Bahamian Snowman |
A long and winding road |
Migrating butterflies all over the place |
Big creepy spider preparing her dinner |
There wasn’t time to go any further so we turned back and by
the time we arrived the Market was in full swing.
I had hoped for some fresh veggies but really didn’t see
anything that I knew how to cook… mostly some very robust looking greens. I had my eye on a really pretty hand woven
purse with goat fur accents… but it was $65 and I couldn’t justify the purchase
since I haven’t carried a purse in more than three years…
But what I really came here for was an island-grown watermelon. We had seen them here last week and I talked
myself out of buying one… then I spent the entire rest of the week asking
myself why I hadn’t. Not going to make
that mistake again.
People were coming and going, the market was a “happenin’”
place today. The men hung out admiring
the new roof while the women went about business. Before we turned to leave we found some
loaves of fresh baked bread and picked up one of those. I eat so much more bread out here cruising
than I’ve ever eaten before. But I just
can’t pass it up… it’s SO good! I like
to justify it by telling myself that I’m stimulating the local economy… yeah,
that’s what I’m going with.
We told met up with Sally and told her that we were going
back over the island for a walk and invited her to join us. They invited another couple and their son,
and the seven of us took off over the hill.
The view of the coast was – yep – you guessed it… Stunning of course. Nothing new here, we’re getting used to
it… We stood around chit-chatting until
the guys prompted us to turn around and backtrack to the dinghies and returned
to our respective boats.
We had lunch and cut up our watermelon. It was a deep rich color with very thin
rind. It was nothing like the pale
tasteless melons we get back in the States.
We relaxed and got in a long nap.
Hey, doing manual labor has made us very tired! We were just waking up and lying around
reading when we heard Jerry holler across at us from Encore.
There had been a call out on the VHF for an emergency beach happy hour at the north end of the Bay. We scrambled to get our drinks ready and headed for the shore!
Days like this make me think about my former life. Back when I was stressed out and tired all
the time. Back when almost every moment of
my day…week… month was planned out in minute detail. Spontaneity was something I had to work to
cultivate. But if you have to cultivate
it… then it isn’t spontaneous… right?
Now our days just seem to “happen”. We never know how they will go. It’s like we are careening through space with
no ties. It’s like every day really is a
fortune cookie that we crack open to read…
The girls, yes swatting no-see-ums |
We shared stories and weather forecasts and swatted
no-see-ums (yes, I forgot to bring my repellant… when will I learn) and made
short-term plans written in sand at high tide.
We watched the sun go down and suddenly scattered back to our floating
homes bathed in glorious colors of sunset.
About those weather forecasts… We were in for a doozie of a blow. The next day would begin very calmly with a
light breeze from the south. It would
continue to clock around to SW, W , NW and eventually north with steadily
increasing velocity.
Thompsons Bay is protected from all but southerly winds, but
since the winds from the south were forecast to be light and for only short in
duration before they clocked behind the peninsula… we figured we could stand
it. I guess we didn’t have much choice…
there was nowhere to run here on Long Island.
Bow goes up... |
Bow goes down... |
We joined quite a few other boats already anchored there but still spread widely apart with plenty of room for us… We set the anchor and Encore came over soon afterwards to park nearby. It would be a long day.
We piddled and read and I cooked some things. I was just saying as we sat down to eat lunch
with the boat leaping against her anchor rode… “I wonder if we should get the
cat out of our room in case she gets seasick…”
when I heard the telltale sound of – yes – she was seasick.
I scrambled to reach her and get her off of the bed before
she tossed her breakfast all over our sheets… but I was too late. I guess the good news is that since we had
never really attended to our morning chores, the bed was unmade and she only
took out the sheets and not the bedspread.
So I spent the next half hour washing our sheets in a bucket in the bathtub… Hey, they probably were due for a wash anyway and I was just being lazy. Now we had to figure out where to hang them to dry without the boat taking flight! I spread them out as best I could, figuring with all the ventilation we were getting, they would be dry by naptime. And they were!
After another lengthy nap (that’s two days in a row!!!) I
got up and made a nice steaming pot of homemade chili. It was actually quite cool with the winds now
blowing from the NW, bringing lots of wintery thoughts. Hey, I even had to dig out my sweatpants and
hoodie! Brrr…
As the sun began to set, the winds began to lessen… as
forecast. It was still blowing pretty
briskly but the land flattened the water and our evening was calm. Somehow after a day spent doing very little
other than reading about cruising the island of Hispaniola we were ready for
bed again.
The weather forecast for the rest of the week had us
confounded. We really want to get on
with our plans, especially after reading the cruising guides. But it looked like we would be staying on
here a while, and that’s OK too.
Cruising life is good.
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