Monday, April 6, 2009

Another lazy morning that I sat looking out at the beauty of the water and sand. I spent the morning reflecting on this place and where I come from. There's no resemblance between the two, and I wonder what it would be like to grow up in a place such as this as opposed to a place surrounded by factories and 8-5 jobs. It's snowing back home and I'm sure that everyone is bundled up, keeping warm, as they run from building, to car, to building. Here, we are the industry. Tourism is what drives the economy in the Bahamas and in talking with the natives business is down.

Two little bananaquits came by and chirped at me in the cockpit - little winged beggars looking for sugar! As much as I'd love to - I continue to resist feeding them on the boat. They seem to come by every couple of hours and fly on down to the next boat.

We took the dinghy to various places around the island exploring more beaches and sitting in the water - chilling (called liming in the Bahamas). On one beach I found large piles of charred remnants of conch shells that had been hunted and eaten. I was disturbed at this since this is a no hunt, no collect zone. It was obvious that someone had been using this spot for quite a while to hunt, collect, and eat conch around a fire, then perhaps thought they could burn the shells? Very disturbing. I hope these were collected before the park came into existence.

The tidal shelf/sandbar, by the boat, always dries in spots at low tide, so I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of Wayne standing in ankle deep water next to her. It goes from a depth of zero where I'm standing taking pictures, to a few inches where he stands, to a drop off of about 13 ft where Kolibrie is tied to the mooring.

After exploring we came back to the boat and read then I made dinner. It was kind of strange. Even though I had fried potatoes with the eggs this morning, I still had a taste for potatoes, so dinner consisted of sweet and sour pork with... mashed potatoes. Like I said, it was a little strange...

A front is coming through from the northern climes and we did get some wind back this evening. This is good. We're in a secure place, generate power, and get cooled off by a breeze too.