In order to utilize the three days of good weather we did
some overnight sailing and motoring. We
started Sunday evening and got to Mayaguana, Bahamas about Tuesday
afternoon.
Thankfully we had an almost full moon the three days we were
sailing to Mayaguana. The glow of the moon on the water acted like a giant
night light, guiding our way.
We tried to take turns keeping watch but Terry of course had
the lion’s share. He was exhausted by
the time we reached Mayaguana. Before he
crashed though we snorkeled and caught a small lobster. We threw part of the carcass over board and
within 15 minutes this guy showed up.
He was about a 4 foot nurse shark. There were two of them swimming around with
remoras on them. Nurse sharks are not
considered aggressive and they also don’t having the normal shark teeth and
mouth. Their mouth is more like a
suction device. They have been known
when startled to lash out and leave you with a hole where your top layer of
skin used to be. This guy however was
used to being fed and used to people.
Terry petted the top of his head.
Terry was still careful. When
there is bait in the water you never know if there’s another shark or something
else in the water, even right under your boat waiting for the next hand out.
As we are sailing in the open ocean we’ve put out a
couple of fishing rods and caught at least one fish a day. We caught a small tuna the first day. The
next day we caught a mahi and a yellowfin tuna.
The mahi, Terry fileted and within 20 minutes after catching him we were
eating him in our fish tacos. That’s
about as fresh as you get. We’ve been
eating like kings!
Sorry for the blood, but other than that, isn’t he a
beautiful fish? And some of the best
eating too.
Besides catching a couple of
fish heading to Turks and Caicos we very nearly hit a whale. Or I should say the whale nearly hit us. I went below to make something to eat and a
few moments later Terry yells out, “Camile, Whale! Whale!” with that trace of
anxiety and intensity that told me this wasn’t just a fun whale watching moment. I scurried up the hatch and not 50 feet off
our port side is the back of a whale!
Terry said he watched his tale come out not 10 feet in front of our bow
on the port side. He was probably about
30 feet or so, plenty large enough to cause some damage. We definitely kept a look out the rest of the
evening for more, but thankfully never saw any.
Did he know we were there? We
were under sail, so fairly quiet, but still a boat makes noise going through
the water. Maybe he knew we were there
all along and was just cruisin’. Still,
I’d rather not get quite that close again.
I’m usually excited to see whales but that was a close one. What are the chances?
We anchored on the eastern shore of the
island and waited till daylight to head in and clear customs and get anchored
more permanently. Listening to a Turks
and Caicos cruiser’s net it sounds like the weather is going to pick up again
for the next 5 days leaving us once again “stuck” in a new location. I am starting to get into the groove of
living just for each day and not focusing on things that we can’t do anything
about. It has made for what actually
feels like a vacation now which has been alot of fun.
On Turks and Caicos everyone seems to be running their own
taxi service on the side. If they can
pick someone up and make a few bucks, they do it. They call their taxis, jitneys. To get your attention they give one or two
small honks of the horn. We caught one
of these renegade taxis to get in to the Kingdom Hall for meeting on
Sunday. It was an older gentleman who
barely spoke English, only Spanish. It
took a bit to help him understand that we wanted to go to the Kingdom Hall, but
as soon as I said, “Testigos de Jehova”, he got a big smile and said, “ah,
Jehovah Witness, I know.” It was as
simple as that. We arrived about 45
minutes early for meeting and met a few of the French-Creole group meeting for
field service. They opened the Kingdom
Hall up to let us wait inside for the English congregation. There are four congregations on Provo, one English,
two French-Creole congregations and a newly formed Spanish Congregation. The French-Creole group has somewhere just
under 100 publishers in each congregation with 600 attending the Memorial last
year. English has about 100 attending
and the newly formed Spanish congregation about 50. They have an open air area
off to one side of their Kingdom Hall which they use for their assemblies. Friends from the other islands come as
well. They go to Fort Lauderdale though
for their District Convention.
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| View from the Owen's house |
We met a nice family, the Owen’s who have been on the island
since 1995. They came to help out
because there was a need, and there still is. We went to their home for
dinner. Their home sat on one of the few
“hills” on the island, probably 150 feet high or so. After living in Montana with 10,000 foot
peaks all around us it’s hard to even call it a hill. They did have a lovely view of the reef that
stretches from east to west. It was nice
to get off the boat for a bit and enjoy the company of friends.
Lobster Lobster everwhere....
Remember a couple of posts back I mentioned we were going to
look for conch for our dinner? Well,
conch we did not find but lobster, yes. We snorkeled this little wreck that
Terry noticed was marked on the map and found literally a hundred lobster hiding
in among the cracks and crevices of the wreck.
We caught about 4 a day for a couple of days. Our favorite way to eat lobster is quick
boiled, pop them out of their shell, coarsely chop them, then sautéed with
garlic and butter. Delicious!
South Caicos
On Wednesday we headed out for South Caicos. It’s about 50 miles to this little
island. There is no Kingdom Hall
there. The Bob’s, a family we met on
Provo were the last Witnesses on the island.
They moved to Provo a couple of years ago. There are many Haitians on island though and
the French-Creole group from Provo comes over every few weeks and
preaches.
The first day in South Caicos we went in to get the lay of
the land. There are only 1600 people on
this island and it is comprised of four settlements or towns. So we knew not to expect much in the way of
amenities when we arrived. I went in
ready to do a little informal preaching if I met anyone to visit with. The first person we spoke with was a Haitian
named, Jean Claude. He was very friendly
and reads English so I gave him the tract “Can the Dead Live Again?” He’s there working since there is no work in
Haiti. He cleans fish and conch at one
of the three local fish plants. He says
they send the fish and conch on to Miami.
We then started walking down the street looking for the
local Seaside Marina which was said to have a small grocery store. We found the store and picked up a few
items. If you think you pay a lot for
groceries, the Turks and Caicos has about everyone beat. Our groceries totaled $40.00 and there wasn’t
much to show for it that’s for sure. We
still needed ice though, so we walked to a little bar and restaurant with an
ice machine next to it. The owner had
Terry go next to the restaurant with another guy to his Mom’s house where she
had a large chest freezer with ice. It
was homemade ice, made from ice cube trays.
They also made block ice from Tupperware containers. Pretty ingenious I thought. Terry said the home was very neat and clean,
but I’m a little iffy about what kind of water the ice was made out of. If we get to feeling ill in the next couple
of days we’ll know it was the ice. But
you can only handle warm gin and tonics for so many days.
Each day we watch small, brightly colored fishing boats head
out to go fishing. With names like Shante,
Big Claw, and Yellow Bee, and Moon Dancer painted proudly on the very front
where a windshield might normally be.
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Usually three guys are in each boat, one always standing at
the bow riding the bounce of the waves going out. They return around 4 in the afternoon loaded
with lobster, conch and assorted fish.
Last night a red and grey boat stopped by to sell us some lobster. The Captain’s name was Spice, a boisterous,
small framed Rastafarian with dreadlocks.
They had probably a couple hundred lobster flapping and squirming around
in the bottom of their boat. For $20 we got more conch then I’m sure what to do
with. They were nice enough to clean it up for us and tell us how to prepare
it. First thing in conch preparation is
tenderizing it. Spice said you have to
“bruise” it with a “bruiser”. You
basically pound the dickens out of it to make it less chewy and tough. We
started our preparations with just fried conch and a squeeze of lemon, then we
marinated it for 30 minutes in some mojo marinade and fried it up, then I put
together some ceviche for the next day.
Our favorite so far has been just frying it with a little salt and
pepper and a generous amount of fresh lemon, although the ceviche was a close
second.
We’ve now been in Turks and Caicos for 7 days. It looks like our weather window will be
Monday, but in the meantime our cruising permit is only for 7 days. So Terry went into the Customs office to see
about extending it. It was an entire
morning of waiting. Waiting is really
not a problem for us because, well, what do we have to do that’s so very
pressing. So I waited leisurely reading
on the boat (only the Captain is needed, fortunate for me) while Terry waited
at the Marina/grocery store/gas station.
At first it looked like we were going to have to pay $150 for a 3 month
cruising permit, but thankfully the Customs gal had mercy on us and didn’t
charge us for the 3 month permit. She
said she’d work it out.
We spent some time walking around the little town here. It’s the most derelict, remote little place
you can imagine. House after house is
boarded up and falling apart. Our
friends in Provo told us that when the economy crashed in 2008 they were hit
really hard, and it shows here in Cockburn Harbor. People live very, very
simply. I guess one of the ways they
provide for themselves is a lot of people have a convenience store in their
house. No kidding. On every street someone has what they call a
“Variety Store” that contains the very barest of “varieties”. Mayonnaise ($10 a jar), Spam, ketchup, Vienna
sausages, tuna, rice and an assortment of strange items. For produce everyone carries the same half
dozen items, iceburg lettuce ($6.50 a head), green, yellow and red bell
peppers, plaintains, carrots, hot peppers and apples. That’s pretty much it. One little place we stopped at had a couple
of clever homemade items for sale. They
had some baked goods, lemon cake and muffins as well as some small plastic cups
filled with what looked like frozen kool-aid.
I had to have a piece of cake.
You have to appreciate ingenuity.
I think it must take a lot of it to survive here.
We thought the Haitian brothers and sisters would be over to
preach on Saturday, but something must have happened or we misunderstood. We got ready for the ministry anyway and
headed out. We just talked to anyone we
saw along the street or in a store. We
had a nice time. The next time Spice the
local fisherman saw Terry he called him “Christian Man”. I guess we are getting a reputation on island
already. That’s never a bad thing. We
talked with a sweet girl named Keesha, in one of the variety stores on Monday. When I gave her a tract and said we were one
of Jehovah’s Witnesses her face lit up.
She’s studying over the telephone with a sister in Provo. She listens in over the internet on Sunday to
the meeting in Provo. It was great to
meet her.
Well, once again the weather has foiled our plans. We are learning to roll with the punches
pretty good now though. A friend in
Montana told Terry a great quote, “Adventure is just inconvenience perceived
correctly.” I think I’m going to get
that quote framed. Because that’s what
this trip has been, one big, long, adventure.
But it looks like Friday may be our next window. If nothing else we’re going to head for
Luperon, Dominican Republic. We have got
to leave TCI (Turks and Caicos Islands) since the Customs lady has been nice
enough not to charge us YET for the $150.00 cruising permit. (Though I think
we’ve been pretty good tourists here since we’ve arrived. They got their money one way or another.) So I hope the weather cooperates otherwise
it’s going to be a bumpy ride to DR. Once
we hit DR we’ll bounce our way down the coast, port to port till we reach
Puerto Rico. At least things are cheap
in the Dominican Republic. I’m dying for
some good produce. I can’t wait to enjoy
a big, ripe papaya or banana. Oh, and
avocados, they have lovely avocados in the DR.
Can you tell I’m a little malnourished right now?
Next up. . . . Dominican Republic
Next up. . . . Dominican Republic
