December 31, 2010.

Happy New Year everyone.

We slept in and when Christy and I awoke we found ourselves anchored alone in the lee of our favorite cay in the Bahamas. That was nice because that’s where we went to bed. After breakfast we took the dinghy in to shore near the beginning of a trail that meanders across the cay for a mile to the windward side beaches.

The forecasted heavy winds arrived and the ocean was whipped into a frenzy in the 25 knots of breeze. Our goal for the morning was to find a few sea beans. As per usual the windward beach was loaded with the flotsam and jetsam of society. Its amazing how much of civilizations crap

washes up on these cays. There are literally thousands of shoes among other things. If we collected them we could easily open a shoe store for one legged women.

Among all the beached sea grass and junk is the object of Christy's desire, the sea bean. When I move along looking for Hamburger Beans I carry a 5 foot walking stick and I poke at this and that. Mostly I’m amused by what garbage I find on the beach and every now and then, viola, a hamburger bean. Today I found a 3 legged crawling baby, a Mister Potato Head and a leather bound softball in perfect condition. Not water logged, not roughed up, how, I dunno.


When Christy moves along she’s a little more aggressive as she works through the piles of crapola. As she works her stick she reminds me of Gordie Howe digging hard at a loose puck in the corner. As a result she usually puts me to shame in the bean collecting. Today’s take was 35 Hamburgers and a pair of Mary’s Beans, not one but TWO. Not bad for our first day out beaning. Some people have never even seen a Mary’s bean, they are rare. That would be a good season for most people so she’s happy.

After lunch we decided to try our hand at a little hunting.
Since the wind was blowing so hard we had to be satisfied with hunting the random scattered coral heads along the west side of the cay. In 2 hours we boated 4 lobsters from 1 ½ to 4 pounds and a pair of Hogfish. I also got to dispatch the 3 Lionfish that we came across. We only touched on a handful of the coral heads before we decided that we had enough.

There are virgin beaches for tomorrow along with dozens of additional coral heads. Today was the best day in recent memory; I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.