Yesterday was July 4th, Independence Day for the good old US!! One of the other cruisers here in the anchorage had had to make contact with the US Consulate a few days ago and while talking to one of the officials found out that they were having a 4th of July party and we were all welcome to come. It was being held at the Anchor Cafe on the far side(west side) of the island. Everyone started trying to figure out ways to get there. Either a Taxi or bus were the two main choices though some of the other cruisers have rented cars here. In the end, we decided to take a bus over.
We hiked over to the main bus station as from what we had heard, if you wait till the stop near the yacht club, it's standing room only. We caught the 1200 bus and an off we went. All the buses are painted blue or at least they were painted blue sometime in the past decade or so. All the buses we have seen while here aren't in the best condition but for just $5R--about 40 cents US, you can get anywhere on the island. We headed south and eventually crossed over the mountain to the west side. The ocean opened up in front of us as we got off the bus. It was an amazing bay called Baie A La Mousche(not pronounced anything close to how it looks but that's another story). The picture in todays post is of the bay.
We hiked down to the restaurant. It's listed at the Tsunami Bar, Anchor Cafe, or the Islander Restaurant. No clue why the three names. We were quite early for the party so we ordered some french fries and a couple of drinks and settled in watching the boats in the bay. It was a beautiful site. The owner offered us the use of a couple of bikes so we headed off down the coast as we had a while to wait for the rest of the guests to show up.
Once we returned, we met up with some of the other cruisers and walked down the walk along the shore sitting on some benches to talk. As the six of us sat there, a man wrapped in a gauzy sheet came walking past us with a strings of glass beads colorfully wrapped around each ankle and his toes. He proceeded down farther "accidentally" dropping his cloth wrap. It was his way of showing us he was nude under the sheet. A few minutes later, he walked over to where we were sitting nude and stood in front of us and with his hands on his hips looked out at the water in the bay. We tried out best to ignore him but he did his best to get our attention. What a jerk!! He returned to his sheet and we headed for the party.
We grabbed a few drinks and sat around with the other cruisers and talked about all our different crossings. The food was finally ready about 1615 and we dug in. Hamburgers, Hot Dogs, potato salad, chili con carne! It was quite the spread with cookies and cupcakes decorated in red, white and blue frosting.
We took off for the bus stop just before 1800 and caught the next bus a few minute later. The driver used to drive in the Indianapolis 500 from what we experienced on the trip back. A few stops later, as people were gettin gon the bus, a fight broke out amongst some locals as one man was drunk and another got upsde that he was and hit him hard with his hand just after the two fof them got on the bus. The tension was quite high for the rest of the trip till the two of them got off further down the mountain. --------------000908040208060902070402--