Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Ash Wednesday... Where does the time go? I seem to say that a lot. Spring will be here in no time at all. We made it through the night with all the banging of the mooring against the hull, it made for a noisy night but it let me know that we hadn't broken loose each time I heard the rope against the hull or the mooring knocking against side. Not so lucky for Aurora. I was sitting below this morning, reading my book when I saw a mast come by the window and thought 1. a boat was coming in or leaving early or 2. We'd broken loose - only I never heard or felt a twang in the rope. When I looked out the port, Aurora was coming by us with the mooring ball attached to his bow roller with his anchor. I'm really feeling like we're on borrowed time here - especially with our frayed mooring line... I hailed Aeolus and told them that and asked if he'd checked his line too. He talked about the noisy mooring ball too during the night. It sounds like they're hanging out here until Friday when the weather settles down then heading over to Nassau. We may very well be doing the same. The Easterlies could keep us pinned down on Andros for quite a while. I was looking at the NorthWest Passage and the Tongue of the Ocean. Both deep water with quite a distance of fetch for waves to build up and come at us; not a pleasant idea of having to cross so much area with waves building across it.

Brigid & Denny got settled in again at another mooring ball and while he was hooking the new one from the front, it looked really strange because you could see both of them. I tried getting a picture but the one in the water decided to back further on the boat and under the water. I couldn't resist though and radioed over to them after they got settled to see if everything was okay and said something like hey - you guys have some balls or or something to that effect! Someone else came on and said "go to a different channel!" I'd forgotten we were on the hailing frequency (Ch 16) and hadn't switched to a different channel - oops!

I finished "Breaking Dawn" and Wayne was reading "Tom Brokaw". Denny came by in the dinghy to talk about anchorages vs. moorings here then the discussion turned to wind generators and we decided to get together later for dominoes and sundowners at the Berry Islands Club at 4:30pm.

The winds and waves started stirring up around 3:30 - 4pm but we did get another line on the mooring ball. After that we tried to get into the dinghy to head to shore - what a trip - but we managed not to get wet. The little old guy I'd saw swearing a couple days ago was sitting in his fishing boat stringing conch together and he had 3 good size lobster and a parrot fish too. I said hi to him and said it looked like he was much more successful today and got a big grin and a yes mum from him. The other fishermen were up top cleaning some groupers and other fish that I didn't recognize. Brigid helped us tie the dinghy to the dock - the cleats were up high and the waves were rocking us - then we went over to the restaurant for sundowners. Aeolus (Cheryl & oops I forgot his name and he'd even offered me his sweater) joined us about 10 minutes later. Brigid said Andrew told them he'd be back in 15 minutes. We hung out on the front porch and chatted a bit but it was really getting cold as the winds from the northeast got stronger. An hour and 45 minutes later we gave up waiting and left - it was soo cold. We should have brought our own drinks I guess. During our discussion we learned that what bothers Denny on the islands is all the trash. In Bermuda we never saw trash. Here it's all over. It's like nobody takes ownership of things here so they don't care what happens, trash wise or other. So what if 6 people are sitting outside waiting for the restaurant to open for beers and a couple of locals want their dinner. Not my problem mon. I don't know if he ever came back...Andrew, Andrew, Andrew... and I wondered why so many places were boarded up and out of business... Nobody takes ownership and they don't care. They don't seem to realize that it impacts whether they have a job to make money or not. I could never imagine someone running a store or restaurant back home saying sorry - be back in 15 minutes and then never returning... You couldn't stay in business long there either. You can't make money selling things if you're not there to sell it. Sigh... I did see headlights pull up around 8:30pm but don't know if it was Andrew or not - there were a couple of guys working around the shower house.