Today’s Friday. Last night, a front came through—no surprise to anyone paying attention. The forecasts were clear: sustained winds in the upper 20s with gusts pushing toward 30 knots inside the harbor.

Ahead of it, a lot of boats shifted across Elizabeth Harbour to the west side, tucking in closer to Exuma Island to get out of the long fetch that a strong westerly can build on. That made sense. I wasn’t overly concerned about a bit of rolling. It’s uncomfortable, sure, but temporary.

What I was concerned about was where I was anchored.

I’d been sitting about 200 meters off some rocks between two bays on Stocking Island. In the east winds and settled weather that we been having, it was fine. But with a blow coming from the west, it put me uncomfortably close to a lee shore. If something failed—anchor, chain, windlass, anything—I’d have very little time between an anchor alarm going off and real consequences.

So I moved.

I went back to one of my original anchor spots here in Elizabeth Harbour, on the south side of the channel between Stocking Island and Georgetown, just west of the mooring field. I relocated yesterday, well before things built, and got set with plenty of room.

Right on schedule, the wind came up around 2 p.m. It blew steadily through the night. I got up once to check on things and saw 26 knots sustained, with gusts pushing into the high 20s, maybe brushing 30. The boat felt solid. A bit rolly, but predictable. Nothing alarming.

I didn’t sleep particularly well, but I did sleep. That’s part of it.

The forecast shows things easing off today, which is good—I need to get into town. It should stay manageable through Friday, then build again on Saturday. And looking ahead, there’s another front lining up for Tuesday.

Nothing dramatic. Just winter weather doing what winter weather does.

The lesson: it’s not just about how strong the wind will be—it’s about where you choose to be and how prepared you are when it arrives.

I’m back in Elizabeth Harbour, anchored off Georgetown again. This place has a way of pulling you into its orbit. There’s always something going on—dinghy raft-ups, beach gatherings, music nights, cruiser meetups. It can be great, but it can also be a lot. This time around, I’ve been intentionally limiting how much I plug into the social side of things. It’s easy to get overwhelmed here if you say yes to everything.

One thing I have been re-engaging with is the logistics side of living aboard—specifically, how you actually get parts into the Bahamas when something breaks.

After flushing the outboard (as described below in the Log Book entry), the fuel line between the portable fuel tank and the outboard somehow decided to disappear. Just… gone. It’s a small part, but it’s critical. Without it, fuel doesn’t get to the engine, and the engine becomes decorative.

A few months ago, I upgraded the dinghy and it came with a 20-horsepower Honda four-stroke on it. Great engine. Quiet. Efficient. I also kept my older 15-horsepower Mercury two-stroke from the original dinghy, which had been living in the aft lazarette. That redundancy paid off. I broke it out, mounted it on the transom of the dink, at least had a way to get back and forth to town.

Which was important—because I needed to find a freight forwarder.

There are ways to get Amazon deliveries into the Bahamas, but they’re not obvious the first time you do it. The short version is that you ship your order to a forwarding agent, and they handle delivery into the country. Once it arrives, you pay duty and customs fees, then collect it locally.

The agent I ended up working with was Forbes here in Georgetown. They made the process straightforward, which was great when you’re already solving one problem and don’t need to create another.

It works—but it’s not cheap.

In my case, a roughly $40 fuel line is going to cost me close to $100 by the time everything is said and done. That stings a little. But when I think about how much extra fuel I’d burn running the old two-stroke over the next couple of months versus the much more efficient four-stroke, it’s a trade I’m willing to make. I’ll call it an efficiency tax.

It’s also probably my own fault. I must’ve left the fuel line somewhere stupid. For the life of me, I can’t figure out how it actually went overboard, but it’s nowhere on the boat. Murphy’s Law says that the moment I pay the duty, place the order, and wait for delivery, I’ll find it tucked behind something or exactly where I meant to put it.

My best guess is that it went over the side—maybe kicked, maybe dragged by something shifting, maybe caught by wind overnight. We had a couple of breezy nights earlier in the week. Hard to know. Easy to lose small things at sea.

I did make the rounds locally before ordering. None of the businesses I called carried the fuel line with the specific adapter I needed. I understand that customs duties exist to protect local businesses—but when the part simply isn’t available locally, you do what you have to do.

One captain I talked to suggested rigging a temporary line directly from the tank to the carburetor. That may work in theory. I’m not ready to go that route yet. But it did give me an idea - see The Log Book for how that worked out.

Living aboard teaches you this lesson over and over: there’s almost always a way to solve the problem. It might take longer. It might cost more. You might have to get creative. But if you’ve got a little redundancy, a little patience, and a way to get to town—even on a smoky old two-stroke—you can usually keep moving.

Last weekend, I mentioned to another cruiser on the beach that it might be fun to get a music session going again. He told me the trick was simple: just announce it on the morning cruiser’s Net. If people want to play, they’ll show up.

So on Monday morning, I did exactly that.

After the net wrapped up, a follow-up radio conversations turned into a loose plan. We settled on Wednesday at noon, down at Chat and Chill Beach—easy to reach, casual, and it had a tiki bar if things didn’t quite come together.

They did.

I brought my mandolin, which is usually a safe bet since guitars tend to appear. Sure enough, we had plenty—four guitars by my count. But what really made the session was the unexpected instrumentation. One guy showed up with a recorder and a trumpet. Not exactly standard beach-jam fare, but very welcome. Another brought a banjo, which immediately made me smile.

For about an hour and a half, right through lunchtime, we played there sitting in a ring on the sand. Nothing formal. No setlist. Just people listening to each other and jumping in when it felt right.

The trumpet was incredible—maybe a little loud for a beach jam, but in the best possible way. It carried. It pulled people in. When we launched into Ring of Fire, he joined without hesitation and absolutely nailed it. That one turned heads.

Of course, that was the moment my camera wasn’t recording.

Still, between a few bystanders and other cruisers, we managed to piece together some video from different angles. Not perfect, but honest—which feels appropriate.

It was one of those afternoons that reminds me why music works so well in places like this. You don’t need planning committees or rehearsal schedules. You just need someone willing to say, “Let’s try,” and a few people who show up with instruments and open ears.

I’m already looking forward to doing it again.