We have discovered that while boating in the Bahamas, one must be quite flexible with one’s schedule. The wind here is a factor on where one can go, and when going is advisable/safe/comfortable. Our local friend Mary Anne said that this winter has been very unusual for wind – ever since hurricane Matthew. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us. After all, it’s been a strange winter all the way from the West coast of the U.S. with snow in Seattle how many times? And in March? No wonder winter cold fronts keep blowing through here. It seems like we only get one, maybe two calm days a week. And there are some places you just can’t go when the wind is blowing like crazy. And other places you don’t want to go!
Anyway, we have spent several days just hanging out at Green Turtle Club marina, in between our excursions. Here is a little tour. This is the building that houses reception, gift shop, and fine dining. The Club has several hotel rooms in little cottages around the property. It is really a cute place. They also have a nice little library, a lounge and a game room. A separate building hosts the marina showers, laundry, and small grocery store- where a half gallon of milk costs $7.5o. (A gallon in town was $8.50. Yep – prices are high here!)
To the left is a huge deck, and another more casual dining area. This deck hosts a band every Wednesday night, called the Gully Roosters. Brendal from the dive center is a member of the band. They play calypso, reggae, etc. It is free to anyone, so local folks come and listen and dance. Thank goodness they are a good band, because they play 9pm-midnight. It was kind of surreal to lay in bed, in our own boat, listening to live Caribbean music, while in the Bahamas. I’m still pinching myself that we’re actually here!
This is the casual dining area. They have really good food!
Continuing around to the left is this nice quiet beach. Even when the wind is blowing, the water stays calm because we’re at the end of a nice protected bay.
Here is our Island Girl, with Stuart the dinghy.
Near one of the docks is Eddy’s conch shack. It is being rebuilt, so this is his current shack. Everyone says his fresh conch salad is awesome. It is very nice and fresh looking, with all the fresh conch, onions, red & green peppers and tomatoes. I have not tried it.
We visited with some other AGLCA cruisers that came in to the marina for a couple of nights, Susie and Rod. Susie told us we HAD to find Justin (one of the dock hands). He has THE connections to get Stone crab at a very reasonable price (maybe half the cost of Florida prices) He’s like the marina crab dealer. She already had several pounds in her freezer, and was looking to buy another 10 lbs. before they headed back to the states. Sure enough, Justin made the rounds on the dock, and took orders. We got 4 pounds. Look at the size of these crazy things! We had one claw that was enormous! I split them into two dinners – three large claws for one night, and the rest for another. They were already cooked, so we just steamed them a bit, and then had to use a hammer and vice grips to crack them. Kenny had crab juice and bits flying everywhere. Oh baby – they tasted great! We didn’t think anything could even come close to Dungeness crab, but these surprised us with nice flavor and texture! (Dungeness is still #1.)
This little PDQ catamaran boat is Rising Tide, and belongs to Kent and Jane. They are just across the dock from us. They are from Tennessee, and we have crossed paths with them several times! They have already completed the Great Loop, and are just here enjoying the Bahamas this winter. We first met them in Stuart FL, the day we finished crossing the Okeechobee waterway. They were already in the Loggerhead Marina there, and greeted us as we docked our boat. And then, a week later, they showed up here at Green Turtle Cay! They were making a similar journey, just a little different timing than us. Kent has a tradition of blowing a conch shell at sunset. Kenny & I remembered hearing someone on a catamaran do that in Pelican Bay (near Boca Grande in Florida) back in January. We anchored there one night when we were on our way to Ft. Myers to attend our first introduction to the AGLCA and learn about boating in the Bahamas! We mentioned that to Kent, and low & behold, it was him! He was anchored there that night too, on his way to Ft. Myers as well. So funny how we have crossed paths so many times! This is Kenny and Kimbob chatting with Kent & Jane.
Jane, Ellen & I rode our bikes to town one day and had a marvelous time! I love all the colors we’re sporting in this picture.
Kimbob was very intrigued with the whole conch shell blowing thing, so he gathered up a few shells. Here he is cleaning one up. Then he had to saw the very tip off to transform the shell into a horn. He practices every night at sunset with Kent, and is getting pretty good at not sounding like an elephant.
Larry took a turn learning from the master Kent.
We had a couple of nice calm days, so we took Stuart out for some touring around. This is a happy guy with his dinghy! Retirement sure looks good on him. 🙂 While we were out dinghying around, we heard some birds squawking. We saw what looked like a hawk, and two other large birds. The two birds flew together and were squawking at the hawk. As near as we could tell, the two other birds looked like large parrots. They were bluish green on their backs, had fairly long tail feathers, and their underwings were yellow. I didn’t get pictures, but they were really pretty – and loud!
Tuesday night was forecasted to be really calm, so we told the marina we’d be gone for one night, and then be back. There was a big front of wind coming later in the week, and we didn’t want to lose our slips at the marina. But we also wanted to take advantage of a nice calm night to go anchor out and explore a little. So Island Girl and One Eye Dog headed north just a bit, and dropped anchor at Manjack Cay for one night. This the where we went snorkeling with Brendal’s earlier on Tuesday. The evening was so peaceful and beautiful. We sat on the back of the boat and marveled at the stars and the quiet. We left Stuart just tied up to the side of Island Girl. Well, a little breeze came up about midnight which had Stuart slapping up against the side of Island Girl, which woke us up. OK – we figured we should put him back in his cradle. Do we get dressed? Why- it’s really dark out there. So there we were, stark naked in the dark of night, putting our dinghy to bed. HA! Life in the Bahamas!
The next day was beautiful, and Kenny’s chance to try lobster hunting! So we got our snorkel gear, his “harpoon”, a net bag, and away we went. His “harpoon” is really a “Hawaiian Sling” – which is a long rod with a screw-on spear head on one end, and a loop of rubber on the other end that makes it so that it can be ‘shot’, or it can be used to just stab the target. We went back to where R.J. speared the lobster when we were snorkeling with Brendal’s. Kenny did find some lobster, and speared four for us. We discovered that the triton tip that he has for his spear doesn’t work very well on lobster. It’s too big and it doesn’t always stay stuck.
But, we still had a really yummy fresh lobster dinner! He just grilled them with a little bit of lime juice. Yum!
When we got back to the marina, we went into Brendal’s dive shop, and bought a single point spear head, with a doohicky that flips out like a big barb. So once it goes into the target, it flips out and the spear won’t come back out. That’s what R.J. had, and it oughta work real good next time to build a nice shishkabob. It pays off to go on a tour with the locals, and to learn how they do stuff. Otherwise, we would have had no idea where to go to find lobster. What fun!