Happy Easter Friends and Family!

We attended Easter services this morning at the Treasure Cay Community Church, a non-denominational church located in the community center sharing space with the library. They bring in a pastor from somewhere around the islands for two weeks at a time. There is a little parsonage next to the community center where the pastor and his wife live while they are there. Then they go on to the next church and someone else comes in for a week or two.  It is quite a gig for a retired minister. I tried to get to church before but the service starts at 9am and that is awfully early for us lately. I can’t believe I just said that….

The music was good this morning. There was a pianist, a flutist, and the visiting pastor played the trumpet to the ever popular Easter hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today”. It reminded me of all the times Dave Carnell played the organ while two trumpets accompanied him to that piece. It was just what I needed, although I really miss my buddies in Trinity choir. I haven’t sung in a long time.

We started the morning out right. The aft head stuffed up. It is really bad. The hose needs to be replaced. We fooled around with it and with a bleach bucket for most of the day to reach that conclusion. Then the water had a vapor lock that had to be fixed so we could fill the tank. Maintenance never really ends, does it?  

Beautiful full moon this week – makes the tides really big; we can be below grade level of the dock at low tide. We can see the dock deck from the salon windows. This height makes it as hard to get the dog off as it is when the tide is high. 

Al and MaryAnn left to go back to the US. They got a weather window on Friday so decided to head to Florida and make their way up to SC by the end of the month. We had a great time with them. We plan to check in with them when we get to Anapolis and have them show us around their home port. As I was putting together this blog it occurred to me that I had no pictures of them. Shocking!

We decided to stay for another few weeks – maybe get the couch reupholstered and wait for the weather to clear in the US. We have been watching closely and the weather over there is really bad and looks bad for at least a week more. The next weather window for crossing back to Florida doesn’t look like it will happen till at least double digits in April. Next week looks bad. 

Of course bad here isn’t anything like bad there. Bad here means the winds come out of the North. Anything with an “N” in it is bad. So put that kind of northerly breezes with bright sunshine and high 70 degree temperatures and you have a bit of heaven. The weather is making some really neat cloud formations. 

We haven’t been in the water yet to swim. It is a bit cold for that. Water temperature is in the low to mid 70s. We walk on the beach regularly and ride our bikes.

Kermit had a huge fit yesterday on a bike ride when we stopped to walk on the beach. This is pretty cool. Everyone walks on the beach from end to end. There are homes ringing the water of course. Every so often there are beach access paths where folks leave their bikes and golf carts and go down the path to the beach. 

You can walk down the beach and come around to the next beach access path and go back to your bike/golf cart. Or you can sit on the chairs you brought in the sunshine on the beach right next to someone’s house.

I chose the former and Kermit chose to freak out. “You can’t walk on that guy’s property! He owns the corner there. He paid for it with his own money.” “Oh yes I can. I can walk anywhere I want on the beach. It is public access. If I can’t walk around the corner then why can we walk in front of people’s houses at any place on the beach? It doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t own the beach.”  The bike ride ended early. We continue to keep ourselves amused! I think I needed a nap…

This is NOT a professional photo-it actually looks like this!

I took a bike ride by myself one day. I brought a book and took a few minutes to read on the beach at one of the beach access paths. We weren’t able to walk all the way to the absolute end from our place so the bike made it easier to go further. Here are some observations about this bike ride:

Names of houses: The homes all have fancy beach house names. I didn’t see house numbers so I think the names are critical. Names like: Atlantis, Crosswinds, Pineapple Point (that is a development), Sail ‘A Vie, Camelot, Final Approach, YellowFin, Papi’s Palace, Sea Shells, Treasured Times, Sea Cliff, Yellow Coconut Cottage, Elysium, Starfish Cottage, Tranquility, Green Gecko, Rising Sun, Dolphin Watch, Full Moon. 

The Purple Porpoise house has lilac paint with green shutters. Sweet Pea has, wait for it, a sweet pale green exterior with teal shutters. Oceana has pale green and blue coloring. Everything is pastel and really well-coordinated. I suspect decorators were involved. I know I would need a decorator to pick just the right shade.

Lots of homes are for sale. I would say almost half the properties have “For Sale” signs on them. I know everything is for sale for the right price but folks just seem to want to get away. Locals put it off to Americans with financial problems after the financial crisis.  I don’t know but I suspect you can get a really great deal here if you want a winter home in a great location. You just can’t drive from Ohio to get here!

Very little construction going on , probably associated with the large number of homes for sale. I saw one big home going up along the windward side. It is a lovely pale green. You can see right through the home to the ocean so every room will have a great view. Very much open concept.

Lots of folks not from USA. At the very end are some amazing homes. Many people are open to talking when you walk on the beach. All you have to say is, “Gosh isn’t it beautiful?” and people gush all over about how great it is and how few people at home know about it. So anyway, I was taking pictures and walking around at the very tip and this lady commented about the beauty as she passed. She said the house on the end is owned by a German couple and the pink on down the way is owned by a Cuban couple. It is very cosmopolitan here. She got into a conversation with the Cuban lady about the way here home was remodeled and she said the lady was really pleased someone actually talked to her.

Lots of homes are just closed up. This one is at the end of a greenway to the beach. I was very tempted to sit on the steps and watch the beach and read my book. But I kept moving. 

Some exotic homes. I particularly liked the big sprawling complex hidden in a jungle with thatched roofs all around. I tried to get some pictures but there is a lot of greenery blocking the view. What a house! 

Even the gates are different. The gates are made to look like sticks but the “sticks” are made of wrought iron. It is so cool!

greenways have signs

This house, the Purple Porpoise, has its own street sign
I think this house is for sale too

Street names are different. A “road” is paved and travels the length of the island. Treasure Cay Road goes the length of the island. Then there are Paths and Bays and Rounds that are not paved but go to cul—de-sacs. A Greenway is a path to the beach open to everyone. 

Although greenways are open to the public, a neighbor at this one asked me what I was doing there. I said I was reading my book and enjoying the water. She said fine, have a nice day. I think she was German.

a greenway

Hidden in the scrub along roads and rounds are strange treasure, like this overturned truck clearly left over from some big storm. 

The neighbor to the right asked why I
was sitting at the end of this greenway

The beach is reinforced: Every 20 yards or so are little walls sort of like wing dams on the Mississippi that direct water so it doesn’t hit so hard against the beach and cause so much erosion. These are so consistent looking that they must be placed here by the community.

Lagoon and ocean views. To maximize the water views, there are lagoons cut into the land. People on the windward side of the island also tend to own land across the street that has lagoon access. This is where they dock their boats. There are little boat houses and boat lifts. Most of the houses that own property across the street have walls built in the same style as their homes and painted the same color as the home.

This is a boat dock on the lagoon side of the road that
belongs to the big house on the ocean side of the road

Seriously, we have been here so long the people at the bar know our names and bring us a Kalik right away without asking. Just like on Cheers. Kind of fun!

Our favorite drink at the beach bar, in addition to Kalik, is the frozen margarita. The put the alcohol in the bottom of the glass then add the frozen part. Yum!!

As we looked at our declining stores, Kermit made a new boat drink, Tequila Sunrise. It is an old fashioned drink but hits the spot. We will definitely be making this sissy drink for Micheal when we catch up to One September!

We eat out a few times a week, usually lunch. We cook a few days and we eat leftovers the rest of the time. We made a delicious roast chicken on the grill the other day. Then yesterday I made chicken tortilla soup. Yum! We will have the rest of the chicken somehow as leftovers today.

We discovered the lady who brings homemade food to the boat. She makes the best pies!! Kermit bought a cherry/apple pie that was cherry on one side and apple on the other. Yesterday he bought a cherry pie from her. The pies are still warm when she delivers them. Unbelievably good. 

I got macaroni and cheese from her last time. Mac and cheese is a big deal in the Bahamas. I am not sure why. Probably because it is not expensive. They put a little heat in their mac and cheese. I am not sure what it is. It might be a hot mustard or it might be red pepper. It is a flavoring that you cannot see because it looks like regular mac and cheese to me. It is also really rich. I couldn’t eat more than a small piece at a time. This is not diet food.

We had our fourth pizza night. There are lots more people here than there were before, or at least at our resort. Folks came in for Easter Week and we are seeing a lot of kids, probably for spring break. The other day we had a nice talk with a couple of college girls here for spring break from Bennington.

Most of the time we sit on our boat and just fool around. We clean, do maintenance, I conduct Interview Doctor business and write, and we read. We made friends with Ossie, the owner of the charter/ferry service Abaco Adventures that docks at the end of our dock. 

And with the nice fellow who has a string of about 20 small boats for rent. The other day the resort was doing maintenance to reinforce the electrical connection on our dock. This blocked us for a few hours. We intended to go to the beach so we hunkered down reading on the back of the boat to wait till they were finished. Well, the fellow with the rental boats got in his pretty  go-fast and came across to pick us up!! Wasn't that nice of him? 

Kermit befriended a couple of high school boys who asked for money for their school projects. In exchange for a contribution, they washed the boat and did some odd jobs. He even let the kids take the dinghy out for a joy ride. They probably won't come back because they last time they asked for a contribution they "forgot" to come back to do the boat waxing Kermit wanted help with. They were cute though!

We also have the chance to watch the sailboaters. They are quite a crew. At any given time in the lagoon around the corner will be about 20 boats, mostly sailboats. They are supposed to pay a small daily fee to dock their dinghies and come ashore to use the resort amenities. I am not confident that happens much. 

We have had the chance to observe sailboaters in close contact. To all our sailboater friends, we are sorry. This is what we see:

• They use dinghies in an odd way. This one guy in a red dinghy stands up and holds the lines off the front like he is standing on a broncho. It is totally nute. Unfortunately we did not get a picture of him doing that. No camera around when you need it.
• They come in at dusk when Mike and Cliff are gone for the day and bring dinghy-loads of garbage and water tanks to fill the tanks in the bathrooms with free water. No picture of that. Where is that camera when we need it? 
• They sit in the bar in the morning and use the free Internet.
• They anchor anywhere, including in the channel.  This one really galls Kermit. Check out this fellow. He is smack dab in the middle of the channel and stayed there for a day or so. We had to go around him to get out to do a poop out. 

Rusty update: Rusty sort of likes it here. He sure is slow, so much slower than he was even a year ago. He sleeps a lot and only goes out about 3 times a day – about 9am, about 4pm and about 8pm. Sometimes we can get him out more frequently. The best walk is in the morning. I can usually keep him out almost an hour but only if it is sort of cool. Then he can be downright frisky.

When he goes out he has one purpose that he needs to take care of right away. Understandable. At the end of our dock though is this sign warning all dogs and owners that dogs are not allowed to do their business on the grass. There is nothing but grass and the sidewalk where everyone walks. So we let him use the grass and pick up right away. 

That is until the other day when the Hospitality Committee in the form of Mr. Happy arrived for the week at his little 500 sq foot condo on the grass. He immediately confronted me about how the dog was welcome to sniff but not do anything else on the grass. I asked where he suggested I go and he didn’t care much. I can’t wait till tries that with Kermit. I just walked about muttering under my breathe. The dog is 13 years old and a pretty good sport but there is not alternative to the grass without walking at least a block in either direction. Not gonna happen. Oh well… The guy hasn’t said anything lately and we haven’t changed our habits. I bet he just feels better having said it. He will go home and we will still be here for a little while.

The boat population has been pretty steady at only a few. Al and MaryAnn were across from us for a while then they left. They were nice company. We got a new boat next to us yesterday. This is a 1990 Hatteras at least 60, probably 70 and at least 16 or 17 feet wide. It makes Good Karma look like a bath toy. We are starting to get a complex!

Critter alert! Here are some fellows that hang around here: 

The sea birds are really loud

Kermit has been tracking this turtle for some time

Here he is again - that turtle

We take the boat out for a poop out about once a week. We took it out last Friday and evidently Friday is "burn your garbage" day on Great Abaco Cay. We saw fires like this ringing the island. No smell but lots of smoke. 

 While walking the dog last week I stumbled upon the local Triathlon!! It was very exciting. The triathlon was run by the Rotary. Individuals could pick one event, run it as a relay with some friends, or run the whole thing for fun or for qualifying for something special if you wanted. The whole thing was headquartered at the Treasure Cay Resort in the park across the street and at the beach we use. It was a cloudy, cool morning. I remember my friend Gideon said that was good weather for this kind of thing.

First they swam. They came out of the water at our beach.

Then this lady hosed the swimmers off - salt water, remember? .

 Then the swimmers went to find their bikes.

This young woman is named Taryn and she is 13 years old
running her first triathlon

Rusty and I watched! This dog is named Chocolate Mousse!

Then the bikers come back so the runners can go. 

One last thing. On Wednesday nights we checked out the drive in movie. Now this takes some imagining because there are no movie theatres here. But there are people who enjoy being entertained. So they created their own drive in movie!! A truck comes with a big screen on a trailer. They show first run movies! We saw The Hobbit. They sell popcorn and everything!!

Happy Spring, Happy Easter, and Happy Passover to all our friends and family. We miss you and hope to see you all soon!