February 25, 2008

Today was one of those special days you dream about when you sail away looking for “The Dream”. There were 6 of us anchored in 2 separate coves on the western shore of Flamingo Cay. This morning 4 of the boats left.

We’re torn between 2 different realities. The first is that it’s nice to have friends around to snorkel, beach comb and have happy hour with. The other reality is that it’s damned nice to have an island to your self. We only had to share the entire island with the Meermin’s.
They were in their cove and we were in one of our own. As much as the seclusion is nice it’s really much better to have a buddy boat within dinghy range.

So we spent the early part of the day hiking to the top of the island to take some panoramic pictures. There's a navigation light on top of the tallest hill on the island and it makes an excellent vantage point. After that we stopped at our boats, changed to swim suits, packed a lunch and hiked overland to the north anchorage.

The trail across the island is a work in progress. We were out in the middle of nowhere, there’s not a home within 60 miles of our anchorage. The trail isn’t maintained in the normal sense of the word. Its just worn through the vegetation by constant use and that use is sparingly at best. There are salt ponds full of tiny red shrimp and miniscule crabs along the way. I don’t think a hundred cruising boats a year come through here and probably half of those don’t take the time to trek across the island.

One of the unexpected things about the Bahamas has been the amount of rouge shoes we have found washed up on the windward shore of every cay we’ve visited.
The previous trailblazers who’ve traversed this island had an excellent sense of humor. There are all these flip flops/shoes/sneakers lying about, so the trail is marked by random shoes that have been placed as a guide. People have had to find shoes along the shore and carry them inland and post them prominently to mark the trail. I’m literally talking hundreds of shoes.

So after walking across the island with the Meermins we spent a few hours snorkeling, basking in the sun, swimming, having lunch and just generally doing nothing. Hell, I built my first sandcastle in probably 25 years.
Before our walk back to the boats we gathered a few shoes and took them inland with us to help do our part in maintaining the “trail”. Daniel Boone would be proud.

As we were heading back to the boat we were visited by the U. S. Coast Guard. We saw a chopper bearing down on us, so we waved and damned if they didn’t circle back and drop down close to the water to say hello. It was kind of random as we’re actually closer to Cuba then we are to the U.S. We had heard that because of the number of U.S. citizens transiting the Bahamas often the U.S. Coast Guard will perform maintenance on navigation lights. Meermin asked on the VHF what was up and the chopper pilot replied “just spending taxpayer dollars” we replied “great day for it” and away they went. It’s kind of comforting that even out here where there is absolutely nothing that the Coast Guard is just a short hop away, even here in the Bahamas.


After that it was back to the boat for us. We were having the Meermins over later so we had to do a little cleaning and preparing. While Christy cleaned the boat I took the trash to shore to burn it.

Burning trash on shore is the preferred method here in the Bahamas. You burn everything that’s not glass or aluminum. Food stuffs go in the water and everything else is burned. I dug a shallow pit below the high water mark and gathered some palm fronds. Add a little fire and garbage and you’re all set.

We learned this technique from an “environmental educator” while we were in Warderick Wells. At first I was taken aback by the thought of burning plastic. The guy looked at me and said “Dude, you used to start your car and drive to work. One day of that did more harm to the atmosphere then burning a weeks worth of plastic”. So evidently we’re doing our part to save the planet. I may apply for a government grant.

So while the garbage was burning I had to have something to do….. The other day when we cleaned all of our conch I had arranged the shells into a giant “V” on the beach. Here on this beach there are hundreds of empty conch shells. So I decided to put them to good use and spell out VERANDA in five foot block letters. The pictures don’t do my hour of work justice.

After that it was a quick swim to cool off and then Art & Elly came over for a few hours as the sun went down. So all in all this has been one of my favorite days underway. Our own private cove in the lee of a picture perfect uninhabited island, oh, and there’s cocktails as the sun sets as well.