Still Down and out in George Town

The crazed, blistering pace of the Cruising Regatta has completely disappeared, along with most of the boats. Warm, indolent breezes have replaced the unusually brisk and cold winds that plagued this year’s “season”. Even so, boats are streaming out of the harbor each morning, announcing their farewells on VHF for the remaining pilgrims to mourn over. The few that are left behind mostly cherish this quiet time, and the opportunity to practice listlessly relaxing activities such as hanging out and walking on the beach.

With the change in weather, the oceanside beach has become calm, allowing the seashells to repopulate strategic coves and crannies. I say strategic, as Wayne and I are working every morning now at collecting a maximum amount of shells before any other lame-o cruisers get to it. Perhaps you think that shell gathering is easy work? Although rewarding to be sure, it is back-breaking, sweat-producing and damp. Today we brought two large bottles of water along, and drained them easily before half time. Sometimes, if suddenly changing from stooped and squinting to erect and squinting, your head spins and you feel like you may pass out. Some people call this positional low blood pressure or a vasovagal response. I call it dehydration, mixed with late-night bonfires and hot, hot sun. Wayne did remark we are getting pretty brown. Occupational hazard.

These last couple of weeks, we’ve been hanging out with a bunch of musician types. We first saw Chad and LeAnne from Cambration in Black Point. At that time I noticed that they were painfully young and thin. My maternal instincts reared up, and I insisted to Wayne that we would have to have them to the boat for dinner sometime to fatten them up. In the meantime, they managed to get married – first the “religious” ceremony in Staniel and then the “official” ceremony here in George Town. We had dinner with them and our new friend Lee from Krasna the other night aboard Lee’s boat. It was charming getting to know them, and hear their story of young romance. What was shocking, however was to learn that Chad had written a computer program which allows you to catalogue your boat lockers by content and location. He says he had to do this because they have $2500 worth of canned goods stored in various locations all around their boat. Sheesh, those kids have more food that we do!

So, Chad’s a great guitar player and singer, and Lee is also very fun. Lee has a more off-beat guitar playing style and a great baritone voice for which he stands out at sing-alongs. Lee is also remarkable for his great, piercing blue eyes, thick tangle of grey ponytail stuffed under a do-rag, and colorful past. The guy has been in jail any number of times, escaped three times under his own power and was unleashed by the US Embassy on various other occasions. Lee is a photo journalist who specializes in covering war zones. He can’t really recall all the countries (and jails) he’s been in but they include places like Colombia, Venezuela, Bosnia, Croatia, Afghanistan, etc. He spent the last 15 years living in the Czech Republic with his wife (a professional musician) and child but is now single-handing his 42-foot ketch as his wife decided their gig was up. He is a wonderful guy who has forgotten more great stories about his life than he can remember. We can only hope he’ll write a book someday.

The other musicians we’ve been hanging out with are Chris and Sarah from Moonraker and Gary and Celeste from Sol Surfin’. Chris and Sarah are small, dark, and delicately-boned. They live in the Chesapeake, not far from our intended new home of Chestertown, Maryland. Gary and Celeste are from California. To those of us from the UP, that’s about as exotic as being from the Bahamas so I’m tempted to leave it at that; but I really can’t. Gary looks too young to have such a fab boat – a large and gorgeous catamaran – and plays a mean guitar with a penchant for acoustic Led Zep. Celeste has long brown hair, lovely soulful brown eyes, and looks like a fertility goddess. She is totally adorable and a wild-ass party girl. Oh, to be young again. Last night the aforementioned usual suspects assembled at Sand Dollar Beach – about a 2-mile dinghy ride for us – for a bonfire and musical jam session. We were joined by a smattering of others and had a rip-roaring good time. Wayne and I were lucky to be back aboard Cassiopeia by midnight: last time we spent a musical evening aboard Sol Surfin’ we didn’t get back till two in the morning. We’re just too old for that anymore. (Sad but true.)

Now as to the engine; we have good news and bad. Wayne managed to hook up a 12-volt freshwater pump which bypasses the usual system and therefore we can run the motor with a careful eye on the temperature gauge and the RPMs. We hope to only have to run it for entering and exiting harbors and going back through the cut at Cave or Galliot Cay. Bottom line is that it works. We managed to obtain a spare pump as well from another friend. We are pretty sure we can make it back to the states with not too much problem. The other good news is that Universal/Westerbeke is willing to send the parts needed to repair the cam shaft to a marina in Lake Worth (Palm Beach area). The bad news is that we’ll have to buy a new water pump and pay for all the labor to effectuate this repair. The guy helping Wayne here in George Town is another cruiser named Roger Wrona aboard a big trawler named Rollsdoc. Roger is a Yooper! So’s his wife! His family comes from Bruce Crossing and she comes from Watersmeet. Small world. Roger already gave us a lot of help, and is willing and able to do the job for us if and when we get to Stuart, Florida. He’ll be on a mooring ball there and in fact it could all work out OK. At any rate, it has to work out OK one way or another, but it’s just funny how Yoopers pop up at the strangest and best time some times.

So that’s it for now. We expect to be leaving George Town in a week or two and hop slowly up the Exumas. Since we intend to sail primarily, these will be short hops. But that should offer us the opportunity to do some fine snorkeling and watching for the green flash. Hey, life could be worse. We could be in Fargo with imminent flooding at the same time as looming blizzards. Damn, now that’s some bad weather.

After the Regatta - Relaxation!

What a time it was, attempting to get everything done in George Town! This year Wayne was the "Regulation Volleyball" Chairman - meaning he had to organize and participate in the volleyball tournament for the "real" or "good" players. He had five teams entered, and it went generally well. They played from around 9:30 am to 1:30 pm, and were hot, sandy and tired. The final round was very exciting with the two undefeated teams meeting and playing very agressively despite their fatigue. In the end, youth won out. All had a great time. Previous to the tournament, Wayne and I had participated in the "Coconut Challenge" again, and had been practicing for our world debut at the Bahamian Music Festival at Regatta Park, George Town. Regrettably, our world debut with "Folks on Boats" was slightly marred by an overwhelming sound system, lack of sound check, and a broken guitar string which made everything sound totally different. Even so, we didn't get booed of the stage therefore considered the experience a marginal success. After that, Wayne played in the tennis tournament and myself in duplicate bridge. Wayne's team came in third in tennis, and my partner and I came in second place in bridge. This was to the amazement of many of the other players, mais c'est comme ca les copins...My partner is the delightful Dave from High Noon, the same Santa Claus/Teddy Bear who saved us in Nassau from having to attempt to row to the gas station. (In a soft-bottom 12-foot dinghy this is no mean feat...) Dave is a bridge whiz, and my skill set is minimal but creative. Dave calls my playing "Star Wars" bridge because he says I play as if I figure that, "the force is with me..." Yup, that's about right. At any rate, it works in duplicate situations but confuses the heck out of a lot of people.

Regatta week finished up with a "Variety Show" at which the Folks on Boats played again. This time, the kind sound team spent two hours on our sound check and we sounded fantastic! My children will never believe that I got to be the lead singer and front the band. It was a ton of fun, but we were absolutely exhausted by this year's activities.

Now the weather is warmer but we are soon to endure another Norther and have tucked in deeply to a protected anchorage. Boat life is fun, but the aspect of camping is now wearing a bit. No running water, no real bathroom facilities and an endless series of chores related to the acquisition of water, food, etc. can be daunting. No matter, as the photo shows, it is beautiful beyond words here when the weather is nice and judging from the reports from home we are lucky as heck to be here.