Dec 16
We launched the dinghy to day and took a ride around the harbor. We toured a couple of the other marinas to see what boats were there. We found several boats along the shore that are sunk or badly damaged from the hurricanes of 2004. As is the case in the US, there is either no law requiring an owner to cleanup a derelict boat, or there is just no enforcement if there is a law. The result is that all boaters are affected when cities do things like enact a no-anchor law in their waters, instead of dealing with individual derelict boats. Many Florida cities have done this.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 17
I tackled the job of cleaning the ICW mustache off the hull today. The water in much of the ICW is a dark brown color, not unlike iced tea or cola. This color comes from decaying vegetation ashore which the water runs through on it's way to the sea. In places where the ICW runs right along the coast behind a barrier island, the water is not as dark since it exchanges with the sea water more. But in places where the ICW is more inland and is in natural rivers it is quite dark. If the boat is not kept waxed very well, this brown water will cause a stain on the front of the hull where the bow wake flows over it. We cleaned the mustache off when we were in NY this summer, but by the second day of our southbound journey, it was back. Now that we are here in the land of clear water though, it looked pretty ugly.
Barb did the hull cleaning in NY, so this time it's my turn. The cleaning really isn't as hard a chore as it might seem, thanks to the magic of modern science and toxic chemicals. There is a product called On-Off, sold in marine stores, which takes stains off of fiberglass with no scrubbing required. You literally brush it on and a minute later rinse it off. I wish I had taken before and after pictures, but I forgot. As I was doing the work, another boat arrived across the dock from us which also has a mustache. I'm glad to pass the title of best mustache to the new arrival.
Tonight is Junior Junkanoo. Junkanoo is a Bahamian tradition. To read a good explanation of the origins of Junkanoo, click here. The short story is that it involves drums, whistles, horns, costumes, and dancing. The real Junkanoo celebration is on New Year's Eve. This kids edition though is a competition between the schools from the different islands. Unfortunately, although they were supposed to start at 17:00, they didn't start until 18:30, and we had dinner reservations at 19:00 on the other side of the harbor. So, we only got to see the first group perform.
Dinner was at the Jib Room. The Jib Room is at the Marsh Harbor Marina, which is across the harbor from where our boat is. We walked to the public dinghy dock with Greg from Argonauta and rode across in his dinghy. We got there right at 19:00, and met up with about eight other folks from our dock. Tonight is steak night at the Jib Room, and about 19:15 it was announced that the food was ready. It was an assembly line deal where you got your plate and got served salad, a roll, a baked potato, steamed veggies, and then your steak. The meal was good and we got to meet Boo, the lady that we hear advertising the Jib Room on the radio net in the mornings.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 18
This morning I realized that I had not closed out my bar tab at the Jib Room last night. They had imprinted my credit card and I had signed the blank ticket when I opened the tab, so I'm sure they just closed it out, but I felt bad about not leaving the bartender a tip. So about 14:00, we hopped in the dinghy and took a ride over there. The bartender was different, but I told him what had happened and gave him money to give to the other guy when he saw him. As long as were there, we might as well have a couple of beers. A little later, several other folks came in the bar. We met a couple from Mystic, CT, who are doing a winter cruise to see if it is what they want to do long term. He works at a marina and boat yard in Mystic. We plan to stop there next summer, so we'll have to look them up.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 19
We decided to try a different restaurant that is also right by the marina for lunch. Mangoes is a good sized restaurant, and use to have a marina, but the docks were destroyed in 2004 by Hurricane Francis. I had chicken fajitas that were pretty good, and Barb had fried conch that was chewier than what she had at Snappa's a few days ago. The prices were quite high, even by local standards, so I doubt we'll go there again.
After lunch, we walked down to the grocery store for a few things. We noticed that the mislabeled onions had apparently all been sold and new ones with proper labels were there. Good thing I took the picture when I did. On our way back, we stopped at the liquor store for beer and rum. Not wanting to carry a case of beer half a mile, we had them call us a cab. Cabs here use the marine VHF radio to communicate on channel six. The VHF is used extensively by everybody like a party-line telephone. The cabs are all mini-vans, in various states of disrepair. Some of them actually look fairly new and are in good shape, but the majority are well past their prime. For four bucks, we were whisked to the marina and the driver loaded and unloaded the stuff.
Several other boats have come into the marina in the last few days. Several of them are sailboats that appear to have just crossed from the States. Once here, the crews have unloaded their stuff and left. I'm assuming that the owners will be back after the holidays, maybe with a spouse, and they had friends crew with them to make the crossing.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 20
Damn it! Isn't Paradise supposed to be sunny and warm? Well, apparently, they didn't get that e-mail here. It's cool and raining here today. The day was spent aboard, reading mostly. Unfortunately, the weather also affects the wireless signal, so even getting mail, let alone wandering around on the Internet, has been a problem. One significant item was that Barb made some homemade chocolate chip cookies, with the assistance of the pre-measured ingredients sent along by Ms. Pege, our cook-in-absentia.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 21
Another cool, overcast day in Paradise. There seems to be a low pressure area stalled right over us, which is making for an ugly, unpredictable weather pattern. As the day progressed, it only sprinkled once in the early evening. It's supposed to clear up tomorrow I think.
We took a walk to Abaco Gold, on the chance that they have repaired Barb's earring. They told us it would be after Christmas, but we need some exercise. Turned out it wasn't done, but the girl took it in back and fixed it in about two minutes. Meanwhile, I thought about replacing my gold chain that carries my Atocha coin from the BVI. It is a double-link chain, and in several places one link has broken so only one remains. I don't want it to break entirely and risk loosing the coin. After we paid for the earring repair, I inquired about how much a new chain would cost. I explained why I needed one, and the girl said they could repair mine. So, I left it.
On the way back, we stopped at A Buck A Book. This is a book/video/DVD "store" that is really a fund raising instrument for the Wild Abaco Horses. The deal here is you donate any used books/videos/DVD's that you have, and buy any they have for a dollar each. The "store" itself is a twenty foot shipping container, painted turquoise, about a block off the main street in a residential area. Most of the books, unfortunately, are musty old paperbacks, and since they are not in an exact order, we didn't spend a lot of time looking for a gem that we needed to read. But, we did pick up three DVD's, and we will drop off some of our used stuff next week.
Tonight, we joined Lark Spur (Tom & Dianne), and Mardi Gras (Bob & Debbie) for rib night at The Jib Room. We shared a cab over and back, and had a great baby-back rib dinner. I found the bartender from Saturday night, apologized for not tipping him then, and made sure he got the tip I left Sunday. Tonight I did remember to tip him and properly close the tab.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.
Dec 22
We walked into the main drag of town today. I heard there is a store that sells computers, so I am looking for a headset to use when I am talking on Skype. I have just been using the built-in mic on the laptop, but I have to speak loudly. On the way there, we passed a store that had a NAPA Auto Parts sign out front, but we had heard they had lots more stuff. We went inside just to browse around. It's funny how checking out stores has become a source of entertainment. Just down from the NAPA store, we found Abacom, the computer store. They had cheap headsets for $15, and I also picked up a ten foot USB extension cable for $12 so I can put the wireless antennae higher up and hopefully get a better signal.
Abacom was about as far down the street as we had ventured in the past, so we decided to go further down and see what was there. We found a pharmacy and went in to see what they had. Believe it or not, there are no Walgreen's, Eckerd's, or CVS's, on every corner here. The drug store was what you would expect of a small independent pharmacy. While prices on things like deodorant or shampoo were higher as we would expect, we found mosquito coils that you burn like incense for a buck a box. We have a burner but couldn't find refills at home, so we bought a couple of boxes.
Further down we found an Ace Hardware store. Like the NAPA store, there was a wider selection of things than you would expect in a hardware store in the States. We toured the store and found a citronella candle in a bucket. We're on a bug deterrent roll here. We had noticed when we walked in, that there were some young ladies up by the checkout with many trays of sandwiches and sodas. As we checked out, the manager of the store was walking around telling customers to enjoy a free lunch. So, we went over to the table and a girl gave us a plate with eight crust-less quarter sandwiches and a can of soda. Sitting outside on the curb eating them, I marveled at how our new simpler lifestyle makes us think differently. We think the fact that we scored a free lunch is a major event.
A little further down the street, we found Cost Right, which is the Island version of Sam's or Costco. We walked through checking out prices, but we don't need anything in large quantities. On the way back, we stopped at the Price Right grocery store. As a reminder, Price Right is not a pretty store, but well stocked, and Solomon's is a regular US-style store that is pretty and very well stocked. The other day we went to Solomon's and bought a turkey breast for Christmas dinner, but couldn't find any Pepperidge Farms stuffing to make the famous Mooney Family stuffing. We couldn't even find Stove Top as an emergency backup. Well, today at Price Right, we found plenty of the Pepperidge Farms stuffing, so we also got the rest of the fixings for the secret recipe. So, we will prepare a full turkey dinner for Christmas. It may just be the two of us, or we may invite a couple of other boaters who are staying here through the holiday.
GPS N 26-32.806 W 77-03.207 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3693.