YOU WELCOME

TITLES: in order top to bottom
YOU WELCOME, the sign on top of Flo's Conch Bar, the only building on Little Harbour Island
A picture of the inside of the bucket of the water we got at Flo's. Believe me, it tasted WAY worse than this debris would indicate...
Ukeleles hanging on our wall, from velcro... quick access
Jellyfish
"Mackerel sky, 12 hours dry" as the saying goes
November 26, 2007
WOW, People are really cool here. Yesterday Ruth and I went walking along the beach (really lava rocks) and ended up with about 15 small to medium conchs. We hauled them back, and as we walked up the dock, we saw 6 monsterous conchs that someone else got. We were cracking ours, and then they came over, it was these two cats Stitchy and Ace. I’m not sure if those were their Christian names, but they were cool. They ended up filling a bowl full of conch meat from those conchs, maybe half of their catch, and giving it to us. They didn’t even know it was my birthday. Pretty cool. That, and the loaf of bread was pretty intense.

Later, in the bar, I tried to buy them a round, but the bartenders weren’t charging me. We got talking about needing a phone, and they said they had an extra Batelco Simms card to put in my phone to make it work here. When we tried it, it didn’t work, but that was damned cool of them. We got their numbers, and hope to see them again when we get up to Sandy Pointe, off of the Bight of Abaco in a few days.

Today, we were down on our water after leaving there, and we came to this place called Flo’s Conch Bar on Little Harbour Cay. The only building on the island, I think, except some deserted fort or something up on the bluff overlooking the Atlantic. This is a GORGEOUS place by the way. It looks like some kind of imaginary place. The harbour is small and blue, surrounded by a maze of tiny islands. The sign painted on the roof says “YOU WELCOME.” There are piles of conch shells 15 feet high by maybe 200 feet wide forming the breakwater on the shore. Incredible. Inside we ask the guy, Chester, if they have water to sell. No, he says. But he ends up telling us we can take some from the cistern for the restaurant. We offer to pay, but he refuses. Water costs money most places here, even when it runs out of pipes. And he’s giving us his water. “It’s God’s water,” he says. “I can’t charge you for God’s water.”

Oh yeah. The bad news. The rudder moved yesterday breaking a crucial brass fitting for our stove, so no more hot food till we get that fixed, or buy a new one. We’re hoping to find a tap and die in Great Harbour, our next stop, and get it taken care of. That and some more bread. The new gold standard. In college it was salsa. Now it’s bread and water.

It’s crazy how isolated, undeveloped, and remote this place is. Of the 700 plus islands in the Bahamas, most are uninhabited. The few that have people are full of very few people. Big culture shock. No radio, still broken. No TV. No phones. No credit cards at Flo’s Conch Bar, and we don’t have any cash. Water is even a scarcity. Conch though, are plentiful.