Happy Smallpox Blanket Day!

Hey, one more thing everybody:

If we suddenly don't write today, or tomorrow, or whatever, it's because the online place closed, and we had to move on, or something mundane like that. Don't let it worry you if we're back out of touch, it just means we can't get online, and there are effectively no phones here until we can buy a Batelco cellphone. So anyway, don't worry.

Okay, see ya later.

Birthday wish

I got my birthday wish... I got to talk to my family. My mom, and my dad, and they told me everyone was well. That's all I needed.

And Becky emailed while I was online. She met her brother and is going to meet her sister soon!! HELL YEAH. That is AWESOME.

People are so cool here

Everywhere we go here, people are really awesome. Most of them are people you would pick for friends, and I know how picky you are in that regard. Well, you can't be too choosy, or you wouldn't be reading this... ahem. Anyway, we came in yesterday, and asked one guy if there was anywhere around to buy some bread. He said no, but his wife would tell us how to make it in a pot, she's nearby. We said no, we were in a hurry to use the online stuff and post, and so we moved on.

When we woke up this morning, someone had put a loaf of bread in our boat .

hurricane wreckage, chart of fraser's hog cay

wrecks

Pile o' conchs, fullsails, blue water, our big catch

Pile o' conchs, fullsails, blue water, our big catch

Some scenery

Rain in Key Largo, a couple of sunsets, Ruth swimming in the ocean

November 24, 12:36pm

I forgot to mention the guy I met the other day with Ruth. His name is Ansel Saunders, brother of the Ashley Saunders who wrote the biography of Bimini. Quite an extraordinary guy. He's 74, and a Bimini native. Besides having Martin Luther King on his boat 3 days before he was shot, and having the world record bonefish, he builds boats. Wooden boats that you wouldn't believe. They're GORGEOUS, and it takes him about 6 months to build one, by hand, from scratch. He takes a boat to South Bimini, cuts down a horseflesh tree with a chainsaw, and then uses the wood from that, plywood from Africa (teak, I think), some white oak, and a ton of work. His picture is here with one of his boats in progress. I have more I'll show to you all later. He uses brass screws, just like my grandfather, handsaws like my grandfather used, a folding tape measure like grandpa Charlie, and a jack plane. It was like hanging out in my grandfather's old workshop when I was a kid, seeing some of the same tools, tools I never saw anywhere again. I can still remember that smell of sawdust. Anyway, we bought a copy of his brother's book from him, even though we were low on money, and it has a story about the bonefish record. He also had a CD he made, of the Psalm he wrote (I think the 51st? Take how many there are in the Bible, and add one, anyway). It's a poem, about how beautiful nature is, and how there must be a god because of how awesome it is. He read it to Martin Luther King and he said that Martin Luther King said he felt he could see God's face when he listened to him speak of it. Wow. We didn't have money to get that too, we were tapped. He ended up giving us one, and saying we could pay him later. Send it to " Ansel Saunders, Bahamas" and he would get it. Pretty cool mail system. Maybe I'll at least put "North Bimini" on there to be safe.

I gave him a hug, and he actually made me cry looking at his boats.

I had him autograph the book to Ruth, Me, and Charles Hayward, my Grandpa.