It's just after 8 am and I'm sitting in the cockpit with a coffee. Light breeze whuffling the green water of Marsh Harbour. The neighbours are moving around, the ferry is coming in (wake to follow and slosh my coffee around), and Randy is cooking bacon and toasting coconut bread. I have a slight headache. We were out until all hours (9 pm) with the NS cruisers, and we started on our boat with a tasting session of all the various rums we've picked up in the Bahamas. Ray and Heather brought "Fire in de hole" which spawned a lot of nudge-nudge/wink, wink type jokes. Bill bought a couple of bottles that he wasn't particularly impressed with, so he poured them together. By the time they leave the Bahamas, he'll have a fabulous and unique new blend.
They all go down pretty easily with fruit juice, ginger beer or tonic.
No serious damage to report (although it was low tide and with the cockpit full of people we were aground by the second round of drinks), and we did manage to eat a meal ashore.
Marsh Harbour is a neat little town, a couple of big grocery stores, liquor (relatively cheap), wine (about like at home) and the all important electronics and hardware stores. We got all our propane bottles filled here, even the Canadian bottles, so we're good for about 3 months of good home cooking.
Speaking of which, we got good fishing advice from a gentleman in New Providence. After much teasing about our lack of skills, he sold Ray some Ballyhoo for bait, told us to cut it up in thirds, put it on a hook and throw it overboard. "You can't do that, can you?"
So we did, and Tom's patience was rewarded at about sunset. I'm below cooking mundane spaghetti sauce, and I hear an urgent call: "Get up here and grab the gaff!" I look up, and the rod he's clutching is bent waaay over and the fish has run under the boat. Randy grabbed the gaff, and a minute or so later, they landed a big gray snapper. I made them eat the spaghetti dinner anyway, and we had fish the next night. It was delicious.
The next day, Paul caught a big serro while trolling a line on the trip from Green Turtle to Marsh Harbour.
Green Turtle Cay was a nice stop for lots of reasons: Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar and Goombay Smashes, the cracked conch at the Wrecking Tree, the fresh-baked coconut bread at Sid's Grocery, and the beautiful beaches. We did lots of walking. Randy and I chose to walk left when we got to the beach, but subsequent walks were always to the right after we met up with a large Rottweiler patrolling a section of beach. Man, we backed out of there fast, and picked up the first big sticks we could find. Didn't need them, but it helped to still the pounding of my heart.
We coped with the typical telecommunications problems on Green Turtle Cay. We could sometimes get a wifi connection, depending on which way the boat was swinging. Calling home was a challenge. Bill asked the Kevin the Dockmaster (aka "Special K", frontman for the Gully Roosters, number one band in the land) if he could use his phone card in the payphone on the dock. "Man, you'd have more luck pointing that card at the stars."
So those who had to make calls bought island phone cards, and walked to the payphone up the hill at the Batelco office.
We had a nice trip through Whale Cay passage, calm and flat, and we've had two days to reprovision and explore Marsh Harbour. Today we're heading out to Great Guana, then maybe Man O War. I'll check in again and post a pile of photos when we get a better connection.
They all go down pretty easily with fruit juice, ginger beer or tonic.
No serious damage to report (although it was low tide and with the cockpit full of people we were aground by the second round of drinks), and we did manage to eat a meal ashore.
Marsh Harbour is a neat little town, a couple of big grocery stores, liquor (relatively cheap), wine (about like at home) and the all important electronics and hardware stores. We got all our propane bottles filled here, even the Canadian bottles, so we're good for about 3 months of good home cooking.
Speaking of which, we got good fishing advice from a gentleman in New Providence. After much teasing about our lack of skills, he sold Ray some Ballyhoo for bait, told us to cut it up in thirds, put it on a hook and throw it overboard. "You can't do that, can you?"
So we did, and Tom's patience was rewarded at about sunset. I'm below cooking mundane spaghetti sauce, and I hear an urgent call: "Get up here and grab the gaff!" I look up, and the rod he's clutching is bent waaay over and the fish has run under the boat. Randy grabbed the gaff, and a minute or so later, they landed a big gray snapper. I made them eat the spaghetti dinner anyway, and we had fish the next night. It was delicious.
The next day, Paul caught a big serro while trolling a line on the trip from Green Turtle to Marsh Harbour.
Green Turtle Cay was a nice stop for lots of reasons: Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar and Goombay Smashes, the cracked conch at the Wrecking Tree, the fresh-baked coconut bread at Sid's Grocery, and the beautiful beaches. We did lots of walking. Randy and I chose to walk left when we got to the beach, but subsequent walks were always to the right after we met up with a large Rottweiler patrolling a section of beach. Man, we backed out of there fast, and picked up the first big sticks we could find. Didn't need them, but it helped to still the pounding of my heart.
We coped with the typical telecommunications problems on Green Turtle Cay. We could sometimes get a wifi connection, depending on which way the boat was swinging. Calling home was a challenge. Bill asked the Kevin the Dockmaster (aka "Special K", frontman for the Gully Roosters, number one band in the land) if he could use his phone card in the payphone on the dock. "Man, you'd have more luck pointing that card at the stars."
So those who had to make calls bought island phone cards, and walked to the payphone up the hill at the Batelco office.
We had a nice trip through Whale Cay passage, calm and flat, and we've had two days to reprovision and explore Marsh Harbour. Today we're heading out to Great Guana, then maybe Man O War. I'll check in again and post a pile of photos when we get a better connection.
posted by Susan at 9:58 AM
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