February 18, 2008, All Hog's Day

Our friend Chris who showed up unexpectedly



Jason's pet goat



Private Drive, my friend.




Notice the "open" sign. Notice also that there's no roof. Welcome to the Bahamas, mon.




This Walter's fishing boat, "Promocean." Get it?


MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, TWO DOUBLE AUGHT EIGHT
JL talking. We’re back in Stella Maris. We jetted north to go around Long Island and across the open water the 23 clicks to Rum Cay, but the wind started howling during the night we camped out up at the point. 15-20 knots, which is basically when the air makes a whistling sound running over the telephone wires, or in our case, the rigging. Not long after that, the seas build quickly over a long fetch like it is from Rum to here, and they’d be up to 8 feet within a couple of hours. So, we turned around, and jetted back here. Luckily, we avoided the place we grounded out on the way there, where we got stuck in some really interesting terrain. The flats around Dove Cay have to be gone AROUND, and we tried to cut through them, since our little boat is good like that. Well, it didn’t quite work out, and after grounding out, the current was so swift, it made the boat spin to the side, dragging us sideways, scraping bottom as we went. Imagine the bottom of the boat scraping and going sideways, and as it does, it makes the boat lean hard toward downstream, and allowing it to go into water that is even shallower than the boat floats at. So we got stuck pretty well, and had to get out and wade through some coral beds to go way the hell up stream, drop the anchor and winch that sucker straight into the current again, and then rock it back and forth, winch it some more, etc. etc. It’s all good though.
We made it out, and came back here, thinking maybe we could use some help on the alternator still, which I’m starting to think we don’t, but anyway… There’s an ice cream store yet unexplored, it’s cheap here, there’s free internet up at the hotel a few miles away, Chris and Hugh are here, they fill dive tanks, have a dive shop, etc. etc.
Oh, one other thing. The only person in this marina that hadn’t already given us a ride somewhere or offered to walked up and offered as soon as we got in. Man, people here are nice.
Two days ago for breakfast, we had a big bowl of plantains, which are awesome anyway, but great with ketchup too. For lunch Ruth made a wicked bean dip thing, which was refried beans, black beans, salsa, corn, fritos, and that was it. It was amazing. Then yesterday, we had cornflakes for breakfast while we played dominoes (and “Domino” by Van Morrison came on as we started playing-weird), then we had the fish I speared for lunch, with this really good rice Norman was going to toss, which Ruth added peppers and onions to. For dinner we had the last of the lobster tails (oh wait, Ruth just told me there’s more), pumpkin, plantains, stringbeans, broccoli and mushrooms, and leftover pot roast meat.
I can’t wait till breakfast today.
Another highlight of yesterday was my completion of the first piece I made on my (Tom’s really) computer. If anybody wants to hear it, I’ll email it to you. It’s the first thing I’ve ever recorded or created using a computer, unlike all of my history- doing stuff the old fashioned way, beating on a guitar or whatever. I really dig it, but after listening to it last night, I realized that it’s a huge ripoff of a tune David made like fifteen years ago and put out on a compilation called Milk for Pussy. Oh well. It’s cool anyway.

Okay people. No more time for chitter chatter. Gotta get moving here. I have a big day ahead of me working on the boat, playing ping pong, making some music, and maybe getting online later.

Love you all,
your buddy Jack