Feb 17

Today we have a few goals.  One is another repair.  My brother sent me an e-mail this morning commenting on how many home-owner tasks I still have, instead of always being just floating around aimlessly in paradise.  For the benefit of the non-boaters (every boater has heard this line already) "cruising" is fixing your boat in exotic places.  It is certainly true.  Today I am in pursuit of a leak.  We have noticed that over the past week, the bilge pump has run as much as ten times a day.  It used to run over a hundred times a day, but I knew where the leak was, so it didn't bother me.  The old leak was the rudder packing box, and I checked that a couple of days ago.  It seemed to be seeping, but not enough to run the pump that often.  Well before I went in search of a new problem, I moved the bed again and put a wrench on the packing nut.  I got a good half a turn out of it, and there is no seepage now.  That was about noon, and as of 19:00, the pump has not run, so hopefully that was all it was.

Our fun points for today will be earned by visiting the pigs on Big Majors Spot.  Big Majors Spot is a neighboring island, about the same size as Staniel Cay.  Now what makes this a "spot" instead of a "cay", I have no idea.  Anyway, years ago, somebody from Staniel set a couple of domestic pigs loose on Big Majors.  Why they didn't cook them if they didn't want to keep them eludes me, since pig roasts are quite common events down here at the restaurants.  There now are about twenty pigs on the island.  They are not huge like a farm fed pig, but they are much larger than the wild boars that also inhabit this area.  They are quite aware that they are an attraction, and they watch for cruisers to come to shore to feed them.  If there is nobody onshore already and you approach in your dinghy, they will swim out to meet you.  When we got there this morning, there were already four other dinghies on shore, along with two pigs.  Somebody had brought them a bowl of dry cat food, which they immediately dumped and the pigs were happily rooting through the sand for each piece.  We brought them some lettuce, celery, and green pepper trimmings from salads we had over the past week.  We had been collecting this bag of "garbage" in the fridge for at least a week, just to feed the pigs.  We also had a couple of Johnny Cakes that were hard as rocks, and half a batch of Zone brownies that were just too healthy to eat after Barb made them.  The pigs loved the brownies and Johnny Cakes.  They weren't impressed with the green things.  We had come over with Clyde and Linda from Gypsy, and while we were there, everybody else left.  Two more pigs came out of the brush, making a total of four.  We got one to wade into the water by teasing him into thinking we had more food, but he figured it out pretty quick.  Since all the food was gone, one of them decided it was nap time.  He just plopped his butt down on the beach and went to sleep.  Barb started putting handfuls of sand on him to shade him from the sun.  Every time she dumped a handful on him, he made a little grunt, but didn't move.  She ended up burying the whole damn pig in sand.  Eventually, a noise startled him and he stood up and dumped it all off.

When I couldn't publish the website yesterday, I sent a trouble ticket to my web hosting company, thinking they had a problem.  They checked it out and said they didn't see a problem on their end.  So this morning I did some searches about using FrontPage, the web building tool I use, and Direcway satellite services, which is what the marina uses to get the Internet.  I found numerous articles about how, depending on what Direcway hardware and service package a place has, it will not allow FrontPage to publish.  That explains my problem, but makes me leery about the future in the Exumas, where I think I will find most places using Direcway, since there is no cable or telephone type Internet accessibility.  We'll see.

Carson Cooper, who is one of the three DJ's on Radio Margaritaville, does a little deal where he calls places and finds out what the weather is there.  Usually these are island places.  It occurred to me that we could provide a Bahamas report for him, so I sent him an e-mail yesterday.  We had met Carson at Pardi Gras 2005 and chatted with him quite a while about our cruising plans.  He responded to my e-mail and said he would call me today on our sat phone.  Sure enough, about 14:30, he gave us a call.  We did a little interview which he will air on Radio Margaritaville.  He said he will see if he can't make us a weekly thing to call and see where we are.  So if you have Sirius Radio, listen to channel 31, or if you have a good high speed Internet connection, go to www.radiomargaritaville.com and listen regularly to see if you here us.

Since the Radio Margaritaville thing happened, I had to send out another e-mail to tell everybody.  On the boat, we get a weak wireless signal from the club, and it's ok most of the time, but if we carry our computers up to the bar, the signal is excellent.  So, off to the bar we went.  I sent my e-mail and then we surfed the net for a couple of hours.  We reread logs of a couple boats who have been here in the last few years to make sure we didn't miss any of the things we should see.  Another Road was down here three years ago.  Skybird was in the Abacos last year, and it was interesting to reread their log after we have been there.

GPS N 24 10.321 W 76-26.761  Miles made good this leg 0.  Total miles covered 3909.

Feb 18

We are moving to Black Point Settlement today.  It is only a seven mile trip, so we are not in any hurry.  We had coffee and cereal for breakfast.  I couldn't get a good enough signal on the boat for the Internet, so I went up to the bar to clear out the sat phone e-mail server before we left.  When we have real Internet service and get our mail through moonsail.com, then if I don't clean up the sat phone server, we get those mails again through the sat phone, which just wastes minutes.

The only other thing to do before settling the bill is to fill the water tanks.  The marina had reverse osmosis water for $.40/gal.  Sounds steep, but at least you know it's good water.  My philosophy is to fill fuel and water any time you can, so we are always able to be self-sufficient for three weeks if necessary.  The way the water works here is that there are a couple of meters with hoses at each end of the long dock.  You ask them to turn it on, they read the meter, you fill up, they read the meter again.  Just like getting gas.  Well, a boat on the other side of the dock asked the dockmaster just before I did, so we had to wait for them to fill their hundred gallon tank.  This boat screwed a charcoal filter on the end of the hose, which slowed the delivery rate significantly.  So, we waited almost an hour before we got the hose.  When we got the hose, we pumped seventy-five gallons in about ten minutes.

I then went to the bar to checkout.  They totaled our three days dockage, three days electricity, diesel fuel, gasoline, water, three days lunches, and numerous bar tabs, add five percent for using a credit card, and close your eyes and sign the ticket.  It really wasn't bad by comparison to Highborne Cay.  The dockage was a dollar per foot per day cheaper, and it's a more cruiser friendly place.

We backed off the dock about 11:30 and headed west then south.  It's only seven miles as the boat floats, probably four as the seagull flies, to Black Point Settlement.  So my lazy butt did not raise the sails even though there was about twelve knots of wind and we could have sailed.  About little more than an hour later, we dropped the hook in ten feet of crystal clear water next to Gypsy who left Staniel Cay yesterday. 

As we were about to anchor, Gypsy hailed us on the radio.  Turned out they were ashore with their hand-held radio, and wanted to tell us about the fund-raiser lunch that was going on.  We had heard about it yesterday on the radio, but since it was going on 13:00, I thought we would have missed it.  Turns out it was on island time, and had just started.  So, we got anchored and hustled ashore.  We had towed the dinghy instead of raising it on the davits, so we just had to put the motor on and go.  We landed the dinghy at the public dock and walked about a quarter mile down the road to the crowd of people.  There were lots of locals and probably fifteen cruisers there.  Lunch was a typical Bahamian meal - rice & peas, macaroni & cheese, your choice of cole slaw or potato salad, your choice of grilled chicken or ribs, and a soda.  All for ten bucks each.  The cause was the local Baptist church, and the food was cooked by Lorraine's Cafe, which we had been told to eat at.  So, we did a good deed and ate Lorraine's food all in one stop.  We visited for a while with Clyde & Linda from Gypsy, and met Pat & Dori from Sol y Mar.  Pat & Dori are from Ft. Worth and also fly the Texas flag on their boat. 

We also met a couple from a boat called Moondance.  We have heard several other Moon-something boats, but no other MoonSails.  Moondance had an interesting story to tell.  The day before, a local boat had thrown out a stern anchor before tying to the dock, and accidentally dropped the anchor on Moondance's inflatable dinghy, tearing a four inch gash in the tube.  The local administrator (like a mayor) had come to find them in town and assure them that the guys would take the dinghy and get it fixed.  We learned later they couldn't fix it here and they returned it to the boat.  I assume they made some arrangement for paying for the repairs.  It was a good example of how these people live good honest lives, and were quick to assume responsibility for their error.

Black Point Settlement is not a touristy place at all.  It is very much a native town.  What they do have though that makes cruisers stop here, is a new laundromat.  Cruiser's live by weather, where to get fuel, where to get water, and where to do laundry.  In Marsh Harbor, we paid $4/load for wash and $4/load for dry.  Here, they have a brand new laundromat, with plenty of machines and the price is $2.50/wash and $3/dry.  The word has spread quickly through the cruisers net that you need to stop here to do laundry and eat at Lorraine's.  Today is Saturday, and the laundromat is closed Sunday, but it is open to 23:00, so we opted to go back to the boat and get the laundry and do it now.

After Barb did the laundry we relaxed on the boat and watched a beautiful sunset.  We still have not seen a "green flash", the phenomenon that is supposed to happen as the sun disappears below the horizon.  Many swear it happens, many swear it's a myth.  We still haven't seen it.  Since we had such a big lunch, we just had snacks for dinner.  We also hailed Lorraine's Cafe on the radio to order a loaf of coconut bread for tomorrow.  We had been told Lorraine's bread was very good, and we still haven't found local coconut bread yet.

There is a seawall along the main dock that has a letter painted on each hunk of concrete.  It says "Get To The Point, Stick To The Point".  It was a good example of how proud these people are of their towns, even though by American standards they are quite meager.

GPS N 24 06.048 W 76-24.107  Miles made good this leg 7.  Total miles covered 3916.

Feb 19

We had a real Sunday breakfast this morning, of breakfast tacos.  After breakfast we just relaxed and read a bit before heading to shore to explore a little.  Our first exploration was to take our Bahamian TV (glass bottomed bucket) and look at several dark spots in the water to see what they were.  We suspected they might be abandoned moorings.  The first we looked at was an old motor, so it probably had been a mooring weight at some time.  The next was also a big hunk of something that may have been a mooring or just something dumped there.  The third was a huge anchor, with a bunch of line piled around it.  This anchor was probably a seventy or eighty pound anchor with a long shank sticking straight up.  If you happened to go right over it in a sailboat you could easily hit the shank.

We then went west along the coast to the point of land where you would be heading back out onto the Exuma Banks.  We drifted along the shore, not more than ten feet offshore, looking at coral and fish through the Bahamian TV.  We then headed back to a dock that had a large pavilion type of building by it.  This dock also had a sign on the seawall identifying it as "Regatta Point".  We tied the dinghy up to the dock and went for a walk.  We headed south on the road.  There was no traffic, so we just walked down the middle of the road.  We passed several houses with radios on loudly inside that were broadcasting church services.  We passed one old guy sitting on a picnic table with a little boom box radio playing the same church service.  We gave him a wave and a good morning.  There are at least three churches in this settlement, and from where we were walking and hearing the radio churches, we could also hear singing from one of the local churches in the distance.  We passed "The Garden of Eden" which is yard full of driftwood arranged to look like sculptures.  We had heard that for a donation, the guy who lives here will give you a tour and explain each piece to you, but we just took a picture and moved on.  About half a mile down the road, we heard a plane coming.  Turned out we were right near the end of the runway for the local airport, and the plane passed low over our heads.  Soon after, we turned back.  As we passed the guy on the picnic table, he yelled "Hey Captain".  Guess he knew the only white people in town were the cruisers.  I said hi back, and he then asked me if I could spare a dollar so he could get a couple of cigarettes.  Well, I'm very generous when I know the money will be put to good use, but I generally don't give to street people who will smoke or drink the money I give them.  So, I told him I had no cash on me and kept walking.  He hollered after us about how he had no job and thanks a lot for nothing.  This was the first experience of this type I have seen in the Bahamas.  I might not be surprised to see it in Nassau, but in the out islands, we have certainly encountered many locals who get by day to day, and none of them so much as asked for a dime.  Conversely, those who have nothing seem to be the ones who will give you what they have and resist attempts to give them something they haven't earned in some way.

We got back in the dinghy and went back to the main public dock.  There was a boat tied alongside the dock that said "Police 12" on the side.  We pulled up in front of it and tied up and got out.  Just as we did, a man came down the dock and asked if we needed him to move the police boat.  We said no, we had plenty of room.  He then said "are you sure, because if you need me to move it to it's mooring, you could give me a ride back in your dinghy".  We got the idea, and gladly offered Kevin the policeman a ride.  I untied our dinghy and backed away while he got in the police boat.  As he was motoring over to his mooring, I heard another sailboat hail "the Police boat" on the VHF.  Kevin had not turned his VHF on, so I yelled to him that somebody was calling him.  Turned out to be a boat that had something for him, so he asked if I minded waiting a few minutes while he rendezvoused with them.  I said no and he went and met the sailboat.  A few minutes later, he returned, and got his mooring.  I pulled alongside and waited while he secured the boat.  He then climbed aboard the dinghy and we headed back to the dock.  He explained that he had not slept in two days because of dealing with two Haitian boats.  One dropped a bunch of illegal immigrants in Georgetown, and the other had a load of drugs onboard.  He also explained that the sailboat had brought stuff for his church who was trying to put together a summer school program for the local kids.  He thanked me profusely for the ride, and for waiting for him.  I figured it was a good thing to do, and you can't go wrong helping the local policeman.

After helping Kevin, we headed out for our hike.  Going east from the dock, we walked along the deserted street.  We passed a church with all the windows and the front doors open and a service going on inside.  There was a woman at the pulpit asking the question "who would you give your life for" as we walked by.  We kept going until we came to an arrow shaped piece of wood pointing towards a path leading to the Atlantic side of the island.  We followed this path and found a large blow hole near the shore.  We had seen small blow holes up in the Exuma Land & Sea Park, but this one was much better.  I blew every ten seconds or so, sometimes with just a mist of spray, and sometimes with a good amount of water.  We hiked past the blow hole and up a small bluff to overlook the ocean.  The view was incredible, with such varying shades of blue in the water.  Of course our camera battery picked this time to die, so I only have the picture in my mind.  (We used to have a spare battery, but it seems to have bit the dust entirely.)

Back at the road, we kept going and found the local cemetery.  There is a nice concrete wall along the road, but no real boundaries on the sides or back.  We went in and looked at several of the grave markers.  A few were real engraved stone markers.  Some were hand made concrete markers, with the names and dates written in the concrete with a stick before it set.  Some were just marked by a little 3x5 card in plastic with a name and dates.  Some had no markings at all, except for a pile of plastic flowers over the mound in the sand.

Past the cemetery, we crossed the road to the beach.  I walked the beach in knee high water, while Barb looked for sea glass on the beach.  She didn't find any glass, and I stubbed my broken toe on a rock, bringing back the pain level of when I first broke it a couple of weeks ago.  I don't think I previously wrote about my toe, but I stubbed it on the rear hatch as I was walking across the aft deck.  It hurt a whole lot and the next day the knuckle was very black and blue, and it hurt to flex it at all.  It had been getting better, but I think today I restarted the healing process.

Back on the road, we headed back to town.  As we passed the church again, the service was still going on, but now a man was at the pulpit and he was in his best preacher-style yelling.  We could hear him clearly for several hundred feet either side of the church.  We got back to the dock and went back to the boat.  We had ordered bread from Lorraine, but it wouldn't be ready until 15:00, and it was only 13:00 now.

We read for a while and then at 14:45 went to shore to get our bread.  We went into the Cafe, and were told to go to the house behind the store for our bread.  We were met at the door by Lorraine's mom, who took us in the house and gave us our bread.  Back at the boat, we read some more and then enjoyed a sunset dinner of spaghetti and a salad. 

GPS N 24 06.048 W 76-24.107  Miles made good this leg 0.  Total miles covered 3916.

Feb 20

We had a leisurely coffee and breakfast (Loraine's coconut bread), an listened to the morning radio things.  About 09:15, we weighed anchor and headed for Little Farmers Cay.  Little Farmers is about twelve miles south, and will be our last part of the journey on the Banks side of the islands in the shallow water.  The approach to Little Farmers is a little tricky, but we had no problem.  You have to come south to a point west of the southern tip of the island, then go due east almost right up to the shore, then follow the shoreline around the southern tip and come back north into the anchorage.  You can anchor here or get a mooring ball that belongs to Ocean Cabin.  Since we are right by a cut to the Exuma Sound, which means there will be significant currents, we opted for a mooring ball.

I had called Ocean Cabin on the radio before we left Black Point, since I knew there were quite a few boats here yesterday.  Turns out they all left, because when we got our mooring ball, we were the only boat here.  We had our first mooring excitement on this attempt.  There is a joke amongst boaters about the yelling, screaming, and wild hand signals that go on between couples when trying to pick up a mooring or anchor.  I have always made fun of this, because we have never had a problem doing either with a few simple and silent hand signals.  Well today was different.  I approached the mooring with the wind and current behind me, which is not the right way to do it, but there was limited room past the mooring to turn around and approach it the correct way.  As usual, Barb snagged the mooring pennant on the first try, but the current took us sideways over the mooring ball before she could raise it and get our line on it or snag it on a cleat.  As the ball went under the bow, she couldn't get the boat hook off the pennant.  She tried to hold the boat hook as I tried to back up, but she finally had to let go of it.  We backed away from the mooring and tried to figure what to do now without the boat hook.  We decided to carefully try to use our fishing net which also has a telescoping handle.  This was a little trickier though because if the same thing happened, the net would be easier to get entangled in a way that it wouldn't let go.  After circling the ball a couple of times and Barb not being able to get it with the net, I stopped the boat sideways upwind of the ball and went out on deck to help her while the boat slowly drifted down on the ball.  I was able to snag it and get the mooring pennant hooked on our side cleat.  Not the right place for it, but at least we were now attached.  We then were able to get our line through the loop, and turn it loose as I backed up a little bit so Barb could secure the line on the bow cleat where it belonged.  We then sat and collected our nerves for a few minutes.  Barb had skinned her thumb, and maybe sprained it a little as she had tried to hang on to the boat hook originally.  Just a minor injury, but I felt bad for the poor approach nonetheless.  Next task is to retrieve the boat hook.  I had always wondered if it was a floating type, and now we know it isn't because we can clearly see it laying on the bottom just off the bow.  We had towed the dinghy, so we put the motor on it and went to see if we could snag the boat hook with the fishing net.  Turns out the water is too deep, so I will have to dive for it.  While we had the dinghy out, we drove up to the bow and attached our second bow line to the mooring pennant.  I then got back aboard, put on my swim trunks, fins and mask and jumped off the side near the hook.  I dove down and snagged it on the first try despite the fact that I can only hold my breath enough to free dive to about ten feet and come right back.  As soon as I picked the hook up I realized something was wrong.  It is made of fiberglass, and it had snapped.  I handed the remains up to Barb and climbed back aboard.  We could clearly see blue bottom paint on the boat hook where it had been strained against the bottom of the bow when Barb was trying to hold it.  Now we know why it sunk - it probably was intended to float.  If I'd known it had broken I would have left it on the bottom.  As things work out though, this is the last time we will be mooring before Georgetown where we ought to be able to buy a replacement, so it's not that bad.  Think I'll buy two just in case.

Since I was wet, I went ahead and soaped up, jumped back in to rinse, then rinsed myself with fresh water on the back of the boat.  We then headed ashore to visit Ocean Cabin and pay for the mooring.  We were greeted at the dinghy dock by Ronnie, a three-year old who was intent on taking our dock line from us.  We helped him help us to be sure we were tied right.  His father we met later and he turned out to be the local government man.  Ocean Cabin is a bar, restaurant, internet cafe, book swap, and general knowledge place, run by Terry and Ernestine Bain.  When you talk to Terry on the radio he has a very clear voice and what I thought sounded like an English accent.  Turns out Terry is a native of Little Farmers.  Little Farmers is what they refer to as "generational land" which means it isn't bought and sold, but just handed down from generation to generation.  There are about fifty-five residents here.  When we first entered the cool main room of Ocean Cabin, Terry welcomed us, introducing himself and shaking hands as if we were old friends coming to visit rather than customers.  He made us comfortable, presented the guest book for us to sign, gave us a flyer about the story of the Little Farmers Cay flag, and asked what we wanted to drink.  We both ordered beers, and after we were settled, Terry gave us lunch menus.  Barb ordered grouper fingers, and I ordered a lobster salad sandwich.  Terry's wife Ernestine is the chef and she said it would be about half an hour while she made the lobster salad.  We said no problem.  While we waited we visited some with Terry, who is a very well spoken and interesting man.  We also caught up on international news a bit watching CNN.  When our food came it was excellent.  The grouper fingers were lightly battered and deep fried, but not at all greasy.  The lobster salad was finely minced lobster meat with celery and probably onion, in a mayonnaise base, but it also had a bite to it, unlike a lobster roll in New England would have.  It was quite tasty.  Before our food came, Terry had asked if we wanted to make a dinner reservation.  As in most island restaurants, you make a reservation and choose your entree early in the day and they cook just what they need.  We joked that we would see how lunch was before we decided.  Well, since lunch was so good, we signed up for lobster dinners.  We had heard another boat call in their reservation for 18:30, so we said the same time would be fine with us.

After a couple more beers, we went for a walk.  Terry told us to just go up the hill and follow the road, and it would circle back to where we were, so we couldn't get lost.  We started walking, and at the top of the hill, we found JR's woodcarving shop.  We decided to save that for tomorrow.  Just past there, two dogs who had been sunning themselves decided to join us on our walk.  We pet them both and they happily followed or led us the rest of the way back around to the dock.  We passed the school and saw the children sitting quietly inside as if perhaps they were taking a test.  We passed the BATELCO tower, and what looked like the "public works" building.  Of course "public works" in the islands is pretty free-form.  We were stopped by a guy with a big smile who introduced himself as Stanley.  After the guy begging for money in Black Point I was a tad wary, but Stanley wanted to introduce himself and tell us that he made shadowboxes and also gave tours of the caves over on the south end of Guana Cay if we were interested.  We told him we didn't think so, but if we changed our minds we would call him.  We passed the airport and came back around to where we started.

We went back to the boat and relaxed and read for the rest of the afternoon.  About 17:30, we headed up to Ocean Cabin again.  In the bar we found John, Gail, and their son Tyler from Sea Paws who we had heard making their reservation earlier.  We also found the young husband/wife crew of a sixty foot motor yacht and their owners who were not having dinner, but just drinks.  There were also several local guys there, including JR the woodcarver, and the local government guy.  We all chatted for about an hour before dinner was ready.  We had been told to be sure and try the "blue drink" by some friends who were here a day before us, so of course we did.  The dinner was excellent.  A large lobster tail with butter, rice and peas, and coleslaw.  After dinner we were offered desert, which was either ice cream, cheese cake, or guava duff.  We asked what guava duff was, and all we knew was that it was sweet.  Several of us ordered the guava duff.  It was a slice of some type of cake, covered in a sweet guava sauce.  At dinner was also a couple who weren't in the bar, Tom & Sandy from Anania, a sailboat we have been near and hearing on the radio for a couple weeks now, but had not personally met.  After everybody was through eating, Terry joined in our conversation and entertained us with his views on world politics, life in the Bahamas, and life in general.  Whether you agree with his views or not, he is a very interesting man to talk with.

Back at the boat we were relaxing when we heard the sound of a helicopter coming.  We looked out and saw a large military style helicopter circling the island with a spotlight on the water.  They made five or six complete laps around the island with the spotlight, then turned it off and made a few more laps, then turned off all their nav lights and made two more laps.  Like a helicopter wouldn't be noticed just because it had no lights on.  I thought about lighting them up with my million candle power spotlight, but I figured I'd probably blind some poor guy wearing night goggles.  Later after we went to bed we heard them pass over at least once more.

GPS N 23 57.260 W 76-19031  Miles made good this leg 12.  Total miles covered 3928.

Feb 21

This morning we are going to explore some.  Across the bay on Big Farmers Cay, we can see a round rock wall or foundation up on the highest point of the island.  We had asked Terry about it last night and he explained that it is a foundation for a round house he is building for a guy from NY.  Since he is in charge of the property, he gave us permission to use the dock there and climb the walkway to the top.  He also explained to us that all beaches in the Bahamas are open to the public up to the high tide line.  That means we can land the dinghy anywhere, even at some private resort, and walk the beach up to the high water line.  We knew this, but it was fun to hear him passionately explain it.

We dinghied across the bay and landed at the small dock for this new house.  The dock is new, with good cement pilings and a nice set of cement steps leading up from it.  The steps then become a steep cement path to the top of the hill.  At the top is a round pile of rocks.  This pile is perfectly round, with a piece of rebar sticking out of the middle, and flat on top.  It will become the foundation for the round house to be built.  As Terry told us last night, why do people build square houses in a round world?  The view from up here was very nice.  We could clearly see the deep water channel we followed in yesterday, much better than we could see it yesterday in the slight overcast.

Back down the hill, we headed south along the shore of Big Farmers, to check out the house that sits by itself out on an island just offshore, and to explore the long beach we can see down the way.  As we were passing through the cut between the small island and Big Farmers, we saw that there was a boat at the little island's dock, and a man on the walkway above the dock.  We waved as we always do, and the guy waved for us to come to the dock.  Turned out it was Terry.  He owns this little island, called Hattie Island named after his grandmother, and he rents the cottage on it.  He said it goes for about $2200 a week.  It has three bedrooms, satellite TV, and all the seclusion you could ever want.  We chatted for a few minutes and then went on our way to the beach.

The beach we went to was probably half a mile south of where we are moored.  We beached the dinghy at the northern end of this half mile long beach and started walking.  We were looking for sea glass, and didn't find a single piece.  The sand on this beach is very different from what we have seen elsewhere.  It is a very coarse grit, not the soft powder we have seen north of here.  We walked the full length of the beach.  The only interesting thing we saw was a small concrete marker up at the high water line.  It was about eighteen inches high and maybe a foot around with a conical shape.  On the north side, "Smith" had been marked in the wet concrete with a stick, while on the south side "Brown" was written.  I'm guessing it was a property line marker.

From here we went north again, crossed the Farmers Cut out to Exuma Sound, and along the western shore of Great Guana Cay.  This is the southern tip of Great Guana which runs from just south of Staniel Cay to here.  Black Point Settlement where we were a couple days ago is on Great Guana Cay.  Just north of the cut was what appeared to be a resort in mid construction.  Typical of what we have seen in many places here, it was hard to tell if it was under construction, damaged by a storm, or just abandoned.  We learned later that it was a work in progress.  Four grandsons of the woman who owned the land, live in Nassau and are building a small resort.  They work for awhile to make money, then buy supplies and come build a bit.  Then they go back to make more money, and on and on.  Unfortunately, the property suffers from neglect faster than they accomplish new work, so it hard to tell if anything will ever come of it.

We then turned west and crossed the bay back to the northern end of Little Farmers.  We saw the end of the airport runway which literally ends at the shoreline, came south past the Little Farmers Yacht Club, and went back to the main dock to go see JR the woodcarver.  We met JR last night at the bar and promised to come see him today.  We hiked up the hill to his house and shop.  He was sitting out on the porch of his shop working on a piece.  He remembered us and welcomed us in.  He took us in the shop and told us about the different pieces.  Of course since they are all hand carved from pieces of tamarind wood he cuts in the local woods, no two are alike even if they are similar.  We looked over the pieces and chose a nice parrot.  He engrave his initials and the year in the base of the piece when you buy it, so you can take a picture of him doing it.  As he was doing this his wife walked up from down by the dock.  She had been at the little market there.  He introduced her and we talked with her about how he gets up before dawn and works all day on something.  I asked him why he had a brand new big John Deere riding lawn mower in the yard, when the yard was little patches of grass between rocks.  He explained that one of his jobs was to mow the edge of the road all the way around the island, and mow the cemetery.  This is in addition to wood carving and diving for conch and spear-fishing.  He sells some beautiful conch shells too.  He had regular ones, some that he had cut the end off so you could blow them like a trumpet, and a few King's Helmet ones which I had seen before but didn't realize they were also conch.  His wife started telling us about the Sapodilla (a.k.a. Sapodilly) fruit which they harvest from several trees in their yard.  I had heard of this fruit before, but never tried it.  There are several different varieties of the fruit, and she gave us three different ones.  She told us to wash them in salt water when we got to the boat and then let them sit for several days to ripen.  Even though they regularly sell the fruit, this was a gift to us.  After we took our pictures, and he signed the piece we bought, I realized we hadn't paid him yet.  I went into Barb's backpack where we carry everything, and found we had not brought my money clip.  I apologized and said we would have to come back and he said take the piece and come back whenever.

We took our stuff back to the boat, and immediately got cash and headed back to pay JR.  We hiked up the hill again and found he and his wife still out at the workshop.  He had made amazing progress on the piece he was working on in the half hour we were gone.  I gave him the money and then we got talking again.  As do most of these very friendly people, JR loves to talk.  He told me he needed to go wood hunting again soon.  I asked him if he had to have an idea what he wanted to carve as he selected the pieces of wood.  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Some pieces can come from any old hunk of wood.  But some, like a sailfish and an eagle he makes, must have just the right fork in the original piece of wood.  We thanked him again and headed back to Ocean Cabin to get some ice.

Well, the guidebook says ice is available at Ocean Cabin.  As we walked up, Terry was outside yelling at several young children who were out of school for lunch and were messing with a small boat in the yard that they shouldn't have been.  We told him we needed a bag of ice.  He said something about a block, and I said no, we needed a bag of ice cubes.  He said he only had blocks.  So I said ok, but let's have a beer first.  The extra trip up the hill to JR's had made me thirsty.  So we went inside and each had a Kalik.  Ernestine was cooking a couple of cheeseburgers to go for another local, and they smelled awfully good, but I didn't have enough cash to get two burgers, two beers, and ice.  So, we had the beers, chatted with the guy behind the bar, who had been a customer last night, and the local government guy who was enjoying a beer too.  I thought the local government guy might have some insight into the helicopter last night.  He didn't, other than to say they were probably looking for a boat with drugs or illegal Haitian immigrants.  He was as irritated as us and the other locals about the whole thing though.  The helicopter is apparently part of a joint US/Bahamas effort to intercede in the drug and immigrant problems.  It is looked at as a total farce though, since they spend millions of US taxpayer money to fly around and make a lot of noise.  What would they do if they did manage to spot a little boat in the dark ocean with their spotlight?  They can't land in the water and stop the boat, and they don't have a presence on the water, although the US gave them three high power patrol boats, the Bahamian government can't afford the fuel to run them. 

Back to the real purpose of the visit - ice.  After we finished our beer, we told the guy we needed a block of ice too.  He said it was $6 for the beers and $10 for the ice.  Quite steep I thought, but we are out of ice.  He went away for several minutes and then came back to the bar carrying a Heineken case box with a block of ice in it that had obviously been a five gallon bucket of water earlier in it's life.  I tried hard not laugh out loud when I saw this.  We needed the ice after all.  We paid him and then I carried this thirty-five pound or so hunk of cold wet cardboard back to the dinghy.  My back didn't count on this work, but we made it.  As we were headed down the walkway, I just kept laughing about the whole deal.  We loaded it in the dinghy without dropping it in the salt water and headed back to the boat.

At the boat, we now had to get this hunk of ice aboard.  Instead of taking it up the swim platform which is relatively narrow, we pulled alongside, opened the side lifelines, and I hoisted it on deck from there.  We secured the dinghy and I put the block of ice in the cockpit.  Barb got me a hammer, a Phillips screwdriver, and about six large Ziploc bags.  I started breaking this thing apart and bagging manageable chunks.  We had ice chips flying everywhere, but it was kinda fun.  We put as much as we could in the freezer, quite a bit in the lower part of the fridge where it will keep awhile, and some in our insulated bag that will keep until tomorrow sometime.  I still couldn't help but laugh as we were doing all this.  Another Island adventure.

We spent a couple of hours relaxing, reading and writing.  We heard a boat called Raggy Chap on the VHF.  They had just anchored across the bay from us.  As with other boats, we have been near them for the last couple of weeks, but had never met.  They were in the Exuma Land and Sea Park the same time we were, and we learned tonight that they rebuilt both of their engines while they were there.  We eavesdropped on their conversation with another boat to learn of their engine problems (as is the norm on the VHF).  We hailed them after that conversation, and invited them to join us for happy hour at the Little Farmers Yacht Club.  We had heard the yacht club on the VHF on other nights inviting cruisers in for happy hour.  We had  been told by our friends on Montana Mar to not miss their happy hour.  We had been told by JR's wife that they had happy hour every day at 16:00.  So, based on all this, we passed the invite to Raggy Chap.  We got to the Yacht Club first, and were the only customers there.  We told the lady at the bar that we heard they had a great happy hour each night.  She said, "Oh, not tonight".  I said that's ok we still will have a beer.  Jeff and Susan from Raggy Chap arrived a bit later, and as we introduced ourselves, I apologized for telling them a fib about happy hour.  But, the beer was cold anyway.  They joined us and we shared stories about our trips south.  The lady who originally greeted us had gone in back and spoken with the owner, Roosevelt Nixon, and gotten approval to whip up a batch of conch fritters, on the house, which officially makes this a happy hour.  We had several beers, chatted amongst ourselves, and with Mr. Nixon, and caught some more CNN.

Shortly before dark, we returned to the boat.  Since we have had a few beers and a generous amount of conch fritters, we'll skip a formal dinner tonight.  Back on the boat, I started listening to a Buffett concert replay on Radio Margaritaville.  It was from 9/25/2001 and was the resumption of his tour after 9/11.  He was in Indianapolis which had originally been scheduled for 9/11and was postponed.  It was a great show.  I sat in the cockpit in the dark listening, and noticed a faint glow on the southern horizon.  I wonder if that is from Georgetown, which is only about forty miles from here.  I keep hearing the pros and cons of Georgetown from other cruisers.  For some it's Mecca and they stay there all winter.  For some it's the big city and too organized, and they get out soon as they can.  If that is the glow from there, it's certainly big.  We'll see tomorrow.

Also while listening to the concert, I stepped out on deck to look at the stars.  I saw three jets way up in the sky, all headed south.  As I was watching them a shooting star zipped across between them.  That's the little things you don't see in the big city.

GPS N 23 57.260 W 76-19031  Miles made good this leg 0.  Total miles covered 3928.