February 5, 2011.

Here in the lower Jumentos we can order vegetables at Maxine’s grocery store. So once a week we head back down to Duncan Town to pick up our vegetables and do a little interneting at the school. As soon as we have our Romaine it’s a short day sail to one of the more remote cays for some beachcombing and some spearfishing.

As promised this weeks blog post will be a hunting/ gathering pictorial spread. On Thursday Christy and I went out to hunt one of the cuts on a falling tide.
In less than an hour we were headed home with 5 lobsters and a pair of Hogfish.

So on Friday there was no way we were gonna need any other seafood for a while. With no pressure on us we opted to follow several of our friends with the camera as they hunted in the lee of Raccoon Cay. After a quick 1 ½ mile dinghy ride down to the southern end of the cay and they were ready to hit the water.

Our friend Greg is nursing a sore toe and didn’t want to put on a swim fin so he acted as tugboat captain and
towed all of the dinks along behind him so everyone could just swim in one direction without ever having to come back to their dink. Christy and I took turns towing our dink behind us as we swam so we would have it handy whenever someone caught something.
Judy, Lynn, Beverly and Christy swam along shelling while Bob and Pete checked every crevice in search of the elusive lobster.

Heres a quick video of Bob spearing a lobster. At barely a pound the bug was legal although a little small but you get the idea. The technique was textbook and his aim was true.


This next series of pictures has Peter checking crevices, finding and harvesting a nice 2 pounder.

Usually the guys do the bulk of the hunting and their wives stick close by in the dink to ward off sharks and collect the fish and lobster. This system allows the guys to cover a lot more ground than constantly having to swim back to an anchored dink. Because of Greg being on injured reserve but still opting to come along, everyone got to be in the water for as long as they liked.

A couple of lobster, a few cool shells and pictorial proof of a good time had by all. It was a really nice day.

We rose this morning and left Raccoon headed back to Hog Cay. As the anchorage came into view I was shocked to see that the circus had set up a brightly colored tent with pennants flapping in the breeze. As we got closer I was a bit disappointed to discover that it was only laundry day on the Far Niente. No calliope, no elephants and no lions, crap.

In the afternoon while I honed my marginal Bocce skills Christy & Di snorkeled for shells along the beach.