January 9, 2010.

Hey all. The islands and cays of the Bahamas are composed of limestone. There’s really very little soil on the islands and what soil there they have is mostly used for agriculture; and there’s not a whole lot of agriculture goin’ on. This lack of soil becomes really apparent in 2 major areas. Burying & building.

We’ve been watching a backhoe literally scratch at the surface of a building lot now for 2 days. The poor machine shudders, squeals and shakes as the operator drags the bucket across the surface of the limestone over and over again. Talk about a slow tedious process and its gotta be hell on the machine.

When it comes to burying people here there’s no way to dig a grave in most places. They pound, drill and scratch out a shallow grave, deposit the departed and cover them up with some island concrete. It makes for an interesting cemetery.

Yesterday we went out and did a little fishing and were rewarded with a pair of nice Cuban Snappers. The visibility was fairly crappy and I didn’t see the school of fish until they were right on top of me. They startled me as much as I did them. It was a large school with several fish in the 20 pound range but once the element of surprise was gone I had to settle for what I could catch. Generally, smaller fish are stupid fish. You don’t get to be a 20 pounder by taking chances so the big ones fled at first sight. The smaller ones were a little more lax so I put a pair of them in the bucket, the biggest of which was 4 pounds.

Speaking of fish. Last night our friends on Sapphire and Fine Lion showed up.

They left Galliot Cut and took the deep water route directly here. It was a windless day so they had to motor the entire day but on the upside that left them with good enough speed to do some trolling in the deep water. As a result, between the 2 of them they were able to take 4 Mahi Mahi and a 20 pound Tuna. They’ll be eatin’ fish for a while.

We may be weathered in for a few days and then its off to the Jumentos. So it will be a while before we have any internet to do any updating. Take care.....