Bahamas, April '00 - Our first sailing trip in twenty-aught-zero was a visit to a recently retired couple sailing leisurely aboard "Conquest". Our plan was to fly into George Town in the Bahamas' Exuma Islands, then spend a week sailing a couple hundred miles to Nassau and fly home.

We arrived on a gorgeous sunny Saturday, with temperatures in the mid 70's and gentle breezes. We settled in, took a swim, and that night went in to a beach party, leaving Dawn behind weary after her travels. She missed quite a party with lots of fun, sordid events including a coconut bra contest with painted coconuts.

The next morning was just as pretty, and we motored a few miles through bright sun amongst the corals with dolphins playing under our bow.

After about an hour, we arrived at the most sheltered spot in the area and dropped the hook because there was weather coming. Later that afternoon a brief shower came through with a cold front, and the winds started from the North at about 30 knots. In spite of mostly sunny skies, these winds continued for the rest of our stay, and we never moved the boat again. No matter, life in paradise is great! I could get used to that life!

As luck and our captain would have it, we were an easy swim from a nearby cay (to right of picture) and a short walk to the other side revealed the most beautiful deserted beach we've ever seen.

In addition to the sun and sand, there were small coral reefs where we spent many happy hours snorkelling. We even found a turtle under one of the coral heads. Of course, that was just after we'd finished our film.

One day we took the tender up to Crab Cay, the largest one protecting our anchorage. We all hiked up to the ruins of a loyalist plantation. The hike itself was through the low Bahamian hard-wood scrubs. The plantation was of carved limestone, collapsed and weathered badly. There were a few rubber trees with ancient scars from harvesting. The view was beautiful back to our anchorage, on out a couple miles to the outer cays where the heavy winds had the breakers throwing spray a hundred feet in the air.

Evenings we'd go visit the neighbors for cocktails. We even met the famed "Cavalier" crew.

Along about Wednesday, the winds lightened up a little, and we got to SCUBA dive in open waters and about 6 foot rolling seas.

I don't know if was the heavy seas, or if the area is over-fished, but we saw more interesting things on our little reef near the boat.

By now it was obvious that we'd never be able to sail to Nassau. We had anticipated this possibility, and had checked with our airline - one of the first big ones in the telephone book - who had promised we could make the change for $75 per person. Now that it was time to do it, they wanted more than $300 per person to change just the Bahama to Miami leg. Fortunately, we had a plan B hedge against such extortion, and bought a local ticket from George Town to Nassau at the cost of $60 per person and half a day of our vacation.

When it came time to depart Nassau, there had been weather delays in the Miami area, and our airline gave back all the tickets, canceled some flights, and delayed others without making any coherent announcements. I'll spare you the miserable details, but finally, after a 31 hour trip, we did make my parent's 50th wedding anniversary party that night.


Boston, July 4th '00, we did our annual trip to the Charles River aboard "Here's Howe" and "Friends First". Everything was wonderful. New fireworks this year included multiple small bursts of various colors, smiley faces, and the foot-print of the American chicken. Missed was the slow sparkles that came all the way down, and especially the church bells during the 1812 Overture - very curious. Just after the fireworks, a crescent Moon set over the MIT great dome.
Playa del Carmen, Mexico, December '00 - We snuck away with Dawn's parents for one of GWV's easy all-inclusive packages to the town just south of Cancun on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It was actually very nice to have the variety of the mainland instead of our ususal island hop. For instance, the main street in town is a colorful collection of restaurants and gift shops with bargaining encouraged. There were LOTS of other interesting things on the mainland that we never got to see. We definitely plan to go back sometime!

We stayed about 2 miles out of town in the resort area called Playacar which consists of about 15 hotels, and many private resort houses. Our hotel was the Viva Maya which has beautiful, fluffy sand.

It was a few weeks before Christmas, and the decorations were out. The wise men were nice, I even got used to the reindeer, Santa and Mrs. Claus. However, when it came to the snowmen on the warm grass under the swaying palm trees, something definitely seemed out of place.

We booked several interesting trips through our agent at IMC. We went horseback riding on the beach at Rancho Loma Bonita. Horseback riding definitely is nice on the beach. We even took the horses swimming (bareback).

They also have donkey polo! The donkeys don't respond too well. You can guess how we all felt.

Another trip was a full day combination to the Maya ruins at Tulum, and a snorkeling park called Xel Ha (pronounced Shell-Ha).

I was surprised both by the age of the Maya civilization which existed as far back as 300 A.D., and also by how little is known about Tulum itself. Even its name comes from modern times. Tulum is the only Maya ruins on the sea.

It was hot, and iguanas were everywhere sunning themselves. Still, we did not have quite enough time to fully accept the place.

The snorkeling park is a large area surrounding the mouth of a river as it empties into the sea. It is called Xel Ha. It is great for beginning snorkelers, with lots of various fish. However, as experienced divers we were a little disappointed. The fresh and salt waters were in the process of mixing, which makes it hard to see things. There were also some fresh water springs in sink-holes. It was a nice place to visit and walk around. It would be even better duing the season when all those orchids bloom.

Alas, sailing suffered from always having something else to to. (This is a page about sailing, remember?) We never did get out in the sunfish which were available. But as usual, we did do our share of SCUBA diving.