Often notes I make throughout a day inspire more words, but sometimes it’s nice to flit from one thing to another. In this case, the whole is a semi-snapshot of our past few days.
A friend messaged last week to say that he came face to face with a rat aboard their boat at 4am one morning (in Treasure Cay). I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and when I checked in a few days later to see if they’d gone ahead and burned the boat down, as I would have felt the need to do, it was still onboard. I guess the chewing of things directly under their bunk one night was the final straw, so they loaded the traps, and while out for dinner one night caught it. NOT before, it should be noted, they named him “Ratty” and subsequently Andy got UB40’s finest “There’s a Rat in Mi Kitchen” into all of our heads.
We snorkeled yesterday as an unintentional drift snorkel, only after getting super far from the anchored dinghy quite quickly, and a cardio-style swim back to it for survival. Hoisted the anchor and kept the boat with us as we combed the reef again. Lots of great colors and species of coral, not so many fish. Dinghying to the site, however, I looked up to see what I thought was seaweed shooting straight up into the air. Passing by the ‘seaweed’, it turns out it was ink; we must have scared it out of an octopus while taking its daily roam up into the water column. It’ll think twice about doing that tomorrow.
Our anchored base at the moment is truly utopia. White sand as far as the eye can see, water so clear it feels like we’re bobbing on air, and a decent but easy swim in to a great sand beach. Years ago a crazy person came up to our fleet of dinghies, paddleboards and gear coming ashore on a Maine summer weekend and tried to enlighten us about a ‘protocol’ intending for only one group to be on a beach at a time. (Her family was there first, so she expected us to hoist anchors and find another island, since the half mile-long beach was apparently not large enough for two parties to enjoy.) Now in the Bahamas whenever we see a dinghy near our always-private beach we say “Hey! There’s a protocol!”. But of course we’d welcome others, because there is no protocol, and that lady just needed to cool her jets.
I’ve realized that one of the many components of my enjoyment of Chickadee time is that I’m mostly barefoot. I remember with great discomfort (-shiver-) the first year’s return and the need for socks and shoes feeling so icky and terrible. Even though feet are the worst, I vote for them to be naked.
While at Black Point Settlement on Great Guana Cay (that’s a mouthful), we met up with three other boats from Maine, including a family who lives quite close to us on the coast. (First ‘boat’ kid, although she is 15, and only visiting on a break from school.) It makes sense that people are fleeing northern climes, for sure, and coastal living would perhaps lend itself to sailing more than say, for Iowans, but where are all of the folks from the rest of coastal New England? It’s funny that most sailors down here tend to be Canadian or Mainers, and if we play our wish cards right and we can slip the Canadian border down just a skosh to just below Kittery, we’ll be one and the same at some point, right?
One of Andy’s favorite parts of the Exumas is the fact that we get ocean sunsets every night. Down here below Staniel, there are a lot fewer cruisers, so now we get ocean sunsets on a vast open horizon, with no other boats on the sightline. For having seen ‘the green flash’ only once definitively in our first seven years (the year we went to the Berry Islands), we are now racking up green flashes left right and center. Sometimes less flash and more ‘green fizzle’, but green just the same. Cloud formations on the horizon are important. All are stunningly beautiful.
Though I can’t imagine any diner would prefer to eat warm, or especially cold foods that are intended to be served hot, the joke this year is that I’m trying to burn everyone’s faces with the volcanic temperatures in which I’m serving our meals. Apparently none of us can wait that reasonable thirty seconds to let something cool before digging in? And I’ve always preferred near-boiling soups and stews- why are we just noticing this now? But wow, it’s happening, and always, I might add, worth it.
Today we’ll make our way from what I really think is my favorite anchorage of all time on Big Farmer’s Cay south to Rudder Cay, which is likely our southernmost point for 2023. Rudder is a beautiful spot as well, and has a great spot to snorkel, if a bit ‘sharky’, so hopefully we’ll time the tides and be able to hit it at slack water. Andy showed me a video of a 12’ hammerhead swimming very close to a pier somewhere in the Exumas. A dog, in an attempt to heckle/attack the shark, jumped in on it. Whoever posted the video claims that everyone/thing made it out alive, but we didn’t the see the end, and I’m not so sure I believe that. Interesting to theorize Darwin at work though. How many dogs will jump into shark-infested waters before the genes telling them not to evolve? Hopefully not many, but I’m not sure I believe that either. Anyway, I won’t be attacking any hammerheads on my snorkeling adventures, and I’m hoping they’ll return the favor.
