We woke up this morning to a beautiful day inside the bay. The winds were a bit strong, but the waves were short and slightly choppy. After breakfast, we decided to take the dinghy to the beach and walk the 3.5 miles to Chub Cay for lunch. Well, Google Maps said it was 3.5 miles. (Google Maps is sometimes wrong.)
We began walking on the dirt road, only to find it flooded, and changed course to walk along the coral bank with the hope of finding the dry road. It wasn’t happening. So, we moved the dinghy past the old, abandoned Berry Islands Marina and beached it next to what appeared to be a small marina that was closed, or someone’s private property, couldn’t tell. But it was beautiful.
As we were walking up the property, three men hailed us from inside the small front porch of an out building. Now, this was Christmas Eve, and these guys started celebrating early, if you know what I mean. As soon as they saw Jeff, one of them pointed at him and shouted, “Santa Clause!” They were very happy. They asked what we were doing out here all by ourselves. A fair question, but we were cautious. We told them we were trying to walk to the Chub Cay Marina for lunch. They laughed. It was too far and the road was mostly flooded. Ambrose and Kenneth were going to the marina, and Ambrose was coming back anyway, so they offered us a ride in their “buggies”. We rode with Kenneth in his bright yellow ATV. He was definitely right about the road, long, bumpy, and wet. Glad we took them up on their offer.
We had a lovely lunch at the clubhouse and hopped into Ambrose’s bright red ATV for the ride back. He was pretty sloshed, but very funny. He kept trying to take “2 minutes, just 2 minutes” to show us some of his “favorite places” off the main road. Our phones were dead, wee had no form of protection, no one knew where we were. And there wasn’t another human being in sight. This was getting sketchier and sketchier by the minute. We got near his house and he decided to make a detour to show us a “beautiful place where you can get lost, mon.” Red flag! Red flag! Here we are in an ATV with a totally drunk Bahamian guy making a detour off the main (dirt) road to get lost.
But it was innocent. He just wanted to show us a beautiful beach that used to be the site of a summer camp before a hurricane took it out. Then he proceeded to take a leak right on the beach in front of us. At least he had the decency to turn his back. Oh, boy. We got back into the buggy and he dropped us off at our dinghy. Then he hugged us goodbye. It turns out, he was just a really nice guy from Andros who is very proud of the island where he now lives and works. All he wanted to do was to share it with us.
As we motored away from the beach and I laid eyes on Wind Therapy, I realized that some things never get old. A beautiful sunset, the sound of a child laughing, the sight of your anchored boat that’s in the exact spot you left it four hours ago… Life is good.
8:30 PM – sailors’ midnight. Time for bed. We’re leaving early in the morning to make a run all the way to Bimini. The seas will be too rough for us to anchor in the Great Bahama Bank, so we’re looking at 11 hours. Wish us luck! And Merry Christmas.
December 2019