Thursday February 3, 2011

I woke up again before sunrise. Made a pot of coffee and watched the sun rise. I have been living with out refrigeration or ice now for almost a week. In the morning I have to have cream in my coffee. Without refrigeration keeping cream from turning to cottage cheese is difficult. At Green Turtle Cay, I discovered Carnation evaporated milk. It does not need to be refrigerated. So far the can that I have has not spoiled. The milk does tend to coagulate around the little opening in the top of the can, and must be cleaned from time to time but the evalporated milk tastes fine. Or should I say better that just black coffee. Man-O-War Cay is beautiful. It was settled by the white Loyalist who left the USA because the were loyal to King George of England and opposed the Revolutionary War. Since today was not a travel day, the boating buddies went ashore for a hike around the Cay. Wow, there are a lot of churches on this island. It must be the buckle of the bible belt here in the Bahamas. Man-O-War Cay is a dry Cay. They do not sell alcohol or tobacco of any kind on the island. This island reminds me of Clebourne County in Arkansas where my friend Phil lives. Everybody drinks, but you cannot purchase the alcohol in the location that you drink it. It works for this island!

At the beginning of the hike, an old lady drove up to out group in a golf cart. She said that here name was Lola and that she was the islands baker. She was selling bread and cinnamon buns from her golf cart. I had to buy the cinnamon buns. Ellie, Jim and I will split them. I have bread on the boat that is getting moldy. That is because the loaves of bread here in the Bahamas are huge. I bought a loaf of raisin bread and wheat bread in West End. The raisin bread is almost gone. The wheat bread is moldy. It is nice to be able to split large quantities of food so that it does not spoil. I’ll feed the moldy loaf to the fish.

After the hike, I bought some carburetor cleaner for the “Joe Motor” on the dingy as it has been running in a sluggish manner the past few days.

There were lots of fish swimming around the dock. I returned to WaterMark to fetch my Pocket PoPeel fishing rod. It had a lure on it that Bert gave me in West End. The lure did not work. I would stick it in front of the fishes noses and they would not bite on the hook. I noticed a tackle shop across the street. Went in and purchased a hoot for 22 cents. I rigged the line and realized that I had no bait. I asked the waitress in the restauerant if she would be kind enough to give me a little piece of conch for bait. To my surprise, she gave me a fairly large piece of battered conch. I cut it up into smaller pieces and carefully baited the new hook.

I dropped the hook into the water in front of the fishes noses. This time is scared them all away. Once I dropped the hook into the water, the fish were gone. They swam under a large cabin cruiser. I waited. The fish finally returned. They looked at the bait. They smelled the bait. They bumped the bait. They did everything except take the bait. They would not bite. I came up empty handed. The good news is that I still have left over conch that I can use for bait tomorrow. I must start learning how to catch dinner.

We also learned that our boating buddy group will be loosing a member tomorrow. Lee and Janet on Passage are turning around and heading north and then back to the States. They actually had planned to leave this afternoon. Lee asked me to give him a hand with the dock lines. When we attempted to move Passage backwards she would not move. It was low tide and the boat was stuck on the bottom. There are about 3 feet of tides here and Lee being form the Great Lakes was not accustomed to the tidal action. Low tide made it impossible for him to leave today.

We met for a cocktail hour on FinniIrish, then, for the last time the group of five headed into the restaurant for dinner. We plan on staying in touch with one and other and emails were exchanged.

We plan on meeting tomorrow morning for coffee to send Passage off about 8AM. The tide will be up and Passage who draws 5 feet should be able to get out of the slip and out of the harbor into the Sea of Abaco with out any problems.

I then climbed down the steps on the dock and jumped into the dingy. Started the motor and made the long dark dingy ride back to WaterMark. Actually it is a good thing that the motor runs slow as it is pitch black and navigating with a pen light in my mouth in the darkness is difficult. Going slow is important because it gives you time to see and react and be able to dodge the other boats that are anchored in the harbor.

The “Joe Motor” bit me today. As I was pulling the starter cord, the cord jerked back and cut the skin between the index finger and the middle finger on my left hand. This happened because I was using 2 hands to pull the cord instead of just one. The cut hurts. Salt water makes the cut hurt even more, however the salt water will make it heal faster.

It is 8:30PM and as soon as the blog is updated, I am ready to crawl into my bunk and go to sleep. This anchorage is very dark and very quiet. The only noise I hear is a slight breeze and the small waves lapping against the hull of the boat.