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Day 10 -13, July 15th to 19th
Saturday, July 15th we started out lazier than any other
day and only managed to have a Bloody Mary before we headed off
“downtown” to see what was happening on a busy Saturday in
Bimini. We didn’t make it very far, but there isn’t very far to
go anyway! Nothing else was happening other than finding a
little teeny weenie grocery store that had lettuce (major find!)
and we ended up at the End of the World….Sand bar that is.
Nothing has changed except that Sara Lee (the owner) had
recruited her Grandson “Shamarone” to help out during the summer
months. He is going to University in Fort Lauderdale and will
return when school starts in the Fall – a good “Man” that Sham!
We had the same kind of day there as we did last year – there is
a certain charm and warmth to the sand bar and Sara Lee that
just makes you want to stay and drink and yak and laugh. She
gave Barry the 20 second tour of the “kitchen” where she whips
up her culinary Bahamian delights and says she is there as long
as the business is there – 3:00 am if need be or later. Maybe we
could get her to come and work at the Oasis! We stumbled out of
there, made it back to the boat in time to see the docks buzzing
with people that I had to get Salty past for his evening walk.
He definitely has a “hands off” policy when he’s on the docks –
everyone wants to touch him and he just doesn’t want anything to
do with them. He did however, show a particular interest in the
6’ shark someone had caught and was hung up for everyone to
see…he eyed it, backed up, went forward, went around and it was
a good thing it was already dead because he would have gave that
thing a run for it’s money! We’ve had some weekend fishermen
beside us at the dock and they arrive back with a great catch
every day. Today, they were very generous and gave us some
obviously fresh grouper AND the jaw, which is apparently a real
delicacy. Sort of like the claws on a lobster, so they were
telling us.
Sunday, July 16th started out with very, very calm waters
– just like glass – gorgeous. This is the first day since we’ve been
here that the wind wasn’t whipping up a good chop, even in the
Marina. We started the day out the very same way as yesterday – lazy
with a Bloody Mary to get me motivated to catch up on story writing
and adjusting pictures and a beer for Barry while he read Bahamian
Charts. Such slugs. We decided to head off to the “other” restaurant
at the end of South Bimini to see what was going on there. Salty was
left behind which didn’t impress him much but we’ll come back and
take him to the beach and that should make up for everything. This
restaurant/motel was damaged last year in Hurricane Wilma and had
just been renovated so it was looking very, very nice. There’s a
nice beach area with tiki hut tables, big pool, nice large
restaurant (for dinner) and a new sand bar “Joe Manley’s Sand Bar”.
Joe Manley is the original owner of the restaurant and when it was
built in the 1940’s, it was his home. Seeing as how it is the
“sister” restaurant of the one at Bimini Sands, it unfortunately had
the very same menu. We asked if they had anything “grouper” and we
were presented with a pretty decent grouper sandwich – at least it
was acceptable. We jumped in the dingy and went back to get Salty
and off to the beach…again
Monday, July 17th is “Cat Cay” Day! We are going to head
across to Cat Cay by Dingy today seeing as how the waters are so
calm and there doesn’t appear to be any rain in the forecast. I took
Salty to the beach early this morning to tire him out running and
swimming because he would have to stay on board alone again when we
took off. He was not amused, to say the least and in fact he pawed
and tore at the blinds as we were taking off. NOT a good thing and I
had to rush in when we got back to quickly bend them back into shape
before the Captain could see what he had done. Kind of like when
your child does something bad and you don’t want them to get into
trouble with Dad! It took us approximately an hour to get from here
to Cat Cay dock but we took a little detour to check out a ship
wreck. From afar, it looked like a building but upon getting closer,
we could see it had been a steel and concrete ship – obviously there
for many, many years. At least 30 years judging from the graffiti on
the side of it – there was even a “Barry” who had taken to writing
on it in 1997! The Marina is huge at Cat Cay in comparison to the
other Marinas we have been to in the Bahamas – the bartender told us
it was the largest in the Caribbean, but who really knows for sure.
We managed to get some lunch which was very good before the bar
closed down – actually the restaurant and bar both close down from
2:00 – 5:00pm. Cat Cay is a privately owned island but it is also
open (partially) to the public. If you do dock at the Marina, you
are allowed to use one of the restaurants, go to one of the bars,
walk in specific areas and use a very small private beach…and buy
things at the store. Other than that, there’s not much else to do so
we decided we much preferred the old world charm of a little town
like Alice Town on North Bimini. We headed back over calm, clear
waters to retrieve our poor neglected boy on the boat. He jumped in
the dingy and off we went again to the beach. Salty must have spent
the whole 3 hours we were gone panting and waiting at the door
because his beach time couldn’t possibly have made him as zonked out
as he was when we got back. Again, we had dinner on board then went
out, turned on the underwater lights and dazzled the people on the
dock with our “underwater show”. This evening showed us some huge
tarpon fish, the size of Salty, and people gathered around to watch
them catch the little shrimps that were also dazzled by the lights.
Tuesday, July 18th started out much the same as yesterday
but the new “Canadian” yacht on the outer dock was having a wedding
on board this morning, so that was exciting... then they plan on
going off to Honeymoon Island (how appropriate). We’ve had a rainy
day today so this forced me to sit and catch up on writing and going
through our adventure pictures. We’ll head off to the States
tomorrow morning so I also had to get things organized for our
crossing. One more trip to the beach with Salty, who took full
advantage of chasing the gulls and playing in the waves. I guess
it’s back to Miami beach for him! Barry went off for one last dingy
ride before we had to pull it up on the chalks – now that is a
project in itself. Getting that dingy positioned just right,
clamping on the cables, then hoisting it up with a manual pulley and
some brute strength is quite the project indeed. Oh, my aching back!
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