Raw Conch & Cheeseburgers in Paradise
21 March 2009 | Georgetown, Great Exuma
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Made some eggs and chops with moms bread for breakfast, then played a few computer games waiting for Wayne's headache to get better so we could dinghy to Georgetown and go to the farmers market that they're having from 12 - 4. I got the garbage together to take with us but Wayne said there wasn't enough to take - it wasn't worth having to tie the dinghy up twice.
We headed over to Georgetown around 12:30 and tied up behind the market then walked around lake Victoria to see what was there and then on to the straw market/Regatta Park area where the farmers market was. They have a great little arts and clothing store that I went into. Saw a couple of things there that I'll have to think about buying. I looked in the straw market for a conch horn and was told that Rachel wasn't there, to try back on Monday. One of the ladies tried to sell me a little shell horn - kind of funny - on a key chain. She said "it's just like dem, try - blow it". I laughed and called it a cheater horn, which she found funny. I blew it anyhow - it sounded like a little horn, laughed and said I'd be back Monday to look for Rachel. While going through the straw market I heard a conch horn blow. Wayne thought it came from the farmer's market but when we got there; there was none to be found. I did see some conch shells on a table but it was from a set up that was making conch salad. They'd be ready to sell some in 10 minutes if I wanted some. I decided that I did, I'd never had any yet, so we wandered about then I came back to get some. I watched her make it up and while making it, some young girls yelled out of a car to her & she laughed. They were some of her students; she was a teacher that taught religion and I don't remember what she called it, but it's what we called home economics back in the day.
The conch salad was quite good, and I watched her put only a pinch of a pinch of jalapeno pepper in it but danged if it wasn't spicy. I thought Wayne was going to turn redder than he already is from the sun. After that we got the dinghy and headed back across the harbor to explore our part of the world along Stocking Island. So we left Kidd's Cove and dinghied over to Cleaning Hole, Hurricane Hole and landed at a beach between St Francis and Turtle Lagoon to climb the sand hill and check out the beach on Exuma Sound. Wow! It was really breath taking. The waves were crashing into shore all up and down the eastern shore and as we crossed the tip of the sand dune, the winds were howling. It was quite beautiful. Unfortunately, I think that the conch fritters and hot dogs caught up to me so we cut our hike short and went back to the boat for a couple hours. What was that I heard about eating food from street vendors in Africa Laura? Me thinkest it applies here too.
The marina at St. Francis was having a "cheeseburger in paradise, happy hour, then karaoke night" so we decided to try that out hoping the burgers were better than the ones at Norman Island. We ran into Spirit there (I love running into them) with their travel buddies and after chatting with them, we went to the bar to order the burgers and beers and while there, ran into Rosie. Deb insisted that she knew us from somewhere, and after chatting about all the various places (they're from Deltaville) we figured out that they were one of our mooring buddies that we shared a mooring with right before we left (at Vero Beach). Then, we were anchored next to them on the back of Little Farmers Cay and saw them when we got in here. They were anchored right before Monument Beach and I'd wondered if that was the same boat that left before us from Farmers. We ended up staying at the bar eating with them and chatting with them. It was neat to put it all together then chat with them. Hopefully we'll run into them tomorrow at the pig roast. Every Sunday the Chat & Chill has a pig roast that we decided we'd try out (not street vender food). We stopped back by to say good night to Spirit, but told them that if Chris were going to get up and sing, we'd stay. We decided to head out though (no light on the dinghy) and called it a night. Good thing too because if we'd have stayed and closed the place we'd have really gotten wet. The later it got, the windier it got and the bigger the waves. It started sprinkling about 10:00