Raised anchor after 10 am for the relatively short day to Governor's Harbour. Called La'Tisha and Pascal to say we were heading out (we had also told them yesterday at the Fish Fry, more about that yummy event later :-) We are going to miss them, and their wonderful kids JMia, Cirena, PJ, Brent and Kailen (sorry if I am spelling any of these badly!) They truly made Rock Sound the greatest place to visit! Here are a few more pictures of Pascal's and the Fish Fry last Friday:

Pascal's dining area - "outdoors" but covered


TJ's one man band plays music for the Fish Fry at Pascal's


Pascal and his very fresh conch for salad


This moth was bigger than some of the hummingbirds we've seen here!

Once it got dark, a lot more local people showed up to the Fish Fry, as well as another party of tourists having dinner, so I think it went OK, even though it kept LaTisha and Pascal working pretty late! The conch salad was as delicious as could be, the grilled/smoked whole red snapper delectable, the roasted potatoes simple and very yummy. Truly, we were sorry to have to move on from Rock Sound...

Governor's Harbour (GH) has restaurants, stores, a big library (2nd largest in the Bahamas) and is next to the Governor's Harbour (GHB) international airport -- which is the point. We need to get mail from our mail drop in the States. BahamasAir is the local FedEx representative, and they are based at GHB. They also have a newish breakwater that really makes the southern half of the anchorage much better protected than it used to be. Just look at this cool jetty:

jetty breakwater at Governor's Harbour mouth

As you can see, from where we are moored, it cuts out about 33% of the possible exposure angles (SW-W), so only NW would be uncomfortable in this location:

harbor opening from our location - jetty doing a lot of protecting!

So we called up BahamasAir at GHB to make sure that was OK. They said yes, they would hold our package and we'd have to pick it up at GHB at the BahamasAir desk.


Aerial view of Governor's Harbour, Eleuthera
You can see three little dots in the harbor that are boats in this picture. We are in the same position as the westernmost of the three dots, in the cradle of the curved cay, on a mooring, right beside the AnTiki raft that Anthony Smith, 86, sailed from the Canary Islands to Eleuthera by way of St Maarten. It's a fun-looking craft, basically a metal garden shed affixed to large sealed gas pipes made into a raft, with crossed telephone poles to act as mast and yard (square rigged). Lovely painted eyes on the bows. Pictures to follow, as usual, but here's one:

An-Tiki, the gas pipe raft that Anthony sailed across the Atlantic

Anthony himself seems to be somewhere else. But despite the exotic neighbor, we are just hanging out here, waiting for our mail. Tracking the package, it was shipped on the 20th and arrived in Nassau the same day. It cleared customs and was released for delivery on the 21st. You'd think it would be here by now.

But...

Some of our mail package is a power supply replacement for Grant's computer, some is a replacement for Grant's Kindle. That has a monetary value, so we have to pay import duty. No problem, right?

Um, well... the Nassau FedEx office tried to call us and didn't connect on the first try, so they marked the package as "not scheduled for delivery." I called them back Friday morning when I noticed the missed call, but the number automatically goes to the call center 1000 miles away in in El Salvador. They tried (via in-system message) to get the Nassau office to release the hold and deliver the package, but instead this morning on tracking it was marked "hold for pickup in Nassau." So I called again this morning. The lady sent another message. And she said nobody will see the messages from the call center until Monday.

We should have used DHL! It's an option for international package express, while in the US, DHL is only allowed to do business deliveries and international, not domestic (protectionism for UPS and FedEx).

FedEx charged us over $150 to ship that 5-pound package to us, but they did not ship it to us, they shipped it to an island 50 miles away from the one we are on, and now it looks like they are going to make us travel 50 nautical miles or more -- across a bank full of coral heads (we were not planning on going in that direction) to New Providence Island (that's Nassau's island) -- to pick the silly thing up. When their "agent," BahamasAir, runs two flights a day into an airport just 8 miles from us.

This is just a broken way of doing business.

UPDATE Tuesday: We called back Monday afternoon, finally got someone in Nassau, were able to pay the duty by credit card, and they shipped it to us on BahamasAir's Tuesday morning flight to GHB.