Albert Town,Long Cay to Great Inagua

We left Salina Point, Acklins Island for Great Inagua last night at around 8 p.m. as the kids were getting ready for bed and I had just woken up from a nap. We had a great day working our way down from Albert Town which was a very remote settlement. We stopped there after leaving French Wells and anchored right off town because the swell was minimal and winds were light. The town only has maybe 50 people in it but it once had a couple thousand. There are a lot of ruins about and we stretched our legs seeing them. We found the old jail complex that was pretty cool and a church that was the largest church south of Nassau.

Shambala anchored off Albert Town

The old church

Staci giving a sermon

Jail Ruins

 As we were walking by the all ages school the teacher invited us in to meet both students and hang out for a little while. One student was a second grader and the other was in fourth. They read out loud to us, sang a couple songs, and recited a prayer. Samantha and Nicholas also read aloud for them and we showed them where we were from and the places we've sailed on their map.
The school house was surprisingly well equipped with plenty of books,microscopes, computers, etc.
They even let us go through their books and gave us a few. We signed their guest book which had a few other cruising boats in it. The teacher is doing a great job with them. They are getting a great education, essentially one on one learning. The second grader actually came from another island and lives with the teacher during the school year. It appears that Bahamians really value education.

Long Cay All Ages School

After a very still, hot night at anchor we started moving south toward Salina Point. We stopped at Fish Cay  around lunch time and dove on a few reefs. The first one had two nice, big lion fish on it that  we shot to eat for dinner along with a yellow jack we caught trolling. The reefs had a lot of nice fish but the coral is not very healthy. We moved a little further south and dove on another reef with some elkhorn coral. Nicholas spotted a turtle tucked down beneath a piece of coral chillaxing.

We then moved down to Salina Point to eat dinner and rest before the 80 mile trip to Great Inagua. The passage went well and we were actually able to just sail for quite a while in  the middle of the night. The winds died in the very early morning and we motorsailed to Matthew Town where we anchored next to the town basin. We cleared out of The Bahamas and tomorrow we need to  ferry some diesel in our jerry jugs to fill our tank so we have plenty for the trip to Puerto Rico.