Buccaneers - the booty, the bounty and the broccoli

Having resigned ourselves to moldy broccoli and canned beans, we departed the little town of James Cistern, headed for beaches and beauty.

We happened upon paradise. An extra dose of paradise in fact. South Cistern, a few miles down, revealed lines and layers of sand bars in every colour of blue and beige the mind could fathom. And then it added more. We had to go exploring.

What we found after pinching ourselves at the beauty around us, was a mystery we will carry onward. Like excited sleuths in a PG-13 adventure movie, we ran from pile to pile of rusted, melted wreckage. What could it all be from? A ship? A barge?  An old dump site?! There were giant rust-orange engine parts and hunks of remnants of cans and even bottles. And then JW pulled out a fully formed little light green bottle from the ancient heaps. We gathered around as he shook off the sand to reveal the embossed cursive letters: ‘Coca Cola’. How old are these?! How could they still be sitting here on the beach? Why are we the first to find them?! I couldn’t wait to get back to the boat to do some Googling. But first – enjoy more paradise!

We kept a couple bottles each and carried on our walk, marveling at the numbers of small conch shells lining the beach. We found little piles of them in the edge of the forest, smashed. We imagined the shipwrecked crew breaking them and eating them whole for sustenance.

Back at the boat I laid out our treasure haul and started investigating. First article I came across, with a photo of our exact bottles: “OLD COKE BOTTLE SELLS FOR $110,700”. Huh?! Whaaaaa?! Two seconds of excitement. So much fun! Yippee! Woohoo!!! VHF call to Alleycat “We’re rich! Our coke bottles are worth over $100k!!!” 

And then, coming back to earth, I read on to discover the featured bottle had been a prototype… never actually released and had perhaps been smuggled out of the factory by an employee…. Turns out the ones we found are actually from the early 1950’s which is so cool! And they’re selling on Ebay for $10 to $20 each. Not so cool. Those are the ones in pristine condition, not burnt in a fire amidst ship parts, on a random beach in the Bahamas. I don’t think any buyer would appreciate the story to explain the nicks and gashes on our specimens. We’ll just have to add them to our coffers that hold our precious stories and memories. Lads and lassies, time to raise the Jolly Roger and move on. A whole five miles south to Governor's Harbour!

We walked the town and toasted our luck over burgers at the fittingly named Buccaneers. 

And then came the news. The most exciting news. The veggie place does exist! They even have a website and a Facebook page! They have farm fresh eggs and homemade hummus and fresh baked breads and free wifi as an added bonus. Apparently. We are approaching this revelation with caution. Can’t get too excited until we are standing there on terra firma, amongst the bounty.

Today is the day. Time to weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen! Pirates of the Eleutheran coast. More like scallywags. We’ve found our treasures, we are off to continue the plunder and pillaging!

Strong rum and weak dryers - the wild veggie quest part two

There were no veggies. No local farmer’s market bustling with eager customers, filling their baskets with locally grown fresh tomatoes and cucumbers and guavas and limes. The dream we carried, clung to, fought weather and waves to reach, was a façade. A mirage across the desert of Bahamian grocery stores lined with processed foods and overripe American produce. To be fair, it would have been a first if it had existed. But that dream kept our spirits up on those blustery days aboard…

 

There was no karaoke either, for us. Hatchet Bay did provide the safest shelter a boater could ask for though, and Rinaldo served up some brutally strong rum drinks. 

 

He also boasted of their laundry facilities, so I decided to lug our waterproof bag over one windy afternoon. Couldn’t find the man himself but presumably his wife, sat behind the counter in their closet sized convenience store, baby on breast, offered to show me to the laundry. We meandered through doors and gates, kids of various ages playing, guys erecting a canopy, broken cars, old dusty dogs, half cured cement platforms, loose garbage, toys, broken tools, chickens and more until we arrived at an open door. She held out an inviting arm and explained that there were no coins involved but that I could just go ahead and then let her know later how many washes I’d done. I barely heard her though, as I was too amazed at the room. It was basically an outhouse to the family home, all the Christmas decorations and copious amounts of junk overflowing giant Tupperware containers, boxes, or simply strewn along the shelves that you could barely squeeze by, to wedge yourself in by the two filthy washing machines and the dryer. Well, better get to it then. Trying to touch nothing, I loaded up the machine and off we went for a walk through town.

 

 

Nearly four hours later, nine dollars for the pleasure, through about 4 x drying cycles, cursing, rainy squalls, thirst and hunger and in the company of our new companions, the yards’ resident dusty scabby dogs, our one load of laundry was washed and finally dry. Well almost dry but I wasn’t waiting another minute. Sigh...

And then we woke up one morning to not a breath of wind. Easter Monday and no promise of hot cross buns around here, so it was time to leave the safe harbour and head off, toward those elusive veggies! Our exit through the treacherous cut that we’d barely maneuvered a few days earlier, was a calm clean cruise. We made our way out the flat blue waters into the Eleuthera Sound. This is the way it should be! The lee of an island. Protected from wind and waves, a smooth sail south along the coast in the glorious sunshine. A blissful morning.

We reached James Cistern, the sleepy little village rumoured to host a farmer’s market on weekdays. We’d have to wait til the morning. We anchored on a rock and reanchored, and finally settled. Soaked up another gorgeous Bahamas sunset. 

The next morning came the bad news.

Alleycat headed to shore to investigate. No place to dock the dinghies! Just rocky shoreline. The government jetty had no planks… we’d have to wade in to get to those veggies! So be it. We hobbled over rocks, knee deep, our cooler bags in hand and headed in. There were two food stores. Neither had heard of a veggie market. Our faces fell. Our hopes dashed. Our dreams shattered. We ignored the processed junk lining the aisles and passed up the rotting three avocados. We scooped up the few bits of two-week-old-imported salvageable vegetables packed in the fridge and moved on. You have to shrug off the punches and look ahead.

Got back to the boat to find my newly acquired broccoli full of black mold. Frozen veggies it is then!

Our reward for positivity in the face of adversity was pretty much a heavenly scene for the next day. 

 

And then there's the promise of a meet up with awesome sailing friends we haven’t seen since they waved off the dock in Titusville months ago.

So tonight there will be partying, merriment, laughter, feasting. Friendship. And then we will find another adventure to pursue, absorb, appreciate. Governor’s Harbour, the old capitol of the Bahamas is just a short sail further south. And maybe, just maybe, we will find some veggies.

Hatchet Bay Day

I’ve just hoisted myself up onto the old wooden dock, dinghy rope in hand. No ladder in sight. Had to make due. Not very elegant, one foot dangling just above the inflatable pontoon, the other knee splayed far above, hands groping for anything solid… but I managed to get up and ‘look ma, no splinters’! JW has just killed the dinghy engine and is offering up empty bottles of vodka and whisky and a little plastic bag of garbage.

We’ve arrived in Alice Town apparently, headed to shore via the bright blue and white buildings where ‘Boat Haven’ is painted boldly. Seems like a good place to start the adventure.

 

We’re barely off the dock and stood in front of a huge faded hand painted mural of the island, when Rinaldo appears, smiling from ear to ear.

“Is dis ya first time in Hatchet Bay?” Stocky and dark, his glistening gold chain and framed huge Bahamian coin pendant commanding all the attention. A cocky rooster bolts by in the yard behind him, commanding his harem.

We explained that it was, that we’d had no plans to be here but that this morning was quite a rough sail and we’d seen this protected bay on the charts and turned in for shelter.

 

The truth was, that this morning had been a wild ride from hell and there was no way we were going to make it to our intended destination only 10 miles further down Eleuthera’s coast.

We awoke hours earlier in front of a palm tree lined white sand beach, relative calm and sunshine said good morning, despite the side roll of little waves that had the sliding door doing it’s annoying ‘thump thump’ and the crew bumping hips into bannisters and chairs…

 

Wonderful morning to keep heading south! Southeast actually. Though the forecast warned us that just around Mutton Point Rock up there, the seas might have different ideas. The wind was actually swinging a bit southeast, which would mean no protection here in the supposed ‘lee’ of Eleuthera. And with the 17 knot winds, that could make for a potentially ugly ‘beat’ directly into wind and waves.

But there were fresh vegetables at a local farmer’s market we’d heard of, just 16 miles down, in a place called James Cistern. How bad could it be?! What’s 16 miles when fresh veggies beckon??? Well…

An hour later we had made it 3 miles. Things had fallen here and there in the boat. We were both at the helm, holding anything to secure ourselves. Sea spray slammed the entire boat and our shocked faces, eyes wide, mouths spluttering, as each four to five foot wave buried Shiloh’s bow, and jolted the whole lot of us back up, then immediately down into the next wave. The wind howled into us, adding to the assault, at 15 to 20 knots. It was unrelenting. I zoomed out on the chart plotter, looking for anything, any place, any way we could escape this. I could barely look at the screen and my finger was bounced off it over and over as I tried.

And there it was. Only 3 miles further. Hatchet Bay. A tiny narrow entrance, hacked out of the rocky shoreline, that opened up into a big calm bay. Hallelujah! We just had to endure another hour or so of this sheer hell, and then traverse the tricky little entrance with huge waves and big winds to complicate the maneuver.

Alleycat was ahead and turned the corner into the cut. But they literally disappeared into a sheer rock face. Adrenaline pumping and prayers to all sorts of gods, I finally saw the cut. Between waves that is. And there was a fisherman in a tiny boat in the middle. No!!!!! But I had to do the 90 degree turn and pull Shiloh sideways to those waves, and gun it. As we turned, one huge wave lifted and tried with all it’s might to dump us into the massive rock at the entrance. I held that helm like it was a life and death mission and pulled her away. The tiny fisherman just stared. And within one minute all the waves, the wind, the chaos were behind us. We were in a huge flat, calm bay. I wanted to kiss it. The water, the land that surrounded it and made all this possible. Alleycat was anchoring over in a corner. As we pulled up I was still shaking. I knew I was alive! Heart racing, ever grateful and somehow a part of me wanted to do that again. But I settled for a cup of tea and some research about the town we were now going to explore…

And so, just like that, there were to be no fresh veggies, but instead we had Rinaldo, eyes shining and enthusiasm oozing from every pore.

“You can dump de trash right here!”

“Dis is the boat haven. Have you heard of us? We have everyting. A shop here, restaurant and bar. Tonight we have karaoke. So if y’all up for it, come and join us!”

Our self led walking tour of town revealed a lot of old boarded up houses, trees growing up inside instead of out. A few friendly faces and a little grocery. There were two boutiques selling elegant church wear, and three little liquor stores. Three little bars. A catch all government building painted pink. A few kids kicking up dust as the sun beat down on all of us. We stopped at Da Spott for a beer. One of the online reviews of Alice Town had mentioned this place as THE social hub. Well, we met an 80 lb greying rasta man who mumbled a bit to himself and the bar maid who dozed before and after getting our drinks. Oprah’s voice droned from the TV mounted above. And that was it. We happily guzzled the cool liquid and moved on.

 

Spent a peaceful night out in the bay, with big plans for today. Laundry at Rinaldo’s Haven, a couple groceries at the bright green store. And supper with karaoke for entertainment tonight. Couldn’t pass that up! (We did see the bar with karaoke machine. The size of a shipping container, one table for customers, one table with a home karaoke machine and speaker mounted proudly. A tiny bar. Can’t wait!)

We might be here for the whole weekend. A forecasted storm that boaters like to call ‘a big blow’ should arrive tomorrow night and last a day or more. Fresh veggies and all the other adventures will have to wait. Our plans are not our own out here. Mother Nature reminds us who’s boss from time to time. But we wanted to meet some friends further south! We wanted to have reached a certain place by a certain date! Ha!

That’s why we go with the flow. In this case we take the town with the bay. The other rickety docks will still be there. New veggies will be harvested. And we will be here at the boater’s haven. Singing our hearts out on Rinaldo’s little machine.