Dec 10
Today was a memorable day. Probably just one of many to come, but it was a good one nonetheless. We have arrived in Marsh Harbor just in time for their second annual community Christmas festival. Keep in mind, this is a town of about 5000 people. The festival was held in a vacant lot, just a block from the marina. We had been hearing about it on the cruiser's net for over a week now, and it sounded like fun. The weather looked a little questionable, as there were scattered showers around, but the party went on.
We left the boat about noon and walked over to the festival. Since we had not had breakfast, the first order of business was to eat. There were about six or seven local restaurants set up with booths of their food. We stopped at the first one and got their meal deals. The deal was your choice of rice and peas or rice and conch, cole slaw, macaroni and cheese, and your choice of ribs, fried chicken, grilled chicken, or fried fish. All for $10, and the portions were huge. Barb got fried chicken and I got fried fish, and we both chose the rice and conch. Well, there were a couple of interesting aspects to these meals. The rice and conch was very good. It was like a fried rice, and the conch was chopped up it little bitty pieces and had been fried too. The macaroni and cheese was different from Kraft's version. For one thing, the macaroni was not little elbows. It was more like a casserole made with lasagna noodles and, of course, cheese. What made it interesting though was a hint of what I think was green chilies. The most interesting part of my dinner though was the fried fish. I hadn't watched the lady as she filled my big Styrofoam container, so I was quite surprised when I got to the table and opened it. Apparently, when you order a fried fish in The Abacos, that's exactly what you get. The whole fish, fried. After I got over the little eyeball looking back at me from my plate, I dug in. I have no idea what kind of fish it was, but I just pulled the meat off the bones and enjoyed it with the rest of the meal.
As we were eating, we noticed a large black cloud building north of town. About the time we finished, it started to sprinkle. We had left the boat wide open, so we hustled back there to close it up before it rained hard. We got there just in time and closed the windows. We stayed there for about an hour until the rain seemed to be past. There was a couple of pretty good downpours during that hour, and I was concerned about the effects on the festival, even though most everything was under tents. Once the rain stopped, we went back over there, and the rain had not seemed to dampen anybody's spirits. There was still a good crowd. We took an umbrella fortunately, because another shower came through as we got back over there.
The Royal Bahamas Police Marching Band was due to perform at 14:30, but it was still raining, so they were waiting under the overhang of the storefronts across the street. About 15:00, the rain stopped, the sun came out, and the band played on. The band consisted of twenty-eight members. There was a leader with a large silver baton, a bass drum player, four smaller drum players, a cymbal player, then several each of tubas, trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and clarinets. They played several numbers while marching up and down a block long section of the main street. The baton guy maintained a very stoic look on his face as he did his very military style moves and yelled his commands to the band. After eight songs or so, mostly Christmas songs, the band stopped. The baton guy marched over to the edge of the crowd and handed the large silver baton to a lady in the crowd to hold for him. He then went back to his spot, the band picked up a funky beat, and the baton guy started to dance in a whole different way. At one point he took a lady from the audience to dance with him. The crowd went wild, clapping and yelling as this man did what he obviously really enjoyed. After that number, he retrieved his baton, stiffly marched back to his place in front of the band, resumed his stoic look, and they played a couple more songs before marching off. It was quite a show.
We ran into several of the cruisers we have met over the last couple of weeks while there. After the band, the show moved to the stage, where the "official" opening of the festival was being declared by the master of ceremonies. There were many introductions and thanks, including the Minster Of Tourism who was here from Nassau. The President of the country had been invited, but had to send a representative instead.
After the formalities, there was another band. This one was mostly teenage-sized kids. They weren't the same caliber as the police band, but they were good. They only did a couple of songs. We then went by the booth that was selling homemade ice cream. These guys were out in the rain with three wooden buckets making ice cream with 110 volt motors driving the paddles that churned the ingredients. They were having trouble with a couple of them. Think it might have had something to do with electricity and water not mixing? After a little while, they did have a bucket done, and we got cups of fresh Oreo ice cream.
We went back to the boat before dark, and listened to the music from there. We (actually I) decided that if we are going to be here a month, we need to go ahead and spring for the cable TV. So, we are watching It's A Wonderful Life, waiting for the fireworks display at 22:00. I have never actually watched this whole movie before. Promptly at 22:07, the fireworks started. It wasn't quite a Fertitta show (friends back in Kemah will understand that) but it was a respectable show, and being here, it was great.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 11
Our big adventure today was to walk across the island to Boat Harbor Marina. Boat Harbor is on the south side of the peninsula and not in the harbor where we are. Tom & Linda from Tomlin Too are there, as are the Commodore and Membership Director for the Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht Club. We have printed out the membership form and are carrying it over, so that we will be official members and can go to Tuesday's dinner. The walk to Boat Harbor is almost a mile. Once there, we found Tomlin Too and visited with them for an hour or so. Linda then took us over to Lo Kee, where Milt and Cathy, the membership folks are. We gave Milt our form and check, and he whipped up a membership card, a frameable certificate, and gave us our club burgee. We visited with them for a little while, and then headed back to our side of town.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 12
Today we're going to explore town a little. The first order of business was to go back to the store where I bought my shorts Friday evening. This store is primarily a jewelry store, and they have a real jeweler there who makes stuff from scratch. Barb had broken the post off her favorite earrings, which are not a throw-away pair, and wanted to get it repaired. We dropped the earring off and then headed back into the main part of town where the businesses are. We found two more liquor stores and checked prices. They seemed comparable to the one that is closest to the marina. We found both grocery stores. In one, we picked up a couple of things, and looked at prices on many others. We found five banks, a hardware store, a couple of marine businesses that primarily work on outboards, a couple of gas stations, a NAPA store, a florist, several beauty salons, the pizza place, and several local restaurants.
We had lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken. While the food was what we expected, the facility was not your cookie-cutter KFC store from the States. It was in a storefront of a strip shopping center. The room had about a dozen tables and chairs, not the prefab fiberglass tables bolted to the floor like you would expect, and the ordering counter. There was no view of the kitchen like a US fast-food place. There was a little window behind the counter which went to the kitchen. It was kept closed except when an order was sent out from the kitchen. The menu was also very basic compared to the US. You basically had your choice of the number of pieces, original or crispy, and fries. They did have nuggets and one fried chicken patty sandwich. No biscuits, no slaw, no mashed potatoes and gravy, no other sides, and no white-meat-only option. Also, no spork! To my knowledge, KFC originated the spork (a combo plastic spoon and fork). While we got a similar plastic bag with the utensil and a cheap useless napkin, the utensil was a regular plastic fork. I guess if you aren't going to get slaw, or mashed potatoes, you don't need the spoon part. Of course, who even uses a fork for fried chicken and fries? That's finger food. But, in KFC tradition, the little napkin they gave you wasn't nearly adequate for cleaning up after a nice greasy meal of fried chicken and fries. Unlike the States though, getting extra napkins didn't appear to be an option. Who knew a simple trip to KFC could provide so much material to write about?
Back at the boat, we watched the news about how cold and snowy it's been up north, and chuckled about how the locals here keep complaining that it's cold. We watched Monday Night Football, and had dinner on the boat. Dinner tonight was Tupperware Casserole. That is where you take any leftovers that are in the fridge in Tupperware, combine it all and make a new dish. It actually was quite good, and we had enough for another meal. Would that be left over leftovers?
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 13
Our American and Texas flags are starting to show signs of wear. Both of them are fraying on the trailing edge where they snap in the wind. We have two new Texas flags we could get out, but not a spare American one. We took them down, and after trimming the frayed edges a bit, Barb folded over the edges and sewed a new seam. This meant digging the sewing machine out of the forward head, where it was near the bottom of the pile since it's heavy. Getting the machine out and then putting it back was my contribution to the project. The flags look good as new, albeit a little shorter than they should be.
We have found that Sirius Radio has two channels dedicated to Christmas music. One is country and the other isn't. We've been listening to them for a couple days now to try and get in the spirit. We have seen a couple boats decorated, but were disappointed to hear that the annual boat parade has been cancelled. The cancellation was because next weekend, which would have been the likely time to do it, the tides will be low in the evening, making a lot of the harbor too shallow to have a bunch of boats parading around in it. We did not bring any of our lights that we used to decorate a couple years ago. They take up too much room to be used only once a year.
Barb has gone on a laundry expedition today. We are lucky in that the marina has a brand new laundry facility, so it really isn't so much of an expedition as if we had to haul it into town to the public laundromat. What is a shocker though is that the tokens for the machines are $4. One per wash and one per dry. And, the machines are just standard home sized machines, so it is pricey. Makes you want to wear the same shirt two days in a row.
Jim from Libelle, whom we met up in Treasure Cay, has found a local guy who does stainless work. Jim is having a tube made for his boat and has to pick it up today, so I walked along with him to see if perhaps this guy could repair the bend I put in the davits back in NY. I had taken a picture of the bend so he knew what I was talking about. He said he would have no problem doing something like that, but he didn't have the inch and a half tubing we would need. So, I guess we'll wait until we're back in the States to tackle that.
When we got back to the boat, Jim used my computer to check his e-mail and send one out. They do not have a computer on board, so they rely on Internet cafes along the way. No sense spending that money when I had a good connection.
At 17:00 we walked over to Boat Harbor Marina to attend the Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht Club's Christmas dinner. This was why we joined when we did. They had a small crowd of only sixty or so, since many people have flown back to the States for the holidays. We met quite a few people whom we have already met along the way, as well as many new ones. Fortunately, they gave you stick on nametags as you arrived, so remembering names was easy. The dinner was salad and three different kinds of pasta and there were several different deserts. There was also an open serve-yourself bar. A young local lady was playing Christmas songs on the piano and there was a small Christmas tree that had been decorated. After dinner, there were door prizes. Everybody had gotten a ticket when they came in. The door prizes were miscellaneous bottles of booze. There were about fifteen of them, and they had all been wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper. So if you won, you came up and grabbed a bottle without knowing what it was. A few bottles were recognizable by their shape, but the majority were similar plainly shaped ones. We joked at our table that you know your liquors too well when you can recognize them by the shape of the bottles. Well, midway through the drawings, my number was called. The bottles remaining were all similar plain shapes, but as I reached for one, I spotted the name Bacardi on a cap. Can't go wrong with rum in my book, I ended up with a bottle of Limon. The party broke up soon after the drawings. We walked back to our marina in the company of Jim & Louise from Island Lady, a Bertram sport fishing boat that they live on here during the winter. They are from North Carolina. We were back at the boat by 20:30.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 14
Jim & Rosie from Libelle are moving on south today, so they stopped by our boat to say goodbye. We may run into them down the road a ways, but it won't be until late January at least. Yesterday when Jim was on our boat, Barb and I had noticed a castle-like building up on the hill at the east end of the harbor. Jim told us that it had been built by a guy who years ago had come down here to be an out-island doctor. This morning, Jim brought by a book called Out-Island Doctor, which is about this guy. They are done with it and passed it to us to read.
We learned on the morning radio net that there is a place here where you can dispose of used motor oil, so I guess I'll have to change the oil before we leave here. It is fairly cool here today and overcast although it's not supposed to actually rain. A good day to stay on the boat and read some.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 15
The morning started off cool and raining again. I thought it was supposed to always be sunny and warm in Paradise! By noon, it had cleared up nicely so we went up to Snappa's, the restaurant that is right next to the marina, and had lunch. Then we walked into town to go to the grocery store. We went to Solomon's this time. Last time we went to Price Right. Price Right is in a steel warehouse-type building that was hastily built after their original store burned down. Solomon's on the other hand could pass for a supermarket in the States. It was large and clean and bright, and was well stocked. Their meat and produce departments were as large as we would expect in the States. We did find an interesting thing in the produce department though. There was a pile of bagged onions, with labels sewn on the bags clearly identifying them as Florida Oranges. Now, I expect to see some different produce in the islands, but I think this one was a mistake. I took a picture for the record.
I also found the local Honda Marine dealer and bought a couple of spare spark plugs for the outboard. That's something I should have brought with us, but didn't. The motor only has a few hours of running time on it, so it shouldn't need plugs. But, with the way the carburetor has acted up, it has flooded several times. Last time I messed with it, I pulled the plugs and wire brushed them. It seems to be running fine now, but better safe than sorry once down in the Exumas.
Another rain shower showed up late in the afternoon, so we will put off our plans to launch the dinghy and explore the harbor until tomorrow.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.