The wrap up: Part 1
I write to you from our final destination in the Southern Exumas, Georgetown. We’ve made it:
Above you’ll see a map of our destinations, most we anchored at for one to two nights. I’m torn between whether to talk about where we went, or to already begin to muse on the trip’s meaning and all that. This being Open Water “Experiments” let’s just see what comes out.
Tomorrow Ben and I fly out to the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. Last night my replacement got here, another friend of Ben’s from the states, who will take care of both the boat and our seadog while we’re gone. In ten or so days the captain will return, but I will move on to other travels for now: New York, DC, elsewhere. Will I keep this publication open during those travels? I don’t know.
So — about the above places. I’ll give a brief thought on each one. But first, I need to tell you I lost my phone, or rather, it drown in the ocean. So there will be no new pics. Below is the last pic I took before my digital assistant’s untimely death.
Okay, I lied. Below is the last pic I took.
So on to the places:
Highbourne Cay — This is a small private island with marina facilities, restaurant, and a small store, none of which we saw because we were fresh from Nassau and we didn’t want any of that. Instead we anchored outside with all of the super yachts that were too big to get inside and I went spearfishing. It was my first time and I nabbed two lionfish.
Warderick Wells — National Park where we showed up just as the Park Rangers were hosting happy hour on Saturday night. We played bocci ball and drank rum with them into the night. I got lost the next day hiking around the island and wandered for hours on the wrong coast trying to figure out how to penetrate the thick island shrubbery and get back to our boat. It was good exercise. My legs still bear the scratches.
In my wanderings I found a cave with a ladder down into it. Inside I found a dead tree which had grown much taller than any other tree on the island, probably because it had access to better soil and moisture down in the cave. Although it was dead, a baby tree grew next to it that I didn't’ recognize from anywhere else on the island, so it probably it’s baby. Nature is beautiful.
Big Pipe / Compass Cay: I forget to put Big Pipe into my list of places I visited above. We went by dinghy to Compass Cay where I swam with nurse sharks, we found a dry inland marsh called the “low tide airstrip,” we bought some beers and drank them, we took a long hike along the coast.
Oh, and I suppose I better mention: We were anchored next to Howard Schultz’s Yacht: Pi. I considered cruising over in the dinghy and inviting him for coffee, but never got around to it.
Big Major Spot / Staniel Cay- This spot was the most touristy we found. The anchorage was gorgeous (the picture above w/ the full moon) and so full of brightly lit 100+ft yachts anchored out that it felt like some kind of yacht festival. One highlight at Staniel Cay was a small laundromat — liquor store — bar with a covered wooden deck out front. We killed several hours on that lovely, totally unremarkable porch bathed in warm air and sipping cold beer, the sound of the TV inside running home improvement shows fading in and out, locals coming by for a beer and smoke on their lunch break, nothing beyond the porch but some trees and a defunct basketball court now being used to store pallets of cement. Time stood still.
Black Point: This was my favorite place on the trip. Nice sized settlement with ~4 restaurants, a bar, and strong locals vibe. There were plenty of roads to walk around and explore which I’d show you if my phone was not deceased. The town was built along an extraordinarily beautiful bay that I wish I could show you. The charm here was it was the first actual, functioning town we saw in the Exumas. Technically Staniel is a town of comparable size, but it’s too tourism oriented to feel authentic. Black Point on the other hand was filled with local Bahamians playing basket ball, and driving around doing their thing. This would be a fun place to spend a week sometime.
Highlight: On a long rambling walk with Millie I walked up a hill and, sitting atop a pile of cement bags covered with a tarp, discovered a panoramic view of the island with the embracing ocean beyond. The island, like most of the Exumas is covered in a low, dry and uninviting tangle of shrubs, but from a distance it appears more like the countryside is bathed in a dense forest.
Little Farmers Cay: Our first night here we took the dinghy to a waterside bar that had been recommended to us several times on the way down, only to find it closed. It was sunset and there were two Bahamians hanging out at the beach in front, clearly old friends laughing and goofing off. They said everything on the island was already closed, unfortunately. But right as they said it, one of them took out a phone and called someone they knew at a local restaurant to ask if they could cook for us. He gave us instructions and told us to meet them on the other side of the little island, and he’d take us the rest of the way to the restaurant. We’d take the boat, they’d take the golf cart. We arrived and waited a while, but he did not meet us, so we just walked up a hill and found a restaurant in the process of closing for the night, a man closing shutters just as we approached. We asked nicely if we could have a beer and he said yes, and directed us around the corner to the bar entrance. Once inside I saw a chef in the kitchen and, asked if she was the woman on the phone with our friend who had offered to make us dinner. She said yes, but all she had left was fried grouper with a side of peas and rice, coleslaw and macaroni and cheese. Oh, is that all?? We’ll take two.
It turns out the guy who had called her was a cop who had just come to the island for a one month assignment, and they were keeping the kitchen open late to fix him something. He eventually showed up and we all ate together. The owner was a super eccentric old Bahamian who had lived in Libya for a long time, and insisted on calling us ‘white niggas,’ because it leveled the societal playing field somehow. He was a delight, really.
And that brings us here, to Georgetown where we just spent the day teaching my replacement to sail. All is well, all is very well and I’m excited to get back to the states soon. Tomorrow I’ll try to explore any broader themes or takeaways from the trip.
Until then.
