The time was July 1, 1996

The place was Abaco, Bahamas

The reason was sailing and lots of partying

The crew:

So, Immediately upon entering the tiny 10 place cessna 402 the Capt. advised us that we are now on Island time. Our flight was to be reversed in that we would be stopping at Marsh Harbor first and then on to Treasure Cay (which was my destination). No one seemed to care much except that it meant we would be there about 45min. later than planned. Beyond that, flight was uneventful and all was wonderful with the world.

Upon arrival at Treasure, a taxi was hailed to the water taxi dock and timing was pretty good, as we only had to wait about 1/2 hr for the next taxi. He ferried us over to Green Turtle. Upon arrival there, I realized I had not eaten all day and it was now bout 4pm.. The kitchen had closed at 2 and could only get crackers and snacks at the marine store....but the bar was open...so....well...you guessed it....a bag of cheese doodles and 4 or 5 Tipsy Turtles was breakfast and lunch!

Tipsy Turtle = rum, rum, some combination of fruit juices and more rum!

Anyway, a few hours later, the crew showed up (with the boat of course) and anchored out and dinghied in.. Fortunately they had some food with them but by then the damage was done and I was no longer hungry! So we ate a bit of ham and cheese and Bahama bread and showered and headed down to the skipper's meeting where we drank more rum...

Race: The Round the Islands Race

This race is not part of Regatta Time in Abaco but is well known over there and drew about 45 boats. Its about a 25 mile race that goes all the way round Green Turtle and Manjack Cay as well. Our class was kind of funny in that the phrf split ranged from a brand new J160 with a phrf of 9 to some little 24 foot thing with a 234 or something. But there is a sister ship over there to us called Stray Cats and our main goal for the week was to beat them good (especially since they are from our home club). Well, for that race we were short two people and even though the crew work (especially on spinnaker takedowns) was sloppy, we managed to correct over the J160 and beat Stray Cats by over 7 minutes! I told Barbara that my plan must have worked. You see, a Hobby 33 has no head and I didn't wanna use the bucket so I just kept telling her to sail fast since I hadda pee!

So Barbara was thrilled (as we all were) and we were told at the awards party that she was the first Female skipper to ever win that race! So of course we hadda party hearty to celebrate and the rum poured and the band played and the crew danced and the skinny dippers dipped I was very grateful that the next day was to be a Lay Day!

This was a partly cloudy day for me to be very lazy and wander around and swim in the pool. It was also the night of the storm from hell!

At about 2am the thunder and lightening woke Karen and me. The power failed and we had no lights but it was just a partial failure. We were lucky to still have our Air conditioning and refrigerator! Who needed lights! So we turned on my handheld vhf and listened to all our friends and competitors down at the anchorage. It seems that the top winds were registered at 72k and boats were breaking free of anchorage and drifting down on other boats and dinghies were loose and all hell was breaking loose! Karen and I were very happy to safe in our dry comfortable room. We did check a couple of times with the friends that were anchored next to Risky Business and were pleased to hear she was safe. Not that we could have done anything about it.....but we were happy she was OK. The morning light showed a few boats up hard aground in the trees and people hunting down the missing dinks (which I'm told all were found) !

Race #1 (RTIA series)...Click Here