January 10, 2011.

After spending a couple of glorious days anchored in the cleavage of Double Breasted Cay we decided to head south to Hog Cay.

We rode a 6 knot north breeze and covered the 11 miles in just under 3 hours. It was ridiculously slow but we arrived at the cut between Hog Cay and Ragged Island just before high tide. We slipped through the sketchy opening and anchored as close as we dared to Ragged Island. With so little breeze it was a perfect day to head in to Duncan Town to do a little interneting.

Thirty minutes after dropping the hook we were out of the dink and climbing the hill into town. The first thing we noticed is that the dirt streets have been regraded and the first steps toward paving the roads had been undertaken. Several of the streets have already been covered in black, sticky oil. It’s a real mess and hopefully the rest of the paving process will be completed soon.

Our first order of business was to order some groceries from Maxine’s grocery store. Maxine has very little of anything on the shelves but she will order whatever you want from her daughter in Nassau. Her daughter does all the buying and then sends it down island on the mailboat. If you have your order in by Sunday then your food hopefully will arrive on the mailboat on Thursday. We’ll see. Nothing says fresh salad like week old Romaine.

We stopped in at the hilltop gazebo to borrow some of the government buildings Wifi but since it was Saturday the offices were closed and the Wifi was off. After a short walk we found nobody at the Fishermans Lodge so no Wifi there either. Our last hope was the school but then again its Saturday…..

Fortunately the school teacher, the ONLY schoolteacher on the island, lives adjacent to the school. When we walked up we found Robert in the classroom and after some small talk he offered us the use of the internet. He said that its always on 24/ 7 so feel free to drop in anytime and sign on.

So we sat on the sidewalk and signed on. Ten minutes later he was headed home and he stopped and opened up one of the classrooms so we could go inside and sit at a table. He told us to take as long as we wanted and don’t bother to lock up, he’ll take care of it later. These people are the best……

On Sunday we moved up behind Hog Cay where we finally caught up with our friends Roland & Leta on Kokomo. On Monday morning the wind was cranking so we decided to hunt some of the limited promising spots along the west side of the cay.

Evidently we’re here early enough that nobody else has had the chance to hunt here. We weren’t gone for an hour and we were headed back to the boat with 4 lobster and an 11 freaking pound Mutton Snapper. I finally got that perfect head shot and he was dead before he even went into the dinghy. Thank God too, because with 4 lobster already in the bucket there wasn’t enough room in there for anything but his face.