video for you

www.youtube.com/v/C03PfMTWzfc
click the link above.

misc old photos

These giant lobsters are a menace. See other lobster photo below.



Sleeping guy



view from fernandez bay, Cat Island



blooming ponciana



firecracker plant

miracle apparitions of the virgin Mary and others

we beheld this miracle of the virgin Mary's face in this tree



And Saint Sebastian



This is that guy from the Police Academy movies



the bench and sign to the hermitage. Hand made stone bench-super cool.



By Daniel Johnson. This photo is for the Coop

Old photos of Ruth's back

This is a tree they call the "tourist tree" because it looks like the skin of a tourist after a sunburn



Here's another one of that same tree



This is a picture of Ruth's injuries before.



Just kidding. She is doing so much better- wait'll you see her. She looks like a million bucks.

Calling Phyllis

calling Phyllis



Ruth's getup after her burns.



This is the treasure chest at the resort at Cat Island. Ferndandez Bay, to be exact. Ruth saw the pretzels and missed the treasure chest. Poor hungry girl.



cool leaf, purple on one side, gree on t' other



cool flower

Beloved Father Jerome

The land outside father Jerome's, burnt to cinders during his "Reign of Blood," as his scorched earth campaign was known. But it was not enough for Father Jerome. He had emerged against impossible odds, vanquished all of his adversaries, and seized victory from the jaws of defeat, but still he pressed on, crushing, murdering, destroying, looting, pillaging. Like Sherman ravaging Savannah, he burned everything in his path, leaving even the very rock, formed from volcanic eruption withered and burnt. His fury had no boundary, his wrath no horizon. It was not enough, never enough, for Father Jerome.



Someone trying to blind us on the way back from FJ's clearing the land with a controlled burn

old pics from Beloved Father Jerome's crib

can you guess my nationality?




Father Jerome's happy-go-lucky message



cool plant growing on FJ's house






actual size

place overgrown and filled with bottles and a cactus

these were actually laying in the debris like this



this building was FILLED with bottles. I wrote about it in another blog



I call this "doomed to failure." Just kidding it was beautiful.



overgrown foundation at Der Bottle Haus

here's photos I couldn't put up before, these and the ones above...

armbuster house



the great house ruins



me and my boy ponciana



this here's the green room. haw haw.

Nassau, time to split!

before



after



long island anchorage



this is the nest of some kind of wren or something at Hawk's Nest. I might have mentioned that already.



Where John and Laura Lee put us up. Super cool people. We hope to catch them when we drive through Alabama.



NASSAU, NEW PROVIDENCE, BAHAMAS, April 20, 2008
Dude, it’s like, April 20th. You know, like 4-20 dude. Get it? I heard some hippies saying that. I think that must mean Hitler’s birthday or something, or Jerry Garcia. I always get them mixed up. Anyway, how’s it going?




Long silence.




Well, I’ll tell you how it’s going for me then. It sucks that I can’t hear you telling me how it’s going, that’s how. I miss you all. A bunch of stuff has happened, but I don’t feel like writing anymore. I mostly just feel like driving the boat HOME, so I’ll just give you a list, and then I’ll try to post some photos.

Let’s see. We went diving a bit. Got chased out of the water by barracudas.
Tried to fish in our crossing to Nassau, had our 80 lb. test line broken by a fish, who ran off with all of our lures.
We had a crazy windstorm hit us when the last front came through while we were in Harbor Island. It was total calm, then a wall of wind hit us- like 30 mph or something. It was 3 or 4 in the morning. I got up, and I said “what the hell,” and lowered the engine into the water, just in case. As I did that, our anchor pulled free and we started blowing across the bay toward the rocks and a lot of boats. That was intense. Then we snagged another boat’s anchor line while dragging, and banged into it a bit.
We put in our tillerpilot, which was waiting for us here in Nassau with our buddy Peter. We were glad to see him, he’s a good egg. The Greek guy I’ve written about. He owns the marina. He’s the one whose mother left Armenia with all of her gold buried, and a few pieces sewn in her dress and came to the U.S. Really cool story.
We were hoping to see our friend Demetrius while here, but that’s not looking likely. Nor going up to the Berry Islands to snatch that toilet out of the shipwreck off of Great Harbor. I thought that would be sweet, to have a working toilet from a shipwreck up at Torch Lake. Oh well. The dogs are calling us home.
Been listening to the debates. Ever get the feeling the people that own the media outlets (and coincidentally, many other huge corporations- but hey- no conflict of interest there…) want Hillary Clinton to be the democratic candidate? I assume since she is so much more beatable than Barack Obama. But anyway, the first FORTY FIVE MINUTES of the debate was grilling him about things that OTHER PEOPLE said or did, that they somehow implied he should answer for. Yet, Whitewater, the murder of Vince Foster, etc. never come up for her in the debate. When George Bush invades the wrong country TWICE, and makes a big joke saying “where are the weapons of mass destruction? None under here… Maybe under here?” and on and on, laughing, looking under tables, etc. Or claims he invented the words “misunderstanding,” and “hispanically,” the media SOMEHOW don’t even notice. Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky were in the news for a couple YEARS over NOTHING. God help Barack Obama, an honest man in nest of scoundrels, toadies, and snakes. He’s getting skewered for things he had nothing to do with. Imagine if he had actually done anything wrong, ever, that anyone could point to. God help him. Shit, God help him anyway.
Ruth and I are getting ready to jet. We’re hoping to take the next weather window to Bimini tomorrow morning. The following day, we hope to cross the gulf to Florida. If we don’t appear, it doesn’t mean we died trying, just so you know. It means we had crap weather and decided to stay back.
I don’t have much news really. I’m just going to try to post photos.
Okey doke. XOX y’all.

More bloggywogs for your eggy-eyes-april 14 2008

gauge label I grabbed from the shipwreck "Provider"



Sunset, duh!



It really is that color







Detail of the parrotfish I shot


MONDAY, APRIL 14 2008 by Greasy Grampy HARBOR ISLAND
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the shipwreck on the way to Spanish Wells where we stopped and had a bonfire on the deck after we explored the inside. We did that. Then we went to Stepford Wells, as I mentioned already.
We really came all the way here so that we could rent Scuba Gear at Spanish Wells, and then scuba this train wreck that’s off of the reefs on the north side of the island. Yeah, I said “train.” Apparently, it was a Union train captured by the Confederacy, then sold to Cuba, and it fell off a barge on the way there. If you happen to look at a map, you’ll see that this is a bit off the route to Cuba, but hey, when you’re diving train wrecks, you stop questioning things. In any event, we heard there isn’t much there, just the wheels and carriages, but we still couldn’t find it, and neither could this local cat who we teamed up with who had a GPS waypoint for it. It didn’t help him that his waypoint was 20 minutes north and 14 minutes west of where he said it was (about the same as miles), but he tried valiantly, nonetheless. Since it was in the middle of the area called “the Devil’s Backbone,” for good reason, we pressed on after looking a bit.
Since we’re waiting out the latest cold front, we figured we might as well do it at Harbor Island, so here we are. Home of the $20 hamburger. We had a good swim in the ocean, but pretty much have been having a tame time. Cooking food, listening to XM, having dreams about the dogs.
Man, I’ll say it. I’m HOMESICK. I’m really enjoying this and all, but I’m really excited to get home and see everyone. My pore ol’ mudder wants to have a party for us at Burt’s house when we get back. So, you’re all invited. If you don’t want to travel and you’re far away, maybe we can have another party at your house the next week? Whaddya think?
Okay, I’ll bust outta here, since I don’t have much to say.

Take it easy.
Jack

P.S. Pinder

this be the view at Rainbow Bay

This is the view from the lot Ruth and I will be buying, hopefully.

One looking left, and one looking right. You can see a tiny bit of the ocean on the other side of the island if you face the opposite way, but it's not much. It's about a quarter mile across the island to the beach there.

You BETTER come hang out there if we build a spot on it!

spanish wells people are nuts

this picture was funny because the "mouse" on the computer is a real mouse.



We took this picture of Ruth because Ruth is one of three sisters. I suggested that we find a local black guy to make it "three sisters and a brother" since Ruth has a brother, but Spanish Wells is the one island in a practically all black country with no black people. I don't think the guy wearing a hat with the Confederate Flag there was a coincidence. WhatEVER, man.



tree that was cool



the Bahamas is crazy. EVerything is backward here. Here the klan burns the crosses on their OWN front lawns.



There's that tree again