An Engineless Bluewater Passage.

(Backdated to the end of December)

All three of the Rum Cay boats are headed to the Turks and Caicos and we all leave on this Sunday.

This is the map Bobby gave me. Upon entering I highly recommend looking at this map or hailing Bobby on VHF 16 for a guide boat in.

John and his ferro-cement boat are taking a break after his harrowing ordeal getting to Rum Cay. Spring Song, in front of us, takes the wind and goes east. We, wanting to stick to our rhumbline, decided to only use our jib and motor sail. Our autohelm, a Raymarine ST4000, had a broken belt, which quite a unique belt – so it is still broken. We are hand sailing the entire thing, which honestly isn’t that bad. Dad and I switch between two hour shifts for this day and a half passage. Our plan is to sail, sail, sail until Mayaguana – rest there and then hit it to the Turks and Caicos. Oh the best laid plans…

Around dusk during my shift I see a red flicker. Hmmm… red isn’t really a good color. Again, a red flicker in the dark and soon the red starts to last – I yell for Dad and by this point the red light is consistent. I didn’t want to believe it, but I had recognized it straight away. It was the engine warning light. Dad quickly pulls the plunger to kill the engine. We pull off the stairs to get a good look at our 50 hp Perkins 4108 engine. It is too hot to check the antifreeze, but Dad cleans the salt water intake strainer as we believe the engine is overheating. Running at 180 degrees and creeping up just seems too hot. With no engine we have no backup plan, we can’t manuvour away from other boats easily or anchor in coral areas – I mean we could technically do these things using the wind, but we have lost the safety of the engine. Dad isn’t reassuring and we are both a bit scared and confused. We start up the engine again, leaving the cover off and it is again hot, but not too hot. I sleep in the cockpit as it is too rough below to do anything other than throw up.

I am awoken to a red light in my face and a loud buzzer. Crap. I pull the plunger. This is bad. This is going to be a bad ongoing problem. We aren’t even 12 hours into our day and a half long trip. We have barely scratched the surface and now its 2 am and we need to raise the main. Of course the metal halyard is snagged. It is dark and the winds are cold. We are both tired, upset, and unsure. Once I get the halyard into the correct position the main continues to catch on the lazyjacks since we can’t point into the wind. With the job, main, and mizzen all raised we can actually catch a bit of the light wind and get a pretty good reach going to Plana Cays. During the night we attempted to use the engine again, but it would soon be past 220 degrees and continuously getting hotter. It really wasn’t a matter at this point, we had been sailing for over a day now and the winds were pushing us very nicely. Really, we were cruising at 7 knots (fast for our boat). Once we passed Plana Cays, around 4 pm, we lost our nice wind and were barely going 4 knots on our way to Mayaguana. Our great plans to anchor here were quickly dismissed as we doubted we could get the anchor back up without an engine. Instead after passing Mayaguana at 8 pm, we took the light 10 knot northerly and just kept going. We left Sunday afternoon and now it was Tuesday morning. Hand sailing the boat the entire way – we were getting very exhausted and with no charts for the Turks we were unsure of if we should go to the north side of Providenciales or the south, both were covered in coral and we would have to run the engine to get in. Of course since we are adults, at our wits end, we started arguing about it – yelling, blaming, etc. Eventually we agreed on the south side and going through customs at Sapodilla Bay. We arrive at noon and it takes us until 4 pm to slowly go through the coral banks without overheating the engine. Two days later, and many hours of sailing, we had arrived in the Turks and Caicos. We want, badly, to be off the boat. Attempts to hail customs, of course, come to no response and the beach is deserted (along with the anchorage). The beach is a slow decline with gin clear waters, just beautiful! Soon Restless a nice wood schooner pulls in and Dad quickly makes a friend, a friend who happens to be a mechanic.

For your appreciation: the next morning we clear customs which is at the government port and with no dinghy access you have to be a gymnast to get off your dinghy and to shore.

A Rum Cay Christmas

(Backdated to, you guessed it, Christmas)

My feet look like they have been beaten with a winch handle and I am now short a pair of flip flops, so I have to be an annoying American tourist and wear tennis shoes for a few days. I do my best to avoid this though.

We are trapped in Rum Cay due to weather, but I don’t mind as it is a beautiful place. We spend our days either exploring the island or being lazy and nights are spent either at the marina’s clubhouse or at Kaye’s bar. John, Mark, Eddie and I spend a day in John’s tiny dinghy exploring the east side of the island – basically I get advanced lessons in bailing a dinghy. That night all the boaters and marina workers (along with the locals) go into town to Kaye’s Bar, where town matriarch Dolores is making a Christmas dinner. She serves a large pot of stew containing, but not limited to fish, crab claws, beef, potatoes, etc. We drink Kaliks and Sands beers and interact with many of the locals, in particular I meet Kathy and her husband Brian. Brian has a big sport fishing boat at our marina and Kathy who takes pity on me promises to bring me a pair of shoes. The night quickly turns to Junkanoo festivities with lots of raunchy dancing and loud drums, cowbells, and whistles.

Most of the boaters have returned home (or where carried home, see John who needed to be coaxed home by Mark and I with the help of Rasta (although this ride back to the marina provided for the best drunken mumblings I have ever heard in my life)) but a few of us make it to the midnight church service at the town’s beautiful tiny church. Mark and I find a spot in the back, we had probably had one too many Kaliks and didn’t want to make any sort of Christmas-church-drunken-white-person scene. The service was very sweet, although one of the main pastors had a rowdy lisp, which actually provided a fun game for Mark and I to try and figure out what psalm we were on.

Christmas day was more of the same. Crap weather – lots of wind and rain and nothing much to speak of, except for the fact that I adore Sumner Point Marina (http://www.rumcaymarina.com/Marina/).

Sumner Point Marina: L to R - Three Amigos, Spring Song, & Depature

Yes there are no showers, the entrance is a bit sketchy with all of those coral heads, and the internet isn’t flowing; but the positives majorly outweigh the negatives. The marina itself is gorgeous, carved right out of the island. The owner and staff, Bobby and Rasta, are more than helpful and just super nice. Finally the clubhouse is great. You can always buy whatever booze is on hand, but the best service it purports is a hangout. Christmas night everyone brings a dish to pass and Cathy and Brian along with the locals from the house just over the marina all come out for a fabulous supper.

The Mad Moyers Christmas Card.

The next day is even better as Cathy brings me shoes, which is the best thing ever! We explore the town, stopping at Last Chance Grocery and eventually ending up back at Kaye’s where Mercedes makes far too many friends and we have far too many beers. Along our tour Cathy shows us where Rum Cay Marina was supposed to be – but never came to fruition. Now $27 million dollars in debt it is just a big hole, known as “The Dig”. No wonder I couldn’t find it on my hiking trip. Dolores takes a shine to me and brews up some bush tea and teaches me many things about the island – you can see my review of her book in one of the previous entries. Even better than Christmas was this night as many of the boys went out fishing on Brian’s powerboat. They came back with dolphin and one huge 40 pound tuna, which meant another potluck.

Eddie, Brian, & Bobby cooking.

Tuna tartar, freshly fried tuna, Cajun tuna, along with some of the most amazing sushi was had by all at the marina. I may not be able to find many amenities traveling through the Bahamas but the fresh made sushi of tonight made up for it!

Be jealous. It was great.

Thanks again to Mark and Bobby for the splendid cooking. Eddie and I drink rum on John’s ferro-cement boat and encounter his sailing buddy – quite a large rat. The rat was quite at home and had obviously been there for a while and was happy in its established role as crew.

After a joyous break at Rum Cay it is time for another passage – Spring Song, Three Amigos,and ourselves are all ready to get going. Each captain has a different plan and each one thinks theirs is the best – as I said before arrogance doesn’t work with sailing. Bobby provides us a map (see next entry) so navigating the coral heads out is much easier and we easily follow Spring Song out and soon we are on our way to Bluewater passage number 2, which by the way is much worse.

My First Bluewater Passage and Being Fooled a Second Time.

(Backdated to late December)

Of course, the first thing I do as we leave Red Shanks is promptly run aground. Sailing does not leave much room for arrogance and I should have followed the path of the rest of the sailors, but I didn’t and I very slowly ran us aground. With very limited light we leave Red Shanks and leave Elizabeth Harbor via North Channel Rocks. This is our first real blue water passage. It will be around 50 miles – a good overnighter. We expected calm winds, psh, how the weather man lies. We got 5-8 ft waves on our bow towards Santa Maria, Long Island and then we had 25 knot gusting winds which made the trip quite uncomfortable. We finally get to Rum Cay early the next morning, with no autohelm as it had given up during the night. At 6 am we pass our Rum Cay waypoint and pull into Port Nelson, but after multiple attempts to hail Sumner Point Marina we give up and drop the hook in an anchorage which isn’t great, but acceptable when you are working on minimal sleep. After a far too brief nap we hear Spring Song bring up Sumner Point Marina, we hail them as well and soon we have a guide boat in. Very minimal buoys that don’t match the chartplotter, but the guide is more than helpful (not to mention the dinghy is full of dogs, love). The marina isn’t too full, but we do have a few neighboring boats. Spring Song owned by a Swiss couple, Walter and Ursula, and crewed by Rhiner and Mercedes (a German and Costa Rican couple). The second boat is a 37 foot Ferro-cement boat single handedly run by John. Finally, Three Amigos is owned by Brian and crewed by Eddie and Mark.

The Path for my Rum Cay hiking trip.

Finally being at an island that has some history, Rum Cay is famous for its petroglyphs which are basically ancient cave pictorial drawings. Something I would obviously love. I am so ready for an adventure! It is a miserable day – rain and cold, but never the less I set out.

Continuous looming storm clouds.

I walk north through the long main/only road. It is mostly paved with a few swatches of gravel. I make the five mile walk with the most breathtaking vistas of the north side. At one point on the top of a hill I am looking down on dense greens being misted by the huge breakers of the north side. I would have loved to take a picture of this, but it was still far TOO rainy. Even though my Northface rain jacket says its waterproof, it is definitely soaked through. A little rain and a five mile walk is nothing to a Red Wing girl especially when I have my IPOD and Girl Talk. I make it to the north beach, which is nice, but I am on a mission. Just past this beach is Hartford Beach and the cave with the drawings!

One of the many paths I took.

I take a little golf cart path over the next point to, what I believe is Hartford Beach, but this soon deteriorates to a walking path and soon becomes a cattle path (did I mention Rum Cay had wild cattle). It is a beautiful walk and since I left at 11 am I have plenty of time. Butterflies guide my path as I hurry along to a lean-to and what I again believe must be Hartford Beach.

Beautiful beach vistas with ominous skies.

Unfortunately, it is completely free of caves and I have to run along the beach and rocky sections. After this I sit and watch the breakers trying to decide if I should turn back now or keeping going. I am dedicated, but unsure where to find these caves.

North side Breakers.

I decide I should just go to the next point. By this point I have walked over 10 miles and am probably closer to the shore of the south side (where this is a town) than I am to going back to the north side. The next point leads me to a mud path with an ancient stone wall.

Ancient cattle wall which guided what I thought was an actual path.

Beautiful Bromeliads.

What starts as mud soon turns into a bulldozed path which is rough with freshly cut trees. I assumed this was leading to the new Rum Cay Marina, but after much walking, around 4 pm, the path ends. I climb the nearest hill and find that I am dead center of the island. Not near the sound or the north or any kind of road, but basically just screwed in the middle of the island. The only option is to follow my tracks back, even though that means I will get home around 10 pm – unfortunately I told Dad I would meet him at Kaye’s at 5 pm. I knew right then I would be in trouble.

I start walking back as fast as possible knowing that my daylight will soon be gone. Unfortunately, the first thing to go is my shoes. Yes, now I am barefoot walking on a freshly bulldozed tree path. I only have an hour of daylight left. This is the worst. I switch between screaming for help and blubbering to myself. The beautiful variating greens from before are now ominous. I can’t cry, because I am already dehydrated, but I am very hysterical and crazy. But unlike my shoes I cannot give up; I just have to walk these 15 miles back – so be it. I have never liked shoes and know how to look for the muddy spots and jump from branch to branch, but every once and a while I have to pull out a twig that is lodged itself in my foot. Since I am retracing my path I know that the path MUST get better. I follow my path and start to hear the north shore breakers, thank goodness. With light I am back on the beach, which is not better because my feet are very cut up by this point. The four inches of sand sink are killing my thighs and these beaches seem a lot longer than before! I am exhausted. It is dusk and I have been walking since 11 am. Back on the cow path I see fresh tracks and as I am trying to find my tracks when I see a large (three times my size) white apparition. I quick turn off my flashlight and the cow leaves; unfortunately my path is right where he just was. I quickly skirt by only to see a horse on the beach, who upon seeing me crosses my path.

I keep going. Keep pushing. I am in such pain! But I know that Dad is worried and that I must keep going. I know that the road will be better than the beach – it has to be. Unfortunately it is not. The gravel tears at my feet and soon I am screaming (literally) at myself to keep going. I have to keep going. I am so dehydrated that I am sucking rain water out of my jacket. I just focus and keep going. My body and mind are numb, but I finally get to Kaye’s Bar around 8:30 pm. I beg for a glass of water and everyone knows I am the girl who attempted to go to the north side (as I guess Dad attempted to start a search party). Thanks to a local nurse I get a ride for the last mile and find Dad sitting in the marina’s clubhouse with Spring Song and John from the Ferro-cement boat. Thanks to water, wine, and chicken alfredo I am finally feeling a bit better. Fool me once (Stocking Island) shame on you, fool me twice (Rum Cay) shame on me. I will start to limit my adventures from now on, especially since I can now barely walk.

For your appreciation: at one point the path turned to coral and it was so pretty, unfortunately on the way back when I was shoeless, it was NOT so beautiful.

Definition of Sailing: stretches of boredom with moments of sheer panic.

We have a northerly coming into George Town and riding out the cycling winds where we are is not a particularly good idea. Mom’s flight is early so at 5 am we get up to say goodbye only to find we can’t turn our lights on. The batteries are completely dead, does this sound familiar? Since we were only running on Bank 2, we only drained Bank 2. We switched it over to both banks and the engine starts. After two hours of charging we are back up to full battery power. We head over to the Red Shanks, an area of island just off of the shore of Great Exuma Island. Unfortunately when we pulled in I misread our latitude and longitude and pushed Dad to go into the wrong swatch of water and soon we were hovering over 2 feet in depth. Whoops. After this mistake we get into our hurricane hole which seems to be very shallow so we putt around until we find a nice deep spot. We lay down our Bruce anchor and are now ready to ride out this big northerly. As we know we will be bound to our boat for the next few days we spend our first day taking the dinghy through all of the little inlets of the Red Shanks. It was basically impossible to find the little bar of Cheaters (to find out about Sunday football). We ran aground, in our dinghy, at least two or three times before we ask some locals fishing – where do we go? You will see in the map below all of the nice places we ran aground and why it was so complex to find this darn bar!

The next two days are continuous 20-25 knot winds clocking from the SE to the SW and finally resting in the NW on Sunday morning. Day 1 of being boat bound is fine. We cook, we read, we do a few things around the boat. I had a McGuiver moment when I created a fruit basket for the boat out of netting, screws, a bungee cord, electrical tape, and cable ties. Day 2 starts at about 3 am when the wind violently switches from the SE to the SW at about 30 knots with a lot of rain. We close all the hatches and wait to see if our Bruce anchor has flipped and let go… which it didn’t. This day is a bit more boring. We fix a clock, rearrange some things, but with only two people we don’t really have any games to play. Our neighboring Canadians who are delivering a 34’ sailboat Utopia, who followed us over from Stocking Island, spend most of the day on our boat where we play GOLF and Texas Hold ‘Em.

After these past two and a half days of being sequestered on our boat the Sabbath is very welcomed. Unfortunately right now we have three days of nice northerlies which we should use for sailing, but my dedication to football makes us wait until tomorrow to take our northerly out. It is a late game, again at 8:20 pm – that is beginning to become a bit of a pain. Even though Cheater (the owner of Cheater’s) promised us he would be around for football the bar was locked. I could hear the football games being played on the TV inside, but no one was around. So Dad and I plus Hieno and Mike leave the dinghys parked in front of Cheater’s and hop a ride (jump on a back of a truck) to go into Fish Fry Village and back to the Big Twelve, where we watched last week’s game. Upon arrival though, Dad decides we need to call Mom, which means we must walk back to town. As we are walking back, Cheater drives by and hails us down – told us he saw our dinghy and had been looking for us. What a guy! He lets me use his phone for free at his bar to call Grandma – couldn’t get a hold of Mom. He then decides to spend the day with us watching football at Big Twelve and will give us a ride to our dinghy later. Perfect. We snack at Tino’s, get a pizza from Charlie’s, and just drink beer at the Big Twelve while watching the Miami game, then the Packers/Steelers game. I realized that Cheater was at the bar last week, man, he is scary when he watched the Dolphins.

Cheater - my drinking companion, faithful Miami fan, and best guide ever.

Finally, my game starts. I have had far too many beers and Les, the bar owner, has started to give me free drinks. Then I decide it is a good idea to go shot for shot of Hennessey with Cheater. Word to the wise – do not go shot for shot with Hennessey against a 300 pound Bahamian man. But I have never been one to shy away from a drinking contest just ask Nik’s brother, Fat Pants Lance (I also lost that drinking contest, but not as bad as Nik did). The game is slow and I am waiting for my boys to JUMP into action, but nothing. What are they doing? Come on Vikes! I can’t continue. I refuse to write or pay any more attention. So I cry. Yes you heard me. I cry. I cry in the bar, the ride home, in the dinghy (until we run into the mangroves at night, whoops), then on the boat – all the while blubbering about how the Vikings aren’t acting like my team anymore. They don’t need to win; they just need to have a few glory moments every game, but not this game. The next day Dad gives me a lecture about how sports aren’t that important. We have been here far too long. It is time to get the heck out of Georgetown, so here we go!

For your appreciation – we did not love Georgetown, but there were points of beauty. Including the native hummingbirds that would buzz you or the large manta rays that would jump in front of your boat and the beaches, here is a shot Mom took in front of Chat ‘n’ Chill.

For Anna in MPLS: where the girls are well read, the boys wear ties, and all the children are above average.

(Book reports for Ms. Anna)

The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. A.J. Jacobs.

I am having college déjà vu. I have just pulled an all-nighter to polish off the last 200 pages of this book. What is my deadline? There are no professors who need this report by 5 am, but as this is Anna Schwindt’s Christmas present it needs to come home on Mom’s plane with her. So it is now 3 am, I made it with three hours to spare. I am astounded by how similar what I am currently doing is to my freshman year of college. I am currently confined to a very small space (my coffin bed), drinking diet coke, and eating cereal. There are obvious differences – the diet coke is lukewarm because we have no refrigeration (I now use cozies on all drinks only to keep them from becoming hot) and my Trix are submerged in Rice Dream (some rice water that does not require refrigeration). I would have had ramen but the teakettle would wake Dad up (and I am sure he is not too happy that I am using this much electricity as we have plenty of fine daylight hours). One final note on the Trix, for any of you that are not fruit cereal connoisseur as I am, a while back Trix adopted the policy of Kix and stopped making the individual shapes for the different fruits and instead went with multicolored balls thus depriving me of a big part of my childhood. Here in the Bahamas the Trix have not caught up with America, so even if I have to eat them with Rice Dream I am much more pleased.

The book is about a man who decides to read the whole Encyclopedia Britannica which is obviously quite a daunting feat. The book itself is set up in EB format listing very interesting facts. I love the book. A.J. is witty and the way he relates information and uses reoccurring jokes makes the reader remember obscure information (such as the abalones). He writes just as I, and I think most college educated friends of my age group, would think. The only problem I have with the book is that I can’t relate to the non-EB stuff. He intertwines his home life to give the book an actual story, which is needed. But fertility and daddy issues are not really my thing.Luckily, most of this seems to be more of an afterthought. A.J. was raised smart: the best schools and lessons and this and that. Things again I cannot relate to at all, but it is probably not best to judge. The only other problem I have is that somehow A.J. remembers very detailed situations of his childhood. I don’t know about anyone else, but my childhood memories are limited down to a handful and those I don’t remember in the vast detail that A.J. portrays his. This makes me worry that either I am going senile at 22 or that A.J. might be exaggerating a wee bit.

The best part of this book is A.J. basically condenses the encyclopedia for you! He leaves out the boring parts – calcium carbonate, prominent choir boys, flamboyant Italian playwrights, etc. But leaves in interesting stories, phrases, or things. I will list a few of my favorites here:

• “Never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes’ otherwise you’ll lead a very dull life.”(Thank you Ian Fleming, not only for providing me with Sean Connery in a Speedo, but also for giving me this little nugget of wisdom.)
• A male duck is not actually called a duck, but is a drake. (Cocktail party conversation starter)
• Some African varieties of gerbils carry the bubonic plague. (so not only are they kinda gross, but they can also be kinda deadly.)
• Kama is an Indian angel who shoots love flower arrows out of a bow made of sugarcane and a quiver of honey bees. (cute.)
• In the past hatters became ill because they used mercury in the transitioning of furs to felt, this poisoning eventually lead to mental deterioration – thus creating the term mad as a hatter. (next time I read a child Alice in Wonderland they will get this little extra.)
• Most modern theorists agree flexibility in life is a major key to intelligence. (I really wish that I could glean that these are causally related – since I am flexible, I am intelligent? Alas that is not how it works, but I still like the implications of it.)

The reason I like this book so much is that it is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, which I need right now (after age 20 the brain loses 50,000 brain cells a day to atrophy). It also appeals to my fear of losing knowledge already I fear to forget about the things this book taught me: the origin of mime, kappa, crab/barnacle relations, infixes, haboobs, noises giraffes make, the 1911 encyclopedia, cilantro/coriander, bearbaiting, aardwolves, larges social units in history, and other stories that I have already forgot (such as the story of two three guys who sold cadavers). Darn fleeting knowledge.

Other than the fact that poor A.J. seems to be a typical New Yorker, who only attends upper crust social gatherings and has an annoyingly pretentious upbringing, doesn’t horribly deter from the way he satirizes all of these incredibly interesting facts. I do believe anyone who reads this will enjoy it and if you don’t enjoy an entry, skip over it, there are lots of them.

I will always be thankful for the two things this book gave me. First, an answer of what I should do with my life (or at least one to tell all the people that keep asking me). I plan on being a Renaissance (wo)man. I feel it is severely neglected in this over specialized world. I plan on being a Czarina, as well. Finally it gave me the best motto ever: “I am curious about everything – even things that don’t interest me.” – Alex Trebek

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Anything that is written by a knighted man has already got me hook, line, and sinker. Everyone knows the name of Sherlock Holmes, but I really did not know anything about the books or the tv show. My knowledge was limited to the upcoming feature film. Now having read the books, Robert Downey Jr. could not have been more perfectly cast. The book is broken down into various “adventures” told by the perspective of Watson. The stories are amazing! They always come back to very logical conclusions, but in the most bizarre ways. The adventures are enthralling, especially The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle and The Red-Headed League. In all honesty, I couldn’t imagine anyone making up a better adventure than these – or The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb or of the Speckled Band. Each one is wickedly entertaining and immeasurably obscure.

I particularly like Mr. Holmes because he “loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul” and he was usually “buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition.” I for one had no idea he was a coke addict, thus why Robert Downey is a good fit. The way he throws himself into each mystery is admirable. He is also incredibly insightful into very minute details and overarching human natures: “A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box (in an emergency).” Not to mention as this book is set in the 1800s you get very fun words to look up – such as astrakhan.

The best words I have come across in the stories are all names of various carriages: brougham, a four-wheeled carriage with an open driver’s seat in front; landau, a four-wheeled carriage with a removable front cover and a back cover that can be raised or lowered (the first convertible); hansom, a two-wheeled carriage accommodating two people inside with the driver seated behind; trap, a light two-wheeled carriage which can be pulled by a horse or a pony; and dog-cart, a two-wheeled carriage with cross seats back to back which originally incorporated space for dogs below. The Kindle, with its built-in New Oxford American Dictionary, has been invaluable in learning all of these new words.

I am a complete sucker for mysteries and these are the best. They are simple, but deceptive.The mysteries are a bit dated, but who doesn’t like a good mystery that involves father’s trying to snake away with their daughters dowries and murders in opium dens. I am completely and utterly in love with these stories and how Sr. Doyle writes them, you will never pick the criminal before Holmes does, but you will always understand exactly how he came to his astounding conclusions.

The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

I was so enamored with The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes that I had to continue, but I feared I would like this story less because part of the reason I liked Adventures so much was because it was broken into those twenty little mysteries. This turned out to be a non-issue, as the Baskerville mystery itself had many little mysteries intertwined in it. This is the first time that I had encountered a problem with my Kindle. It didn’t give me a few sections that were paragraphs in quotation marks. So two very important passages I had to infer. This is not the Kindle’s fault or anyone’s fault, but the fact that I only bought (actually here is where the problem is – didn’t buy) these books. Most of the books on my Kindle are the free ones, thus I didn’t expect them to be perfect. I was so enthralled with this book that I didn’t even take out any quotes! Only this one “Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him.” The book is great! The characters are enigmatic and colorful! The scenery is truly British and the concept of a moor is so intriguing to me. I will definitely have to visit this Dartmoor that swallows ponies and appears so beautiful during the day and ominious at night. Overall, this is a short review, because I fell in love with this book just as I had with Adventures. The main characters are easily loveable. The other characters are well depicted and each one very unique and memorable. The story is well told, in many different ways (one particular reason why I like this book is because Watson used many different formats to tell the story – excerpts from his journal, letters, etc). Well done Sir Doyle.

Rum Cay, My Home. Delores Wilson.

Delores is the matriarch of Rum Cay. This book is a compilation of facts about Rum Cay including the failed Pineapple industry, salt industry and the ancient cave drawings at Hartford Cave. The short book is basically the writing of her life. Her growing up in Rum Cay and how it became part of the Bahamas not to mention its declines and booms (including the time when there was a very prosperous dive shop here). She explains how they gathered bone fish in the salt ponds, how they produced coconut oil, their feasts of coconut milk and grits. She explains how to make Bush teas and what different plants and their corresponding teas help remedy. In between she tells stories of trials and tribulations basically surrounding trying to make a business in a bar and restaurant. There is very limited writing and the rest of the book is dedicated to the local people and points of interest in picture form. The book is basically her story and a bit of family history, but it is so completely intertwined with the island that it is also a history book for Rum Cay.Delores lent me her book for me to read as she saw I was very interested in the island. It was her last copy so I quickly read it before returning it. She explained to me how she made Bush tea and then made me some. She is quite a lady and is very welcoming. If you are ever in Rum Cay – stop in and see her at Kaye’s. She is a spectacular lady and she fits to a point this spectacular island.

Who plants the sand and all its forms-

Who takes the time to make it warm

The footsteps there were placed by me

But soon they too go out to sea-

The treasures you find, sometimes one of a kind,

Are gently placed for your embrace

They soon fade away with the seas gentle sway

Watching a sunset in this beautiful place,

Is like seeing a smile on someone you love face.

Overall, this book is, I am sure, out of print. But to be lent something like this from a local legend was really thrilling and her stories really connected me more to this island.

And then there were two.

The good food isn’t the only good part of George Town. We were able to get Christmas gifts at Sandpiper (Anna Ewart – get excited), I had a massage at Peace & Plenty, we went to a Fishing Contest at Regatta Park, and the best yet was a trip to Eddie’s Edgewater for local Rake ‘n’ Scrape. It is a group of five guys – one on a guitar, one on a drum, one on a steel drum – and then the interesting ones. The other two instruments are something I had never seen before the first is a simple hand saw being played with a screwdriver and when you bend the saw it makes different noises and the other is a string attached to a metal drum which are both attached to a stick. The music itself is infectious and it causes everyone to dance – it seems similar to Zydaco or Jamaican music, but the strange instruments bring a new distinction to it.

But not only are there all of the activities and people in George Town (and the large retirement-like community of the yachters), but there is also the beautiful nature of Stocking Island (which I got far too acquainted with already). As we are anchored right outside of the large white monument on the island, we just had to go climb the monument (Mom and I) with Zephyr so that we could see the view. Once up there, although now riddled with mosquito bites, we did get to see the entire anchorage from above and get a close up of an Osprey nest – baby birds included!

Mom picked up a coconut during our hike so we had fresh coconut curry soup!

Remember those books that were popular for kids about 15 years ago. The ones that had tabs across the side and as the puppies would run off you would learn that 9 puppies minus 1 puppy equals 8 puppies. Well we are losing a puppy. With Grandma being 92 and about to have some teeth pulled Mom decided she wanted to be at home, also we are about to do some intense blue water sailing (big crosses from here to Turks & Caicos, then Dominican Republic, and then Puerto Rico) so she is also just happening to be missing this also. She will be sorely missed, but Dad and I both believe she is needed at home. We spent the last few days watching the weather, replacing our first reefing line and topping lift on the main sail, and other things like getting diesel and doing laundry. Last night we went to Regatta Park and watched a Christmas celebration with the Royal Bahamian Marching Band, which did the most amazing turns and steps while playing Christmas songs.

The weather is looking very bad for the next few days, so tomorrow morning we are bringing Mom to the airport, provisioning, and then taking the boat and tucking it into Red Shanks which is just a safe island area a bit south of George Town. We will stay here for Thursday through Sunday and hopefully leave for an overnight sail to Rum Cay and then another overnight sail to Mayaguana Island before leaving the Bahamas and doing a final crossing to Turks and Caicos.

For your appreciation, I really don’t know exactly who is reading this, but it seems like every once and a while I hear of another random person reading the blog. So thank you all family and friends, campers, boaters, college friends, high school friends, random folks – thank you all so much for your love and support. We miss you all quite a lot. (Also, Mom might not reactivate the phones when she is home, so don’t think she is ignoring you!)

Poor Poor Ochocinco

This is a small football post as the Bengals are my third favorite team so they deserve a whole post for their valiant attempt.

We decided to watch the game at The Big Twelve which is a bar in Fish Fry Village - it was purported to have all of the games and lots of TVs. It is super cute with open windows, but the TVs were an issue. Three of them could only show the Chiefs game (really the Chiefs!) and the other one had the NFL channel (currently my favorite TV channel). I had high hopes as there was a Vikings sign by that particular TV.

I am an only child. I pretend to like sharing (and I actually really do), but I do not like sharing the TV during Vikings games, which I had to do this time. I threw a tantrum and basically whined my way into watching the game. Oh yes, I am pretty impressed with myself – somehow I convinced an entire bar full of Bahamians to watch the Vikings game, but I did have to share. At commercials I had to switch it back to the Dolphins game, did you know that Bahamians love football and they really love the Vikings. This was far too close of a call. This game was REDEMPTION! Hello playoff berth!

It still hurt to lose E.J. Henderson, but watching Antoine Winfield hit the Bengals really hard was incredibly reassuring. Every once and a while when I wasn’t paying attention, eating my wings or something, I would hear a smack and see that huge grin on Winfield’s face – he knew he just sent some guy’s head spinning. On the defensive side we stopped Carson Palmer flat. Enough said.

Addition:

Things I learned from watching the Bengals:

1. I really like the Bengals and want them to do well as a team, just not against us.
2. The Bengals players have some ridiculous hair. I used to think that the Pack had the most players with wild dos but now I am sure Cinci has that statistic in the bag.
3. My mother and I both agree that I must own an Ochocinco jersey. I think this is very self-explanatory.
4. The Bengals and Vikings share many similarities. The ability to take a game that should be in the bag and throw it away and vice versa – the ability to crush a team that should be the clear winner. We also both have eccentric wide receivers and underestimated running backs.