We took the dinghy today and went about four miles into Duncan Town. This is a pretty unique community. There is a small boat channel that starts in the bay off the northwest corner of Ragged Island and cuts through the mangroves for about two miles to a small shallow harbor at the edge of the town. The picture I'm going to post with this entry (eventually) was taken looking back at the stern of the dinghy at the channel behind us. It gives you some perspective on the size of the channel. Everything that comes to this town has to come down that channel. There is about a 30 foot shallow draft boat in the harbor that they take out to meet the mailboat.

When we got to town we met the folks from the three other boats we'd come in with yesterday. We were all trying to get lunch reservations with Flo at Sheila's Fisherman's Lodge (Flo is Sheila's daughter, and now runs the restaurant). They had been trying to call her on the radio but couldn't get her. Another woman who lived in town (there are only about 70 residents) heard us talking and offered to call Flo for us and soon we had reservations for lunch. The choice was conch or chicken wings. This was at 11:30 and Flo said she could serve us at 1. The other cruisers were heading to the school as there is supposed to be Internet there. If we end up staying here for a few days I may have to take the computer there.

Bud and I walked around the town. It's a very small place but the streets are either concrete or new blacktop. They are supposed to be building a new Bahamian Defence Force Base at the north end of town and we figure the new roads are being built for that. Bud thinks the money comes from the US in an agreement that lets the US pursue drug runners in the Bahamas. The town sits on the top of a ridge. The harbor is on the west side of the ridge. On the east is a salt pond and this one is still being worked. I took several pictures of it. We went to a gathering of cruisers (another garbage burning night) and they had a big container of sea salt the locals had given them. They said the local people harvested the salt mostly for their own use, that the pond was not in production like it had been in the past.

We walked back up to the north end of the ridge and past the All Age School. The cruisers with us who used the Internet there said there are 17 students. We heard they are now able to go all the way through high school, so the island kids don't have to go to Nassau for high school anymore. We circled back towards the street that goes down to the harbor and came across a small pavilion that looks like it's used for public gatherings. We sat down in the shade on the benches for a while. I walked around and got a few more photos. I took a picture of the old community cisterns behind the government building and the new RO water pumps and tanks that are between the cisterns and the government building. There was an opening in the roof of one of the cisterns and I could see that it was now empty. I'm not sure if they're used now that the community has RO (reverse osmosis) water. Most of the houses still have cisterns and I'm sure they use them for non-drinking water.

The other three couples joined us and we all walked down to the Fishermen's Lodge. We walked past the police station, they even have a police cruiser! Fuzzy waited by the front door in the shade while we ate. There were no other customers, so he wasn't in the way. There were some passing goats, but they ignored Fuzzy and Fuzzy ignored them. We had a nice lunch, but as usual there were no vegetables served. Lunch was either cracked conch (deep fried conch) or chicken wings and french fries.

Later in the afternoon, after we'd come back from town, we decided to go to the garbage burning to meet some of the other boats here. There were 10 boats anchored off the next beach. At the gathering they told us that that beach is the preferred anchorage, because you can get closer to shore in deep water. We're okay with where we are, there's still no bad weather in the forecast and we don't like to crowd the folks who are already here.

We don't know yet when we plan to leave. We heard Passages is headed back this way, so may hang out a bit longer.