Gone, and back again...

We had been planning to sail over to Long Island on Sunday until Sue heard about a local church service that sounded interesting.  The Baptist Church (that would be a WAY SOUTHERN Baptist!) was having a musical program with gospel singing and insruments.  By the time we found the right church there were nine other cruisers there, all French- Canadian.  As luck would have it we all ended up sitting in the back pews by the door.

The church was about 40 feet wide by 60 feet long, with a tile floor and plaster or block walls - not acoustically friendly by any means.  But they had six huge speakers that would have done a rock band proud!  The children's choir sang a couple of songs.  Then there were a couple of announcements.  Then a couple of duets by young girls.  Then a prayer or two.  Then the collction.  Then a song with the congregation.  Then the pastor made a couple of annoucements.  Another duet by two more young ladies.  Then three adult women started to sing, and sing, and sing...  (And I thought Bob Dylan did long songs!)  As the women were singing the church-goers were waving their hands in the air, chanting "Amen!" and "Hallelujah!", and in general being moved by the hymns.  This went on for 10 or 15 minutes, and was only uncomfortably loud.

At this point we were about an hour and a half into the service.  Now the pastor introduced a special guest evangelist,  who proceded to start preaching/screaching.  If I had worn my ear plugs I might have been OK, but with the six speakers he was painfully loud.  I told Sue I had to leave, but before we could get up the French-Canadians behind us had already started to file out of the church.  Within 10 minutes all 11 of us had left the church.  We felt a little bad, but at least none of the regular parishoners followed us out.

Monday we tried to sail to Long Island, but the wind was right on the nose.  We didn't
feel like beating for 45 miles so instead we sailed offshore for about 20 miles, and then sailed back to George Town.  We had a nice 40+ mile sail to end up about a quarter mile from where we started.

The wind direction is not supposed to change for the next few days so tomorrow we plan to sail back to Little Farmers Cay.  There is a big festival there this weekend with dancing, music, games, and local sailboat racing.  We'll have to see if we actually make it there.