Wayne Baumgarten and Debbie Cook

Here’s a painting I just completed yesterday. It is actually a copy of a painting that I love by a Russian artist named Leonid Afremov. It’s called Lonely Street.

We went to a beautiful botanical gardens called Garden of the Groves on the east end of the island. Buster got to meet the ducks! He wasn’t sure what to make of them! We enjoyed a nice lunch, visited some of the local shops and walked around and enjoyed the beauty.

We got our new Jeep (used with a lot of miles) and brought it over to the Bahamas on the Ferry. We finally got it through customs and paid the taxes and now have our mode of transportation all set up.

Wayne has gotten fully into the Bahamas mode and is very much looking the part!

There’s a cute little restaurant on the beach near our place that has live Jazz musicians performing every Sunday. So we went by and thoroughly enjoyed a due of a great keyboardist and sax player, along with some great food and drinks. Here’s a short clip. A little Jazz on the Beach

Debbie, Buster and I went and checked out another beach today. It was really wow-worthy. Of course you expect ample wow-ness when you are going to the beach in the Bahamas, but some are over touristy and medium wow, and others are super-wow. I would put this one at about 9.5 on the wow scale. When I post it’s always a struggle to pick the best photos. I hope you will enjoy this selection.

Click on any image to see the slide show.

Where we are living is right on one of the canals not far from Banana Bay. The owner here is a boat lover and owns or has access to 4 boats of varying size and types. There is a kayak and a row boat, then an open sailboat, a powerboat and an ocean going sailboat. The sailboat is serious, it could handle trans-atlantic no problem if your into that kind of thing and have the time! Anyhow with the water being the big attraction here its great to have some access. I am Captain of the kayak so far, but I am working my way up.

Click any thumbnail to see slideshow.

We are loving our new house. Somehow we seem to time everything a bit off. We settled on the bahamas right at the start of summer. It is baking hot, a lot like Florida. The thing about Florida is that the heat and humidity is only worth it if you have easy access to the water. Since we have a beach that is 5 minutes walk and a canal right outside the apartment complete with a wide selection of boats we are in pretty good shape. Here are some more photos of our new digs. click any thumbnail to see a larger image.

Well I got quite a decent sunburn. It was one of those windy and cool days, but the sun was still very strong. Debbie grabbed my camera to capture the moment (Its rare that I burn). Buster has burn protection, though I would not like to go around wearing a fur coat in this weather!

As you probably can see, Buster is exhausted after a 3,600 mile car trip travelling coast to coast across the Continental US. I have to say that Buster is the 4th dog that Debbie and I have had over the last decade or two and is by far the most wonderful. He is amazing in car travel. As soon as the car starts moving he flops down and passes out into a deep sleep. As soon as the car stops moving, no matter how many hours later, he immediately wakes up, sits up and starts looking around. He does enjoy his nap time as you can see in the photo. Truth be told all of us were a bit worn out from travelling and very glad to get to our new destination.

(click a thumbnail to see the picture)