My Captain is 50 years old today; for just a few
months, I will be only six years older than him, rather than 7. My mother was older than my father, just by a
13 months, but the time between May 24 (her birthday) and June 1 (his birthday),
we used to give her such grief about being TWO WHOLE YEARS older than my
father. A funny coincidence, because my
other sisters are married to younger men, too.
So Gary turned 50.
I made him a birthday biscuit as I had no cake makings on board. No birthday candles either, so we stuck a
piece of craft store dowel in the biscuit, lit it, and serenaded him rather
badly, but he smiled through it all.
Later, we took a short hop from over to Cracker P's
for lunch, which, of course, as is our luck, was not open for another two
days. So we did a U-turn in the dinghy
and tied up at Lubber's Landing to check it out as it was right next door to
Cracker P's. Now, we wanted to go to Cracker
P's because of the history involved; apparently, this guy, in a legal dispute
over a chicken, shot a sheriff somewhere in the United States. In running from the law, he made his way to
the Bahamas and wound up living as a hermit on Lubber's Quarter, what was then
a small uninhabited cay. Locals knew him
as the "Naked Man" who came in occasionally for supplies without the
benefit of clothing. We don't know if
it's true, but it was on the internet, so it must be.
Lubber's was a great second choice; we ordered a rum
drink for me, a Kalik for Gary, and water for Elliott. We started with cauliflower, breaded and
deep-fried, smothered in a lovely spicy Bahamian sauce. The guys had tuna burgers and I had an
awesome salad, with dressing that had a hint of heat, too. It was so good. I get salads whenever I can because lettuce just
doesn't keep well on a boat. Cabbage is
good and we use it all the time, but cabbage is just not lettuce.
I was keeping my eye on an occupied table the whole
time we were ordering and waiting and as soon as they occupants got up, I was
on it like a fly on, oh well, you know what I mean. Kind of in a corner, it was a U-shaped couch
with wide seats and large fluffy pillows abutting a table right down the
center. With the straw mat on the walls
and the tropical breeze wafting through slatted windows, it was a perfect
afternoon of drinking, eating, and people watching.
We lounged around long enough to close down the
place, at which point, we were asked kindly to clear the premises. We took the dinghy over Cracker P's beach,
where we figured that he wouldn't mind our trespassing on their off day. As we walked up the beach, a woman and man
came out of the gate that said "Private," and the man got into a boat
a left. We chatted with the woman, who turned
out to be the owner. She said,
"We'll be open on Wednesday."
We asked whether we could take the beach trail to the other side of the
island, and she said, "Sure; just be sure to reenter the trailhead at the two palm trees." Good advice.
We noticed that she was recovering from an ankle
injury; she said that in the 15 years that she's been living there, she'd never
had a problem, but on a recent walk on the trail, her foot got caught under a
tree root and she ended up having a break.
She was still nursing it as it was tender in the last stages of healing. I know that feeling.
She looked at my shoes and said that I should be
okay; I'm guessing flip-flops would have been out of the question. Once we entered the trail, it felt like we
were in a tropical jungle; birdsong and bugs hit us from all sides. I got aggravated because I kept hearing new
bird sounds, but could not see the birds to take a photo to get them
identified. There are several bird
species here that are not found anywhere else in the world and they were being
camera shy. (My friend R. Bruce would
certainly know how to get them to come out and pose, I'm sure!)
It was hot and still on the trail and you had to pay
attention; roots snaked across the trail every which way and rounded coral heads popped up
like the game "Whack-a-Mole," surprising you at every turn.
The water on the other side was flat calm, low
tide. We saw some interesting holes in
the sand that were dug by larger animals than the crabs were are used to, so we
walked with our heads down in case we ran into any of these strange digging animals.
A little ways down the beach, there was a nice
wooden lounge and a flotsam-fabricated bar called Cracker G's Tiki Bar. Don't know if people really used it as a
beach hangout, but Elliott stopped by to take a call on the shell phone.
It was a good day for a birthday. When we got back to the boat, I checked
Facebook as I'd been looking forward to connecting with Captain Angie Wilson
again--we had first run into her at Riviera Beach (she was the one who visited
us bearing ice for a Christmas present).
She told me where she'd been giving her sailing
lessons out of and we were only about 8 miles away! I asked Gary whether we could go see her even
though it would be changing his plans a bit; he was a little hesitant, but
since we also had some provisioning to do, he agreed to the sail to Marsh
Harbor tomorrow. Angie and I made plans
to meet for dinner. Yay!
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