Thursday & Friday, February 27-28, 2014 Marsh Harbour

Thursday:  The first thing on Chuck's agenda this morning is to shorten  the new bolt and screw it back into place.  Billy is coming over to give some thought to our problem.  Hopefully, this bolt will be strong enough to do the job!

Our plans are to go to Hope Town today for a night or two with Circe.  However, we might change our plans because the wind is starting to blow like stink, 15-25 mph and there's an 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms.  My concern is that we'd get all the way over to Hope Town and not be able to find a vacant mooring ball!  Hope Town is very protected and a favorite for boaters to sneak into to wait out the nasty weather.  With the predicted weather for today and tomorrow, I bet everyone is going to stay hunkered down right where they are!  Wow, the skies to the north are looking dark and threatening and they are moving our way!  Okay, time to lower our side panel before it starts to rain...just in time....and it's pouring!  The first lull in the rain, I make a dash for the Jib Room with my laptop.  I need to to some banking and pay bills while I have wifi.  There are so many others with the sam idea that the internet is running very slow....darn.  Being persistent pays off and I finally get my payments set up and ready to go. While I was fooling around with the internet, Chuck was on the boat changing the oil, oil filter, and the two fuel filters.  Happy Hours II should be ready for her long trip back to Ohio.

At 3:00, our crew decided to meet at the Jib Room and play LRC for quarters. There were 10 of us playing...Rita, David, Eileen, Billy, Paula, Bobby, Ginger, Sam, me and Chuck. There were 4 women playing Mexican Train at another table but they weren't as vocal as us.  We had about 1.5 hours of a 'hooting and hollering' good time.  After 4 games, the winners were Eileen, Billy, Sam, and David.  What fun.  It was soon approaching 5:00 and time for the Cruisers' Pot Luck.  None of us were going because we were too busy playing LRC instead of making an appetizer!  Back to our boats for the night.
Friday:  It rained all night!  It's good for the island and it's people because they really need the rain to fill their cisterns.  Chuck and I decided not to venture to Hope Town today with Circe.  Since we're leaving on Monday, we thought it best to stick close to home and rest up for the big trip.

Rita called to see if we wanted to do lunch at Conchy Joes at noon.  Well, yes!! This will be our last chance to watch them crack conch.  As soon as we got in the dinghy, it started to rain.  It's a good thing we have our foul weather jackets on!  It's bad enough that by the time we got to the other side of the harbor, we both had 'dinghy butts'!  We ordered our meal and conch salad and got to watch Ebony clean fresh conch.   She pulled a string of conch up out of the water in front of the bar/restaurant.  They keep their conch in the water to keep them alive until ready to eat.  Ebony then cracked the conch and skinned them in record time.  Boy is she good...and she's got to be 18-20 years old!!

me & Rita at Conchy Joes

Once we got back to our boat, Chuck took the helmet conch out of our freezer.  Someone told him this was one way to kill the mussel.  It looked dead so Chuck tried to remove the animal.  It came out in pieces.  Desmond came by and gave Chuck some suggestions as to what to do...we'll see.  He suggested taking the shell to the beach and pound it on the hard sand. Desmond said the mussel will just fall out after about 25 poundings!   He even offered to remove the conch if Chuck needed help.

While we were playing with the shell, Lisa Mann called twice and we didn't hear my Bahamian phone ring.  I called her back and we made arrangements to meet  Lisa, Herrick, and their friends Shalina and Bob at Snappas at 6:00. The young sax player is on stage from 6-8:00 and the restaurant has free appetizers.  By the time we walked up to the table, all the food was gone.  We could see why....people had their plates piled like this was the main course!  What manners!  We listened to Mr. Eckley play his instrument while we ate and talked.  It was nice to see friends from Ohio.

Me, Lisa, Herrick, Chuck, Shalina, & Bob