Tuesday, February 09, 2010 West End, Grand Bahamas

I got up early, made coffee and hopped off the boat (with coffee in hand) to do a little walk about and take pictures. It feels luxurious to be able to hop off the boat and go for a walk. After being cooped up for almost 3 weeks onboard, I’m sure Wayne was glad to see me be able to go off for a walk as much as I was to be able to do so. I start feeling trapped & he says its like living with a caged tiger when I can’t get off the boat. Today I could get off the boat! The tigress is roaming the beach, enjoying the view – it’s a feast for the eyes and an uplift of the soul. I was beginning to wonder if we’d ever get over here and being at a dock affords me a sense of freedom to be able to walk off the boat. It’s a rare treat to do that.

It was a beautiful Sunrise looking east and northward from the beach out over the water. The water was turquoise with only ripples to be seen, the sand white, the palm tree leaves blowing gently. The tigress surveying her new domain! Camera in one hand, coffee in the other, I walked from the inlet into the marina to the end of the beach, then back through the grounds of Old Bahamas Bay. It’s a nice resort area with a marvelous pool, exercise room and pretty grounds. After I got some pictures, I came back to the boat and grabbed my shower stuff. I ran into Maggie from Guinevere (they’re in the boat next to us and got in last night after customs closed). We stood chatting for a while & I didn’t realize how long we’d been until Wayne came strolling up to take his shower.

After our showers I took my computer to the work out room to charge up my battery and check out the weather forecasts to see if we should be leaving today for Lucaya or wait. The winds are supposed to be howling later today so we decided to stay put. It looks like the next opportunity to leave will probably be Thursday per the reports on passageweather.com We chatted with Blue Pearl and Azaya to see what they were doing and it looks like we’re all going to stay put for the next couple days. The wind will be on our nose from 20-30 knots and hey – why?

We decided to go for a beach walk and explore the village up the road & Wayne and I brought a bottle of champagne with us to celebrate their first crossing to the Bahamas. We were going to have it last night when we got in, but happy hour seemed like a wonderful idea so we brought the bottle to the beach with us and toasted there to their first crossing, and with our first crossing with other boats :) I must say it was much more enjoyable to be able to look out and see a couple other boats out there with you. I enjoyed the camaraderie and sharing chats on the radio. I was glad to be able to share a toast with these couples on the beach! Then we sat by the pool for a while and continued our walk into town.

Along the way, Glen spotted a man that was cleaning conch in the water near the road and stopped to chat with him. They ended up getting 12 for $20 and Axel (Azaya) got 6 and a lesson on how to get the conch out of the shell. Jereese was very nice to show us and allow me to tape him doing it. Ralph passed by on a bike (Equus) heading back towards the marina and let us know that there was a little grocery store about a ¼ mile up the road. An advanced scouting mission!

We found the little grocery store and Glen & Pam got limes, peppers and onion to make conch salad and I got some bananas and cinnamon bread. Axel wanted ice cream and the cashier said there was an ice cream place called Scoops a block or so back the way we came. We never did find it but a guy wanting $5 to purchase a hamburger sold me a queen conch shell. He later tried to get a dollar from Mary & Axel for a coke to go with the burger but wasn’t very successful.

We were originally going to stay on board tonight – Mary invited us over to Azaya, but the more we thought about it the more we thought why not join them for a cup of wine & see how their first adventure in preparing conch turned out. Pam & Glenn made a conch salad that was out of this world. Axel got to tenderize his conch with first a rubber mallet, then my meat hammer and Pam fried it up to a delicious perfection. They’re a couple of pros right out of the chute! We got to try some of Ralph and Ed’s Mahi that they caught on the way over to the islands – very tasty. We brought a Cani wine, which we never got around to trying. Blue Pearl had brought a red to try out called the “Seven Deadly Zins” and Ed had brought a red wine. So it was a red wine night. We sat around enjoying the company, tasting the food and sipping some wine on Azaya. What a beautiful, wonderful boat. Wayne could stand up in it throughout the entire boat, and I loved the side-by-side refrigerator/freezer lockers and carved/patterned woodwork. It was a delightful evening shared with wonderful company.