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Day 34 - 36, July 20th to 22nd
We decided that we needed to spend an extra day here just so we can scope out the place - after all, we wouldn't want to rush it, would we? Another beautiful day! We walked to the beach through the tired old streets of Alice Town passing dilapidated buildings and locals huddled under trees outside their run-down tawdry houses. It looks like a hurricane went through and they never bothered to fix anything. While walking the beach and looking at all the houses in ruins, we were wondering where all the workers were - surely to God they must want to repair these houses before the next round of hurricanes arrive. Only once did we see 4 guys fixing a roof and from the looks of the house itself, we thought "why bother". The beach itself is gorgeous but would be even better if the houses were repaired and rebuilt. This is the first beach we've been on this trip that has shells on it - a couple that look like body parts … an ear and a finger to be exact. There are even conch shells imbedded right into the rocks - guess they've been here a very long time. When Salty walks in the surf, he hunkers down and it looks like he is pushing the water with his face - at least he keeps his mouth shut! We took Salty back to the boat and went in search of a place to eat lunch and there's really not much around; seems the restaurants (the few that are here) are mainly open for dinner. We lucked into a little saloon called "The End of the World" and it was quite the spot with sand on the floor, clothing and underwear all over the ceiling and walls and "Sara Lee" behind the bar. She is a feisty local lady (born and bred here) with a great sense of humor, lots of stories and claims to be the best cook around - she whipped up some fresh conch salad that was really quite good - secret ingredient being goat pepper (much like habanero) grown on Cat Cay. She tells us that nothing is grown in the Bimini Islands, not even coconuts "they cut all the damn trees down", she says. This is one of those places where they hand you magic markers to make your mark on whatever you want - clothing, walls, bar - and I did just that on the bar and outside on the wall. We watched and took pictures of the Chalks seaplane coming and going which is quite the sight as the body of the plane is like the hull of a boat and they use the same harbor to land and take off as the boats. We had a couple of drinks there then wandered back to the sports bar for an appetizer and thankfully they are able to do that better than the dinner we had the night before. We did stop at one of the market stalls on the way back and Carmen was able to coax Barry into buying some Bahamian bread, stuffed with coconut that she said was "grown right here on the Island". So, what is the real truth about the coconut trees? We couldn't resist the pool and a Pina colada so we played like tourists for a while before going back to the boat and our boy. There was a little band playing by the Tiki bar and you can see our Salty Old Dog in the distance behind them. Then we went off to dinner at the Red Lion Pub on the main street "King's Highway" that is nothing more than a one-car lane road running the length of the Island - 7 miles. They have a ferry here - an old house boat "The 3 B's" running back and forth between the North and South Bimini Islands that we may just have to take tomorrow. There's a fishing tournament here this weekend and some boats arrived early to party before the big event. Some have kids on board and two little guys around 8 or 9 were tooling around all day in their dingy - what a life for these kids…too much fun to be able to come over to the Bahamas to boat and fish in the summer.
Day 35, Thursday, July 21st Barry spent a couple of hours this morning changing and cleaning a/c filters and coils, checking pumps and entering way points while I updated this adventure story and the pictures. I'll cook on board tonight because even though I don't want to do it and hate to admit it but my cooking is a lot better than anything we can get here on this Island. We went for another long walk on the beach instead of taking a ferry ride (wouldn't let Salty come on board) and it was so hot we thought we'd get heat stroke! Thankfully, there's a lot of water around to float around in to cool off on our trek up and down the beach. We saw the strangest boat out there - it was an obvious catamaran style but the hulls were separated mid-ship, giving it the appearance of having "legs". It sat really high in the water and was a good size boat - from where we were it looked to be around 60' long and a couple of stories high. Needless to say, it looked to be the most unstable vessel I've ever seen and I sure wouldn't want to be on that in rough seas. There's a little group of (wild) dogs on the way to the beach, at least I think they are wild as they aren't wearing collars and don't seem to belong anywhere or to anyone. They don't appear to be threatening at all but when all three come at you (or at least Salty) it is a little disconcerting. We had a couple of guys run interference once and the local family under the tree that I mentioned the other day also chased them away. Barry just yelled at them and squirted them with the water bottle and that also seemed to work. We figured we'll have to start to carry a real water gun with some force to the spray the next time we travel, just in case. It's interesting to sit in a Marina and watch all the goings on - people leaving and docking. One rickety old (small) cruise-vacation boat came in "The Bottom Time" from the Fort Lauderdale that looks like it's just a weekender. Then the last boat to come in, the Captain was so blasted he had 5 guys on the dock trying to walk and talk him into an "outside" slip which should have been a no-brainer. Of course, he's driving (or attempting to drive) a boat worth probably $1.5 million - what a jerk. We've been hearing rumblings about a Tropical storm (Franklin) in the mid-Bahamas and the dock master says it's in and around Andros Island now which is really not very far from here. We've only had a little wind and a lot of heat the past two days and that is probably reason. However, if there's a storm so close that means it will wreak havoc with the weather affecting our "crossing" tomorrow. We'll just have to play this one by ear and see what it's like in the morning and of course, if it's ugly out there we will just wait another day or so until it is safe and calmer to cross over to the States.
Day 36, Friday, July 22nd It's early morning and we are laying in bed in "calm silence". That means the boat is not rocking and the waves are not smacking the underside of the swim platform and therefore, there is no wind out there! In fact, it's dead calm and it hasn't been like that the whole time we've been docked here….this is a VERY good thing. We started to pack up and batten down the hatches, so to speak, in order to get over to he fuel pumps before anyone else. We got out of the slip around 7:30 am and could see that there was a large dive boat at the fuel pump that didn't look like it was going anywhere soon and another catamaran directly behind it that was fueling up - so we wait…and wait…and wait. We hovered out there for at least a half an hour while this cat got fuel, got water, filled up their little water jugs, went for a pee - for cryin' out loud - get out of there and let us get on our way! The dock master at the fuel dock (and I use that word lightly) is a good 300 pounder and moving way slow - almost not moving at all. He managed to get the spring line on but I had to jump off the boat and secure the stern line because by the time he got to that, we would have been out sideways. He sat and had a snooze (snoring no less) while we fueled up and he could barely wake up long enough to write out the fuel bill - he wrote the check out using his big belly as a table, handed it to me and told me to take it to the office with my credit card - 309 gallons for $1,036.80 - what a deal. And we're off! We passed "The End of the World Saloon", some of the little stores and some run down buildings on the way out the harbor, and then made it out the zig zag channel to open water and on our way across the Florida Straights to Miami. The water is looking real good - real good indeed with only a nice light chop of 1-2's for an hour or so. We saw a group of five boats traveling together - I guess to enter into the various fishing tournaments going on this weekend in the Bahamas, but I don't think I'd want to be going there if there was a tropical storm, would you? The water only kicked up for about a half an hour to 3-4's then calmed down once the shores of the States came into view. As we got closer and for the last hour of our run, the water was virtually like glass - we couldn't believe it and have never been in the Florida Straights with water like that, what a bonus! Salty Old Dog was back home, back in our slip at the Miami Beach Marina by 12:00 noon and (we think) happy to be back. We thoroughly clean our Salty Old Dog inside and out on Saturday & Sunday, checked back in with Customs and Immigration (homeland security you know) and headed back to Cape Coral and "home" on Sunday. Salty will sure be glad to see his house, his yard, his dock, his closet and HIS POOL! The beach is one of Salty's favorite things, there is no doubt about that, but he loves his pool - after all, you can at least drink that water!
Compared to other years, this trip was a surprise in that nothing went wrong, we didn't have any real bad weather or water and so it is safe to say, we'll be doing this again next year!
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