No Travel
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| Blue Water Marina in Bimini / Alice Town Home of the Hemingway Tournament |
Once again we woke early (for us) ready to start the day. I can't help but wonder what it is about the Bahamas that has me getting out of bed before 7:30 a.m. every day. Actually I think it is the humidity that makes sleeping difficult. I am finding it hard to get a good night's sleep while being "sticky". Once the sun is up it seems pointless to remain in bed awake.
We had personal business to take care of this morning while we are still in port here with WiFi. That took up the majority of the morning. The sailboat guests at the marina all planned to leave today. Since almost no one seemed to be moving in the morning, I thought they might have changed their minds. I did see one sailboat leaving early on. At first I could not tell what they were doing (coming or going), all I could see was that they were in trouble.
Clark ran over to the end of the finger dock across the way to lend a hand. Three men (Clark, Bob, and the man from Dances with Fish III) were all pushing hard on the bow of the sailboat trying to get it off the docks / pilings. While they were focused on the bow, the stern also got too close to the pilings. When the captain attempted to go forward in that position, I thought his dinghy would be ripped off the back of his boat as it protruded from the side of his boat and got caught on a piling.
Someone started yelling, "Watch your stern! Watch your stern!" and then "Stop! Stop!" The captain did stop, which helped, but then he immediately tried to go again, which only served to let the dinghy fall back into place briefly before he made a second attempt at ripping it off. The first mate (I assume his wife) ran to the back of the boat with her boat pole and managed to push the boat away from the piling so the dinghy could slip past. She saluted with her pole and yelled, "Thank you gentlemen!" as they finally sailed away.
I stayed away, back on our boat, as I did not want to get in the way or get hurt. I worried about Clark as I saw he put some muscle into pushing off that sailboat, and it is dangerous especially with an unknown captain in less-than-favorable conditions. The last thing either of us needs is a broken arm or leg due to an out-of-control sailboat we don't even own. I was relieved when the sailboat got under control and underway. As Bob walked back to his boat he checked his heart rate on his FitBit and found it way up "... and it wasn't even my boat", he said.
After all the excitement, when I walked up to use the head, I found Maryann from Aftermath who told me they were definitely leaving today as soon as she got her computer business taken care of. She also said she would not leave without a shower since it is the last one she will have until July. They plan to spend the next four months on anchor - no marinas!
Bob spends 3 to 4 hours every day swimming in the Bahama waters fishing for lobster. His son is on a sailboat down here in the Bahamas now as well, and they plan to connect on one of the islands and spend time lobster fishing together. I gather that they eat a lot of lobster dinners during the four months they are here each year.
While I was talking to Maryann, a Bahamian woman came up to me and said, "You have very pretty hair." Then she said that Clark had sent her to talk to me because she wanted to sell us a home-cooked fish dinner for supper tonight. She offered Grouper or Mahi-mahi with rice or potatoes, vegetables, and cole slaw. I asked the price which she said was $15 per meal. When I told her I wanted to discuss it with Clark, she told me that he said it was up to me, but it sounded good to him.
With Clark's supposed blessing, I decided "what the heck" and ordered two dinners. When I got back to the boat, Clark agreed he sent her over to talk to me, but he never gave an opinion on whether it was a good idea or not. Ah, well, she got her sale. I did make sure I was not getting fried food before I accepted. She said the fish would be broiled or I never would have placed the order.
We eventually had lunch and afterwards we made our way over to see Lila Blue (Linda and Larry) to compare notes on expected wind and wave action over the next few days. We hope to leave tomorrow. Linda had a much less favorable view on the travel conditions and expects to stay here in Bimini until perhaps Sunday. She pointed out to me that all the sailboats could leave even in strong winds because of the way their boats handle the wind, i.e. they are built for it.
As we talked with Linda, Larry left the boat for a while. When he came back, he said we had missed all the action. All the sailboats had departed and instead of an almost full marina, suddenly it was almost empty. Apparently the wind and current made departing a challenge though. Several boats had difficulty getting away.
Larry said that the sailboat that had been docked in the slip next to ours, Cleopatra, had a particularly bad time of it. They got pushed up against the end of the fairway and couldn't get off. Finally someone came out and towed their boat off so they could get underway. Darn! I wish I had been able to watch the show!
Shortly after that Larry kicked us off his boat saying he needed Linda to make him lunch and didn't we have somewhere else we needed to be. From someone else I might be offended, but for some reason I just found it an amusing, not-so-subtle hint. Since it was approaching 3:00, we left right after that so he could eat lunch. Given the time we had assumed they had already eaten.
Perhaps it is my inability to sleep well the past few nights, but I had the "groggies" something fierce today. Listening to Linda and Clark talk about wind speed and direction nearly knocked me out cold. Only the fear of appearing extremely rude stopped me from falling over sideways in the salon. When Larry said we should go, I was more than happy to comply.
I decided that I wanted / needed a strong dose of caffeine, which is something I never indulge in. Hot tea sounded atrocious on such a muggy day; iced tea sounded wonderful. However, I had no ice. I pulled out my ice maker and started it cranking. After about an hour of working, the ice maker had produced enough ice for me to make myself an iced drink. I kept the ice maker going all afternoon and had two tall glasses of iced tea. The rest of the ice I bagged up and stuffed in the boat freezer for next time.
Since Clark hopes to leave here tomorrow, he suggested that we enter our route into the chart plotter so that we would be ready to go come morning. We sat on the fly bridge using his iPad that talks to his chart plotter to enter the waypoints and connect the dots to create the route to our next planned destination - the Berry Islands.
Promptly at 6:30, just as she said she would, the Bahamian woman came to our boat with our fish dinner. As she handed me the food, she said, "Oh, look at that shark!" I yelled, "Clark, Shark!" and he came running with the camera. He ran all over the docks this way and that so I thought he was unable to capture a picture. In fact he took a few, and three of them turned out reasonably well. Here's the best one:
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| Shark and two Pups |
When Clark finally came back to the boat from his photo opp, we ate our fish dinners. I ordered the grouper with mashed potatoes. She promised enough food for two days, so I considered only ordering one meal. We had plenty of potatoes and mixed vegetables for leftovers, but the fish serving was sparse - barely enough for one meal let alone two. We finished the fish portion of the meal off in no time. The food was good, but I am not convinced that I got my $30 worth. Each plate needed twice the serving size of fish to give value to the meal. No regrets however as I had a very tasty meal that I did not have to cook.
Having sat on our boat or Lila Blue for the majority of the day, I jumped up ready to go when Clark suggested we take a walk after dinner. Linda showed us all the shells she has collected and told us where we could go here in Bimini to find shells. With that in mind Clark thought we should walk the beach and do some shelling. We headed for the public beach access by CJ's Deli.
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| Looking down the street to the beach back towards Queen's Highway and the marinas |
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| CJ's Deli on right (yellow building) CJ's Sports Bar on left (also a yellow building) on street running parallel to the beach |
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| View one of beach as seen from beach |
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| View two of beach as seen from beach what a difference a few steps make! |
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| Conch Shell we found on the beach |
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| Now if I only knew how to do Conch Shell sculptures, I'd be all set with this beauty! |
Since it was after seven when we set out on our beach walk, Clark managed to get some beautiful sunset pictures from the beach. Here are a couple of samples:
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| Sailboat in background, beach in foreground Taken from Beach at Bimini / Alice Town |
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| View of beach from CJ's Deli in Bimini / Alice Town |
Earlier in the day Clark saw a woman walking back to her boat from the pool and asked her how it was. She gave a good review of the pool and planted a seed of interest in Clark's mind. When we got back to the marina after our beach walk, we were both hot and sticky. Clark asked me if I wanted to go for a swim before taking my shower. I thought about it briefly, laughed, and said, "Sure, why not!?"
The water felt cooler than I expected. I guess I got used to Faro Blanco's heated pool. Still it felt very refreshing (something I could not say for FB's pool). We swam for a few minutes, got our body temperatures down, and then hit the showers.
Weather permitting we hope to be in an anchorage tomorrow night. That does not bode well for a blog entry, but we shall see what happens. If we need to stay here due to winds or wave action, we will once again have WiFi.
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