Mutton, rail meat, Georgetown Beat!

We are eating out of Styrofoam in a shack. It’s a green shack and we’re eating mutton.

It’s a slapdash shack in a makeshift row of candy coloured structures, plucked together over the course of a few days. Wires and cables snake the ground around us and an open faced fan with exposed blades, throws warm dusty air at us. We are lined up against the wall with our tiny plastic forks, futilely spooning rice. The sticky plastic table cloth hosts a number of hot sauces and luke warm cream based salad dressings despite the lack of salad on the menu. There are the usual Bahamian offerings of barbecue ribs and chicken and mutton with peas and rice and macaroni and cheese and plantain. It’s all finger-lickin’-good. And it all goes to the hips. There must be 50 makeshift bars offering rum punches, sky juice (a trendy local gloopy white concoction of gin, sweetened condensed milk and coconut milk), and the local beers – Sands and Kalik, on special.

Over our heads, the local banter reaches epic volumes. It’s a ‘cacophonous symphony’ of shouts and laughter, knee slaps and hollers.

On another level, the base from competing sound systems lifts the floorboards to the incessant beat. Rake n' scrape, the local music pumps out hits like 'All Da Meat', 'Roach on My Bread', 'Bush Mechanic', 'That Ain't No Mosquito Bite' and more...

It’s hot and our clay-dust flip flopped feet have carried us around the tiny town, which is abuzz for the week. It’s the 66^th Annual National Family Island Regatta in Georgetown. Big words for a set of boat races in the harbour. The wooden boats with their giant sails, have been made across the small islands of the Bahamas for generations. Communities across the nation have been preparing and perfecting their vessels and crew since last year’s race. The boat names and their colours are amazing. Barbarians, Confusion, Beerly Legal, I’ve Tried, Ruff Justice, New Slaughter, Termite… etc. all out there, sails puffed, ‘rail meat’ out on the boards, representing their islands!

And we are here, eating steamed mutton in a shack. We will head out to one of the many race viewing vantage points, once our bellies are full, to watch the spectacle unfold. To the untrained eye, it’s organized chaos. With a breathtaking turquoise backdrop.

In the evenings there will be marching bands and fashion shows; the finest and most bizarre come out and flaunt what their mama gave them. There are literally all shapes and sizes, dressed in every colour, material and style imaginable. And some unimaginable. 

There will be music pulsing from giant black speakers piled high, and the partying will continue literally until the sun comes up. Oh, and I’ll be part of that! Lying in bed, facing the music with my 33 decibel industrial grade ear plugs. Zzzzzz.

This is a big event for Georgetown and the ‘out islands’ as they’re called. And we are here. Loving every minute of it. And slurping our mutton bones gleefully.

Ragged Islands: water water everywhere...

Alan is a pretzel. Literally. Knees hug ruddy cheeks; arms twist above and below. He has worked his way down into the awkward cavity at the back of the boat; a salty pretzel with a wrench. The metal steering tiller arm threatens to behead him as he’s jostled about by the waves below.

Shiloh bucks and jolts in tune with the building seas. The wind is picking up which  was not forecast. Surprise surprise. We are anchored in 8 ft of water over the Exuma banks and land is miles away in every direction. We have come through Hog Cay’s narrow channel at high tide and the next island to find protection is over 30 miles away. In sailboat terms, that’s a lot of hours away.

Night is approaching and we are frantic. On anchoring, we discovered our floorboards floating in the port hull. 

With bulging eyes and sinking stomachs we exchange anxious glances. ‘Are we sinking?!!!’, is what we ask without asking. I stick my finger into the greasy sloshing liquid and realise it’s fresh water. Phew! But wait, this means our entire water tanks have emptied into the dirty bilges. Irretrievable. I want to cry.

A day before, we’d negotiated the tedious tying up at Exuma yacht club and spent an hour or two filling the tanks to the brim for our adventure in the land of remoteness…. $50 later, we left, tanks full, hearts happy and excited.

Now, as the water slapped back and forth with the bouncing of the boat, our hearts, if not our boat, have sunk.

The next 4 hours grind by in a sweaty frenzy, JW and Al pumping the lot of it out into the ocean and running tests with our remaining portable water jugs to locate the cause/leak. 

Our queasy guest downs a Gravol and slinks into a cabin into a comatose state to avoid the drama.

By dark, the lot of us feeling green and gutted; the guys have discovered the culprit. An old shower pipe on the ‘sugar scoop’ (back step) had burst and triggered the water pump. It had dutifully pumped the tanks dry. Sigh.

Well, we have to go back to Georgetown! How will we manage 3 weeks in the Raggeds without a drop of water?!

Alan the ultimate optimist jumps up, unfolded from his yogic position and protests. We do have watermakers. Between our two boats, we will make jugs and fill a tank just enough to give us three quick showers and a sink of dishwashing water a day. So hesitantly we agree, and try to regain our enthusiasm. But clearly this is not a good start.

The official Explorer Guides (many cruisers’ bibles for sailing) describe where we are headed as follows:

“This is unpopulated wilderness… You must be totally self-sufficient here…there is a palpable sense of remoteness… we do not encourage casual visiting… there are no marinas, no Search and Rescue help, no fuel, no water… you are on your own here.”

Sleep comes clawing and drags us under, despite the fact the wind has decided to hand us a further warning. It’s howling and kicking up the shallow waters around us, creating a wild vast washing machine as our night’s shelter.

Two days later, we are sitting on a beach, drinks in hand, snacks set up on a ragged piece of wood, chatting with the crew of two other catamarans we found as we sailed around the top of Flamingo Cay. Seems cruiser life as usual. Normal but for the constant drone of the watermaker motor, sucking in that sea water and miraculously churning out trickles of water we can use! Jugs are lugged up and down the stairs, keeping our tanks just full enough…

Fast forward one more day. The watermaker has died. And we are one further island down into the heart of the Ragged Islands. The area where ‘you are on your own, no help, no water, no marinas etc…. Again those exchanged looks of panic and some added frustration. Sod’s Law applies double fold in remote areas. We are not Robinson Crusoe and this issue needs fixing fast.

6 hours later, sweat, blood, chunks of metal rearranged, hammers, wrenches, rust flakes… the watermaker, having been dislodged from it’s cupboard below and brought out into the light, lies exposed on our cockpit table. A casualty of time and salt air. The prognosis is iffy. 

Alan zooms away in his dinghy with the cracked brushes (an essential motor part), and an idea. And we wait. And in the meantime he carries jugs and jugs of water from his boat to ours. Thanks goodness for buddy-boaters. And best friends. The Raggeds would otherwise have defeated us as the ‘holy’ book predicted.

We try to carry on with the business of enjoying the clear blue waters and white sand beaches while the patient lies like a rusty elephant on it’s makeshift hospital gurney. We cover him in old sheets for the night and hope for the best for the next day.

And doctor Al comes through first thing, sun shining extra bright, the water a blue shade of turquoise… with a home glued potentially life-renewing part!!!! 

After two more hours of surgery the patient is returned to his working compartment and the moment of truth… the on button. IT WORKS!!!!!! It works! Phew. It keeps working. Which means we can keep going. So after some cups of tea for the doc and pouring some libations to the gods of remote boat life… we are off. 

Grey to blue: a year in review

Across the tropical shores of the world, boats lie dormant. Bobbing, listing, withering, moulding. Birds gather, disrespectfully gossiping up on the spreaders, shitting on the abandoned dreams of the deck below. Some boats are bound in shrink wrap, as if to protect them from the inevitable decay. In the court of nature’s wrath, the all powerful sun, wind and rain beat them down for months, years. Voiceless, no creaking of footsteps, no parting of waves below their keels. Once majestic sails lie torn and shredded, threadbare. Deep inside, ecosystems thrive. The mould and insects that sense death, take over the coffin. The ugly, grey process of decomposition takes hold.

Each one has a story. It’s a story of family or of finance. One phone call, one diagnosis. A mother or a child. The anchor of land cannot be ignored. Sailors are recalled. Life on the water, with it’s fantastic highs and extreme lows, falls away.

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A year ago today, my grey clammy skin recoiling from the harshness of mirror and light, I brushed my teeth. I gulped down coffee coloured liquid. I dressed in borrowed clothes, pulled on a thrift store pair of boots and faced the bitter cold, the slush, the highways. 

On autopilot we drove to and from suburbia to the city. Between the traffic, blurry hallways of hospitals welcomed us, inspid, assaulting all senses with the smell of bleach and urine and promising a set of heartwrenching hours ahead. It consumed me literally; entered my bones and my soul. 

It could have been any day.  Every one as grey as the last. My stomach cramped, echoing the hopelessness, the ache, the circles under my eyes. It wasn’t about me at all. But life’s knocks are blows. They wipe out families and communities and leave us all bruised and whimpering in a cold wet puddle.

My mother’s illness brought me ‘home’, only to discover that she was my home. That I am only from a place, but not OF that place.  Twenty something years away are lifetimes and lessons that add up to a stranger. A stranger in her mother’s house, weeping over the piles of things that will never be used again. Buried. 

Filling, carrying, handing over endless boxes of things in the back alleys of bleak parking lots. Wasted hot tears, spilling, heaving despair for a life that is over, despite the living breathing, suffering woman in a hospital bed some miles away.

A stranger in thrift clothing was I, living a year in turmoil, displaced and heartbroken.

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A month ago today I woke to the gentle lapping of the dinghy and the cool breeze of a Bahama spring morning. I peered into the mirror at the brown Sunkist face, wiser for the extra lines. Drenched in sunlight through the hatch above, washed the sleep from the corners of my eyes in the cramped little ‘head’, excited to step up into the day.

Turquoise bombarded my senses – swimming-pool-blue ocean waters and periwinkle skies met my gaze as I devoured each indulgent sip of rich dark coffee. The warmth entering my bones, embracing my soul. 

It could have been any day. Every one as blue as the last. I don’t keep track in terms of day names. They are all blissfully soul nurturing. There are fluffy clouds and random storms and the hugs from friends. This is all about me. It’s the tear that slips down past my sunburnt cheeks, into the ocean. Heartache blows. It’s what you carry over the sea and share it’s burden with the sky above. 

My mother’s death taught me what I always suspected. That things are useless and pointless and that it's the choices we make and the perspective we embrace that lead to exactly where we find ourselves. We can’t control the wind or whether our mother will be waiting on the other end of the phone when we need to share. It’s life’s bitter twist. It’s inevitable. Life challenges us to find the beauty.

I am not a stranger here. You can’t be a stranger in your own life. If you are living your life. 

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Shiloh had a story. She sat patiently if reluctantly bobbing between pilings, tied up and tugged by ropes, abandoned for a year. It took effort to bring her back from the brink. But there is life within her hulls again. The people who call her home know that everything is a fragile balance. There are a billion colours and smells and tastes to find and touch and taste and explore. Lemon sharks may be swimming below you, tropic birds chirping above. 

The stars shine most brightly when they are not obscured by the false lights of a city.