Tideye was hauled out of the water Friday morning. She splashed Sunday morning – 48 hours later! It’s still hard to wrap our heads around that quick of a turnaround time. In our experience, the boat tends to hang out in the yard longer than predicted…lift scheduling issues, weather, unforeseen boat problems…but not in Spanish Wells! R&B Boatyard was just as fantastic of an experience as we were promised.
In addition to a having killer boat yard, Spanish Wells is a quirky happy place. I keep calling my mom from each new island saying, “This place is SO different.” She laughs at me, but it’s totally true. Spanish Wells is tiny. When we first arrived, I went to hook us up with golf cart to cruise around the island. (They still let me drive here in The Bahamas believe it or not) I was asking what was and wasn’t walkable when I was finally cut off: “The island is two miles long. Everything is technically walkable.”
We moved off the boat for a few days while the boat was on the hard and spent the week falling in love with Johnny Cakes, playing with our Bahamian friends and their family (with kids!), and being blinded by the whitest sand. Sunglasses didn’t even help. The food was great, the people are warm and the island is squeaky clean. Spanish Wells definitely gets high marks from the Renz Crew.
With serviced sail drives and a sparkling fresh bottom we sailed straight south back to Exuma. We all love exploring new places just as much as we love re-visiting our favorites. It’s still May, so we decided to squeeze in as much of this beautiful country as we can this season. Our friend Adam asked me what I love most about living in The Bahamas after dinner one night. I laughed at myself when I couldn’t come up with a single answer. After an awkwardly long pause, I finally told him that the fact that every island has several AWESOME varieties of local hot sauce was pretty groovy. But no, we aren’t here for the hot sauce. A week later, I’m still trying to figure out how to answer that question. Better do some more research.
You think we like it here?
It was a fun time and the TLC clan made the trip for Jensen and Andrew. Who would have thought the kids would be playing Minecraft in Spanish Wells. You all feel like family. You are always welcome. As we say in the south…”Ya’ll come back now!”
Hah! I know, we couldn’t have dreamt up that play date 12 years ago in our wildest dreams! Careful what you ask for, we tend to come back 🙂 Love you guys.
Another incredible story . Love your pictures and writing, Gillian.
Grandma JeanE
Thanks Grandma! Love you so much, we need to catch up soon 🙂