Meet the Bahamas Gang

Meet the Bahamas cast of characters. We made more new friends during this visit. When we first arrived at Treasure Cay Marina Mike and Paul greeted us on the dock and helped us tie up.

Paul is from Alaska. We never quite got the full story but somehow he left Alaska and ended up buying a Leopard 40 catamaran, a really pretty sail boat that he calls home. Paul is not a tall man, wiry with curly gray hair he wears in a little pony tail. He always has a big smile on his face. Always. 

We never saw him cross, even when situations might have required it.  Paul never cooks anything but he is a gracious guest. One time he came onboard for dinner and later brought over a bar of dark chocolate as a thank you gift. I really enjoyed that thoughtful thank you!!

Paul is friends with lots of the sail boats that anchor in the mooring field. They often stop by on the way over to shore and they have a nice laugh and a drink. One couple in particular, I never did get their names, are lovely folks from Montreal. He is a ski instructor in Aspen or something like that. I am not sure what she does or did but they are a hoot. They laugh and dance and sing all the time. I have some fun pictures of her doing the limbo with the entertainer!

Paul docked the catamaran at the t-head on our dock for a while. Then he went away for a few days to visit Marsh Harbor or some other fun place. When he returned someone had taken his place so they put him about 3 spots beyond us, a little closer to the bar. No problem! Nothing ever phases Paul!

In the first week of April Tanja appeared. Tanja was crewing on a chartered catamaran when the owners let her go for no particular reason. She was stranded in Treasure Cay. Tanja was born in South Africa and grew up in England. As an adult she moved to Queensland Australia just off the Great Barrier Reef (where we visited). She has a very pretty accent.

Tanja is also quite attractive. She is about 40 or so I would guess. After she appeared on our dock with her sad story Paul adopted her on his boat. They seem to get along just fine.

Paul left a few days ago around 4/6 with Tanja on a long sailing journey to the British Virgin Islands. The dock is a lot quieter now but we had a great time with Paul and Tanja.

Mike and Renee Glover are on Simple Man out of Manteo, NC on the outer banks. We vacationed often in the outer banks so we know exactly where they live. Well not the exact house but at least we are familiar with the area. Mike grew up and he and Renee lived for years in Wilson NC just a short distance from Greenville NC where my sister Martha lives. Isn’t it a small world?

Mike and Renee are doctors. He is an orthopaedic surgeon, semi-retired, and she is a dermatologist, not retired. Renee flies in to Treasure Cay every 2 weeks and Mike holds down the fort while she returns to Manteo. They have a son, Griffin, who is a freshman at Auburn University this year. He visited for a week during spring break. Nice kid.

Simple Man looks like this

Simple Man is a 65 Hatteras, a simply spectacular boat. This is truly a yacht. I swear we saw Simple Man pass us as we traveled south last fall. It is such a unique name that is lit up with special lights on the stern so I feel like I remember seeing it pass us. It is 65 feet long and about 18 feet wide. 

The salon is like a real living room, not like out salon that appears to be exactly what it is, a salon on a boat. Their salon is decorated and even has pictures on the wall!

It has 4 cabins with at least 2 full and 1 half bath, maybe more. It has a 2 butt kitchen!! Remarkable. You know what a 2 butt kitchen is? It is a kitchen that two people can occupy at the same time! We have a 1 butt kitchen.

We took a field trip into Simple Man’s engine room, a spotless room with 6’ ceilings located through a separate door in the back. It is the basement, called a lazarette in a yacht. We have one. We call it an engine room. But anyway, this boat is powered by twin diesel 1400 hp each! Let me repeat: 1400 hp EACH!! The propellers are 40” across with five blades. Imagine the water those things push. Whenever Mike took the boat out the power of those blades moved our boat across the dock. Wow!

This is our new favorite boat. Sorry Michael and Judy. One September (a 50’ Viking Princess) has been replaced.

Mike has a million hobbies including flying airplanes and playing the bass. He even has a t-shirt that says, “Ok we can get started, the bass player is here”. Mike plays the bass at the local Pentecostal church on Sundays (practice on Thursday). We neglected to attend but the stories are great.

Renee raises show dogs, Westies. She brought one with her one time, Coach, a 1 year old guy, really adorable. When we saw him before we got introduced Kermit and I sighed about yappy little rat dogs but Coach is truly a gentleman. And fast too. He scrambled off that boat at the least encouragement!

Mike has a dry sense of humor, always smiling and telling stories or sharing little known obscure facts. He needs a good sense of humor because Simple Man sprung a few leaks recently. Not real leaks but metaphorical leaks!

Simple Man’s battery charger went out so all his batteries died slowly, a long and painful death. At first he plugged the big boat into his 21’ Regulator center console docked next to us. Kind of funny to see a big yacht plugged into a 21’ boat with an orange extension cord but you do what you have to do. Then after a few weeks all the batteries conked out. Yesterday when we left Treasure Cay Mike was out of power.

You never want to break down in the Bahamas. Robert, the captain of the Bella Ragazza, a 70’ European boat that we never heard of docked next to Jim’s Joy on our dock, has been waiting 3 weeks for someone to repair a banged up prop. Robert is so frustrated that yesterday he made arrangements to limp over to West End Abacos and call Boat US to come tow him back to Fort Lauderdale. They do that you know!! Imagine.

Anyway, Mike’s beautiful boat is now a lovely paperweight unless he can get a new battery charger and probably some new batteries. Since Renee goes back to work for a couple of weeks at a time Mike often has friends join him as company. This week when the next friend arrives from NC he will be toting a new battery charger in his carry on luggage!! Then the fun begins to install the replacement part.

Also on our dock and part of our circle is Jim’s Joy, Jim and Joy Pankey from our Great Loop experience. Their adopted daughter and granddaughter visited us for a week in March. I told Joy she didn’t have to keep calling them adopted because by this time they were family to us. 

Maria and her daughter Ariana arrived for a week, a delightful mother and daughter. Ariana as a 13 year old was 13 going on 30, fully developed (pretty much) and smart as a whip. She enjoyed interacting with the Boy Scout groups that came in with some regularity. I went walking with Maria once. She is in her late 30s I think and really in good shape. She is training for a triathalon, even taking swimming lessons. We had a great time with Maria and Ariana.

A supporting character in our Bahamas adventure this year was Morris Glover and his wife on Lady Frances. We pulled into Treasure Cay and immediately after we met Paul and Mike we saw the boat Lady Frances, a 60’ version of Mike and Judy’s Viking Princess right across from us. (All the big boats are docked right across from us. The little boats are on our side!) I knew we had seen that boat and that man before. Sure enough we had.

Morris and Frances Glover are members of the Cavalier Yacht Club where Michael and Judy Hechtkopf on One September also belong in Virginia Beach. It seemed odd to see them so out of context but in fact that was them. They were docked just across the dock from us. They periodically went down to Marsh Harbour to pick up family members, particularly grandchildren, who would stay for a week at a time.

Morris and Frances have two tiny little dogs. Morris is a very tall man, well over 6’ probably 6’4” or so, and he would go out walking two of the tiniest dachounds and poodles you have ever seen. It looked pretty funny.

One time they picked up a granddaughter who came with two boys and a girl. Mike, in the boat next door, thought he had the perfect angle for an eyeful of teenage hormones!

One day a boat came in with a bunch of toys called In Ron We Trust. It was big boat, 60” (of course since it was on the other side of the dock in Lady Frances’ slip). We are not sure what kind but it was sort of like Mike’s boat, Simple Man. Ron was his last name. Everyone spoke Spanish but the kids, and there were a bunch, were clearly perfectly bilingual. I particularly liked the son, Massimo, a delightful, bright boy about 8 years old.

This boat had every toy imaginable. They had paddleboards, a jet ski that sat where a dinghy might 

sit, and a center console boat that a teenager drove in advance of the big boat.

Every day they pulled out a new toy to entertain the many children. We loved to sit on the back deck and watch the dad, Mr. Ron, and his captain pull out and assemble toys. One day they pulled breathing equipment that allowed the kids to breath underwater through tubes that followed the jet ski around. Kermit thinks it is called a third lung! They had every toy imaginable.

You would see kids hanging on the railing, twirling, yelling. The littlest kids were wee little. One day we found all the little kids on the t-head with little tiny fishing poles for several hours trying to land the big one!

Dad, Mr. Ron, was really nice. He was from Venezuela originally and ran an import / export business out of Miami. The wife didn’t say much but the kids and Mr. Ron were great fun to watch. Especially Massimo. He talked up a storm.

In Florida we picked up a fun couple doing the loop, Shari and Hugh Grant, the original Hugh Grant. They are a fun couple out of Ontario near Peterborough. They have a 4588 Bayliner cockpit motor yacht, Hush A Bye. They are docked 2 boats away from us on our smaller side of the dock, next to Paul in the catamaran for a while.

Hugh and Shari raise sheep. While they are on the loop this year they arranged for a friend to live on their sheep farm for the year. That means the lady, Helen, is managing the farm during the lambing season which is right now. She is sending Shari pictures every day of the new lambs.

Yesterday one ewe had triplets!! That is a problem actually because ewe’s only have 2 teets so they can really only handle 2 lambs. The third is a problem. The first lamb born in this batch was a male which means by fall the poor little guy will be lamb chops. There was a fascinating discussion over pizza night last week about whether to castrate the male lambs. I never knew there were such big issues.

This week it is cold in Ontario so the little newborn lambs are wearing sweaters! Shari has 20 sets of sweaters, enough for 20 sets of twins. Can you imagine baby lambs in sweaters? Sounds like a cartoon to me!!

Hugh is a tall drink of water with really curly hair. Shari wears t-shirts with sheep and sheep dogs on them. She also raises sheep dogs for herding trials. This is big business!!! She bought one the other day (Hugh was unaware) that cost several thousand dollars. The lambs she raise will be used for dog herding trials at a competition on her farm in September.

We assembled a fun cast of characters for our Bahamas adventure!! Next up we will share the trips we took and the fun times we had with these crazy folks!!