting anything. Oh well – I’ll keep trying…

Well, that’s all for Allen’s Cay – as the next day, we made the last-minute decision to head a bit further east to Eleuthera. More to come on Eleuthera later.

Until next time,
Mark.

A post by Mark

Hi all – we finally made it to the Bahamas!

Last Friday, we started making plans to head out on Monday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon, it looked like we were going to be in Marathon for at least another week. On Monday morning, we got an improved weather forecast. On Tuesday morning, we departed Marathon – heading for The Berries in the Bahamas. On Tuesday morning, we arrived in Bimini (not The Berries – but ~70 miles closer to FL). We’re all good – and here’s the story of how we got here…

On Friday, we got a mixed weather report – saying that there was a weather window to the Bahamas – but it may be short (and uncertain). Since the next window was at least a week out, we figured we’d plan to leave Monday – knowing that we could always decide to stay put if the window wouldn’t work. The biggest thing for us to do was to get Willie to a vet – as he needs to get checked out by a vet 48 hours before arriving in the Bahamas. We make an appointment for 9:00 AM Monday.

On Sunday, the cruising community in the harbor had a great potluck brunch – at least 50 or 60 people all hanging out having a good time. We brought Monkey Bread – which appeared to be a hit – as it was all gone by the end of the brunch. After the brunch, we had a meeting with most of the folks who were planning to head to the Bahamas. In that meeting, we got a bit ‘scared’ – as the vast majority of folks were deciding to stay put. The only boats going over Monday were two ‘kids’ (a senior in college and his brother who is taking a gap year between high school and college) and a pretty experienced crew (we think from France) who were delivering relief supplies to Puerto Rico.  Both of these boats are on a schedule – so we were reluctant to sail with them.  Looks like we’re staying put for a bit…  Since we weren’t going on Monday, we decided to cancel our vet appointment.

Monday morning rolls around – and the forecast has improved! The front that was coming through stalled a bit, and now Tuesday morning is forecasted to be a good, solid window – and the best one for the next ten days. Furthermore, the seas are projected to get smoother and smoother as the day progresses. Later in the morning, we catch up with a family from Maine who got the same weather report as us and is also now planning to head out on Tuesday. This is great – because now we have a ‘buddy boat’ to sail with. Things are looking up! The downside to the forecast is that there is a big front coming in right after this window – with winds blowing up to 40 knots and gusts even higher. Thus, wherever we go on our crossing, we should expect to stay there for at least 4 or 5 days until the front passes. Knowing this, we decide to head to Great Harbor in the Berries – about 70 miles East of Bimini – kind of the middle of the Northern Bahamas. According to the guide books and folks we talked to, there is a nice anchorage with good holding there, along with some great snorkeling, pretty beaches, etc.

So, Monday morning, we call the vet and get an appointment for 2:45. The rest of the day, we finished getting ready to go…. Topping off our water, picking up a few last-minute things from Home Depot and Kmart, a final shopping trip to Publix (and I’m sure one or two other things I’m forgetting – turned out to be a really busy day). All was going smoothly –  until about 7:00 pm as Julie and I were walking home from Publix with a very full wagon full of groceries. It’s only a mile or so from the marina – so we ended up walking home (we thought about getting a cab – but we didn’t have our phone with us to call one and didn’t have any luck flagging one down). Tuns out, we should have tried harder – as our wagon broke down about 1/4 mile or so from the marina. So, while Julie hung-out out with our broken wagon, I ran to the marina, get a cart, and headed back. What a pain in the neck – but all part of the adventure. The rest of the night was uneventful (thankfully).

On Tuesday, we head out at sunrise to this beautiful view.

When we leave the harbor and head out, we start our sail in pretty bumpy water. Sally and Lucy don’t fare too well in the waves (Sally quite a bit worse than Lucy). Turns out, our buddy boat is also having a tough time with the waves – as a ‘few of them’ are getting seasick (didn’t get much more info). Given this, they decide to cut their sail short, skip the crossing and head towards Miami to wait for the next weather window. Since both Lucy and Sally were OK (not good at this point – but surely OK), we decide to press on. It turned out to be a great decision, for about an hour or so later, the waves really began to lay down and the ride got smooth. By the time we got to the Gulf Stream – the seas were perfectly calm – with almost no wind. While this made really smooth sailing (mostly motoring), it wasn’t great for making progress towards the Berries. Since the wind died so much, we were going a bit slower than we thought – and realized that we may not be able to make it all the way to the Berries by nightfall the next day (we were already planning to sail overnight). Next came an hour or two of ‘hard thinking’ – mapping out different paths, modeling different current and boat speed assumptions, and looking for good anchorages with protection from winds from the North and East (where the big winds were forecasted). The only place we could find that we could comfortably get to was Bimini, but we’d have to stay in a marina there – as the anchorages there aren’t very good. While we weren’t happy about staying in a marina for up to a week – it was the safest and smartest thing to do. We were able to call a marina on our satellite phone and get a reservation. That relived a bunch of stress. NOTE: I’m writing this on Friday morning – in ~30 knot winds and after a night of 40+ knot winds. I can definitely say that I’m happy to be tied up to a dock and worrying if our anchor was going to hold!

Our crossing through the Gulf Stream was pretty uneventful – except that we had to dodge 2 cruise ships and a container ship. Nothing unexpected or dangerous – but the amount of commercial traffic in the Straights of Florida will definitely keep you on your toes!

Other than knowing that we’d have to pay to stay in the marina for a while, the only other downside to going to Bimini is that we arrived around 4 or 5 AM – and thus, had to just hang out outside the harbor entrance until the sun came up and we could get ahold of someone at a marina. No big deal – but for the first time since we left on Columbus Day, I may have gotten bored for an hour or two (I was also pretty tired – as the stress that both Julie and I took on trying to figure out the best path forward took a lot out of us).

All turned great again around 8:00 am. I got in touch with the folks at the marina, they gave us some guidance on how best to get through the channel into the harbor, and we were again on our way. By now, all the girls were up – and along with Julie, were at the bow of the boat helping guide me in by looking through the crystal-clear water at the bottom to make sure we weren’t going to hit a rogue sand bar. From the bow, the shrieks of joy erupted as we passed over a school of dolphin (the fish – AKA mahi-mahi), a spotted eagle ray, and a bunch of other tropical fish. The rest of the ride to the marina was smooth, and we got tied up in our slip without any issues. Within an hour or so, I cleared us through customs and immigration – and we were finally legal visitors to the Bahamas!

The rest of the morning we took Willie for a walk on the beach, took care of a few things around the boat, and had lunch. After lunch, we walked to another beach and went snorkeling. As we got to the beach, the winds shifted and started building from the North and dropped the temperature about 10 degrees – signs of the front coming. Not a lot to see in the water – as we just snorkeling went off the beach, and not to a reef, but we still had fun looking for shells and just being in the water. After a little while in the water, we were ready to head back to the boat and rest a bit before dinner. All in all, a great day!

Willie enjoying his time at the beach

Since this post is getting too long already, I’ll fill you in on the next few days in my next one. Spoiler alert – things are good!

Until then –
Mark

A post by Mark

Hi from Marathon FL – the heart of the FL Keys

Marathon was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Irma. Something like 150 or 200 boats were destroyed in the harbor, the marina docks got pretty banged up, and the town itself was pretty badly damaged. That being said — the folks here have done a really great job rebuilding. While it is clear that ‘something’ happened here, Marathon is definately ‘open for business’ and a great place to visit. From the stories we’re hearing, the way the community here came together to help rebuild was beyond amazing. And I believe it… To a person, the folks we have met here have been among the friendliest, most down to earth, and generally great people we have met on our trip.

Sally recently wrote about our impromptu snorkeling trip — courtesy of our new friend Jon — so I won’t rehash the whole story. However, let me tell you about the few hours before the trip — interesting times….

Since Santa brought us a newer, larger dinghy for Christmas, we were looking to sell our old one. In Naples, we connected with a guy in Ohio (Dave) who was on his way back to Marathon and was looking for a dinghy. We arranged to meet Dave’s friend Jon in Marathon – and if Jon liked the boat, he would buy it from us. Turns out, Jon has been helping Dave rebuild his sailboat after Irma (and done a lot of good work so far). So, we met Jon – super nice guy. He lives here in the winter, and in NJ in the summer. Jon and I took the dinghy for a pretty long ride to test it out. On the ride, he showed me the beach, a good snorkeling spot, and gave me a list of other places to check out. As I would have expected, the dinghy rode like a charm — not a single hiccup — until we were about 30 seconds from the dock at Jon’s house. That’s when the engine decided to just stop. No warning, no bad sounds, no smoke, no sputtering… just humming along one minute, dead as a doornail the next. A few pulls of the cord — nothing. Are you kidding me? With Jon’s help, we get the engine started and limp back to his dock. Luckily, he knows a lot about outboards, and pretty quickly, we determine it was a clogged fuel filter. A quick clean of the filter, and the engine ran like a champ again. We take another ride around the harbor — this time with me, Lucy, and Sally following in our new dinghy just in case. Everything went as smooth as can be, Jon was convinced that the engine was cured, and decided to buy it. Phew…. As we were drifting around just out of reach of his dock, I was pretty sure I had lost the sale!

As if making the sale wasn’t ‘good enough’, our day got even better – when Jon generously offered to bring our family snorkeling at a reef about 6 miles offshore (Sombrero Reef). Since Sally did a good job describing our snorkeling adventure, I’ll move along…

The rest of our time has been good here – although the girls are a bit bummed that there aren’t any kids here. Turns out, we were a day or two late getting here – as a bunch of boats (and a few with kids aboard) left the day we arrived. We’ve been here a week now – waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. Fingers crossed – we think we may be able to leave the end of the week or early next week. While we are looking forward to going, there are worse places to be ‘stuck’ than Marathon – and we are thankful for that.

Until next time (hopefully, written from the sunny Bahamas),
Mark

A post by Mark
Hi all,

I started writing this about a week ago – I think on Christmas Eve – finally getting around to finishing it… we’ve been busy (all good stuff).  Here goes…

Merry Christmas from Naples FL. While our original plan was to be in the Bahamas for Christmas, we are very happy to be in Naples – visiting with Oma and Opa (Julie’s parents) and Grammie (my mother). We arrived around the 15th – its been nice to have a home-base for a while. We have been really fortunate – Jerry and Janet Belle (friends of my in-laws) have been super generous and have let us keep our boat on the dock in front of thier house. We can’t thank them enough!

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been able to get a lot of jobs done around the boat.  I rebuilt the fresh-water system – so now its working better than it ever has!  I also rebuilt a few winches and completed a few other small projects.  Its much easier getting things done when you have regular access to a car!  We also got to enjoy time at the pool, Willie had fun at the neighborhood dog park, and we all have had a good time.

Until about 3 pm today, we through we were leaving for Key West tomorrow – but at 3, we got the updated weather forecast for the Keys – not good.  Big wind (25 to 35 kts) and waves (up to 7′) forecasted for next Mon to Wed.  Also, the forecasters are saying that it won’t be safe to head from the Keys to the Bahamas until next weekend (at the earliest). So, while we could leave tomorrow (Sunday) and be safely at anchor in the Keys before the weather hits, we figured we’d have more fun here than hunkered down at anchor next week.   We’ll head South once the weather clears…

Wishing you all a Happy New Year –

Mark

A post by Mark

The adventure continues. As I mentioned in my last post, we followed the lockmaster’s advice and anchored in a small inlet about 15 miles downstream of his lock. If you will recall, he told us there would be plenty of water. He also told us the water would be increasing 1 to 2 feet overnight (a detail I left out last night – figuring it would be irrelevant). Anyway, he was wrong…

We started at 4 1/2′ of water – a little uncomfortable for us – but enough. The next morning, I get up for my regular dinghy ride to the shore with Wille and notice that there is now a significant riverbank on both sides of the inlet, where previously, there was none. When I get to the boat ramp where Willie and I get to shore, the bottom of the ramp is no-longer in the water. The water level didn’t go up 1 to 2 feet – it dropped 1 to 2 feet.

This isn’t good – was the lockmaster messing with us?

We had some hope – as our guidebook told us that we should expect a tidal change of 1 to 2 feet.  It must be low tide now – right???

We start to slowly make our way out of the inlet. We get turned around and make it about 30 feet before our first grounding. We’re going really slowly, so, I’m able to back-up before we get stuck and try to reposition the boat to find some deeper water. Another few wiggles with the boat and we make it another 10′ or so. And then, we stop. We are in 3 1/2 feet of water and stuck in the mud. Note: at this time, we’ve abandoned our depth sounder and are now sticking our boat hook in the water to measure the depth.
So – on to the anchor trick. After a lot of work getting the anchor set, we’re able to pull ourselves out another 20 or so feet. We’re getting close to deep water!!! We now need to unstick our anchor and re-set it another 40 or 50 feet in front of the boat. After even more work, we get it re-set and start pulling. Based on the first few pulls, this last 40 feet are going to be the toughest. In the meantime, Julie calls the NOAA station in Mobile (the weather guys) to try to understand the tides, how much lift we can expect, etc.  The NOAA guy has no idea what Julie is talking about – as the tides have absolutely no impact where we are (Is the guidebook writer messing with us?). He also tells us that the water-levels are forecasted to drop another 6″ today and even more the next day.  This is looking less good by the minute.  Julie then calls the lock, tells the lockmaster what’s up – and he says that there is a boat in the lock that he’ll ask to come help us.  He also says that he’ll see if he can release some water from the dam to help – but we’re 15 miles downstream – so it will take quite some time for us to see the impact.

About an hour later – as we both exhausted from pulling (and making less and less headway), we see our saviors – not the boat from the lock, but a boat from the US Geological Survey that was coming out of the inlet to collect samples (water or mud – I never figured out which one).  Anyway, they weren’t really excited to help – as they were worried about getting stuck, but I was able to explain how they could put their boat in the deep channel and I could bring them a 75′ line from our boat – so they wouldn’t have to get near the shallow water.  Thankfully, they agreed – and in less than 5 minutes, we were free.  Thank you USGS!!!  It took a bit more work to get our anchor free (as we dug it in really deep), but eventually, we got it up and were on our way.  Our 7 AM start turned into a 9 AM start.

I’m really looking forward to getting off of the river!  We have one night left on the river.  We pick an anchorage with 20′ of water!  We should get there about 1 1/2 hours before sunset.  Unless the guidebook is really, really wrong, we should be good!

Bye for now…

A post by Mark

The River Giveth

Today, I got a free anchor! For real… Here’s the story.

As has become the new normal, we were trying to get a real early start today – as we were hoping to cover a long stretch of river to get to the next ‘really good’ anchorage. So, the day started at 5:00 – bringing Willie for a walk pre-dawn and pulling up anchor at first light (around 5:45). We were in a really narrow anchorage last night, so we had to carefully spin our boat around to get out. We went really slowly, got pointed in the right direction, and started on our way out. Until we stopped dead in our tracks. What??? We’re in 9 feet of water – we can’t be stuck. But we were. Ugh… Then, to make matters worse, the starboard engine just stops. I idle the other engine to think for a second.. We must be caught on something. While the engine is off, we spin around – and now the port hull is really close to the riverbank (meaning, the bow (front) is in the mud and a few tree branches are brushing up against the side of the boat.) We get our extra anchor out again and start pulling ourselves off the bank. As I set the anchor – the lightbulb goes off and I figure out what’s going on… We’ve wrapped our starboard propeller around something – probably an old rope in the water. Time to get the wetsuit out again. Into the water (now, at least, it’s a bit light out), and under the boat. Well – I was right – we had an old anchor line wrapped around our propeller. As I start to cut it all free, I notice that one end has a lot of tension on it. After I cut that piece, I bring it back up to the surface and Julie ties it to the boat. I clear the rest of the line from the prop and climb back onto the boat. I start pulling on that line – which pulls us off the river bank. After a lot of pulling (and using the engines to back-down on the line), I pull up a ~20 lb anchor.

We then pull up our extra anchor and are on our way – the rest of the exit goes smoothly. We’re out of the anchorage by 6:45 – still possible to make the anchorage – but things have got to go our way the rest of the day.

The River Taketh Away

Since the anchor was really muddy, we left it on the back of our boat – on the stairs that go down to the water. As we motor, water splashes up on the bottom stair and it helps get some of the mud off. Julie also spends a fair amount of time getting the muck off. (Note, the picture above was taken after most of the muck was off it). Fast forward an hour or two… I decide to try to go a little faster and make up some time. I speed up – about ½ mph. About 5/10 min later, I look back – no anchor!!! Turns out, the massive acceleration from 8 to 8.5 mph (I’m a real speed demon) was enough for the anchor to slip backwards off the back of the boat. What a bummer! Oh well.

The Rest of the Day

One of the things that had to go ‘perfectly’ for us to make the anchorage by dark was that we had to make it through one lock – and do it quickly. About 5 miles away from the lock, we see a barge (not an unusual sight). Unfortunately for us, we were going in the same direction – meaning that we were going to have to wait for it to go through the lock before we could (for, even if we passed them, they would go get to go first – as they have priority on the river). No way we’re making the far anchorage now. No big deal though – we talk to the lock operator, he tells us about another spot we can stop, and we head there for the night. We’re there now – and its pretty shallow (the lock operator told us it was 6-8 ft, our depth sounder says 4.5 ft.  Luckily, we draw 3′ 9″)– so we’re waiting until its light out before we leave. I don’t want another pre-dawn bout of excitement. Hopefully, we won’t have any post-dawn excitement either..

Until next time…

A post by Mark

Hi all,

As Lucy mentioned in her post, we’re safe and sound in Mobile AL.  We were very happy to get to Mobile Bay – as the last few days of the river were getting a bit old.  I have 2 or 3 posts that I wrote on the river but had no way to upload (we were in the proverbial ‘middle of nowhwere’).  I’ll post those shortly – the wifi here is pretty slow.

Bye for now…