Wednesday night was Rib Night. The ribs were excellent and it was tons of food. Both of managed not to eat too much, although I think Ben may have drank a little too much with Kenny from Eva Marie. After the ribs there was singing, dancing and limbo. Ben and I, having a combined age younger than the average (not combined) age held our own in the limbo contest, although the Jib Room has a local ringer. After successfully limbo'ing at about 18 inches, he replaced the limbo bar with one he had wrapped in cotton and doused in rubbing alcohol and proceeded to limbo under the flaming bar, stopping only to light his cigarette. (Our video camera broke, but we do have some footage from our regular camera. Once we have a reliable method for charging our computers for a few days, we will try our best to post a video montage).
Thursday at the Jib Room was a conch cracking session, so we knew we were staying in Marsh Harbor for the day. We decided to take advantage of the lazy day, and Kenny from Eva Marie's free labor. Ben and Kenny lowered the angle of the bow sprit, to - in theory - solve the problem we sometimes have furling (rolling up) the large head sail. Then they hoisted me up the mast to I could attach booties to the spreader. Basically, boot caps are rubber feet which attach to the end of the metal spreader to reduce the chances of ripping the sail if it rubs against the spreader. After all that work we went to Conky Joe's for another excellent lunch.
The Conch Cracking Class at the Jib Room was one of the most fun nights we've had since being back. Kenny from Eva Marie knows just about everyone, so it's fun to get introduced to everyone by the "cool kid." Keith, a local Bahamian, employee at the Jib Room, and captain, ran the class. He demo'd opening 3 conchs slowly, starting with counting to the third ridge and cracking it with a hatchet, to pulling out the ugly white, red and black piece of meet. Kenny's wife Sandra and I agreed we were glad we had enjoyed conch before seeing what the meat actually looked like. After the demos two volunteers had a chance to "race" for the title of fastest new bee conch cracker. The woman who went first made Keith look good - she took about 7 minutes, but was eventually successful. I think I would have given up! Ben went next, and used the extra demo to his advantage - he was not cautious with the hatchet! He clocked in a few minutes faster, but both participants were winners and went home with Jib Room T-Shirts. Ben is excited to have an actual CLEAN (and white!) shirt on the boat.
After the race, Keith finished the demo by showing us how to clean the meat and making delicious scorched conch - conch + lime - basically conch salad minus the peppers and other veggies. We also learned how to saw the end off a conch and blow one, so that we can make one to blow at sunset. Although sometimes people but epoxy over the hole, the best way to make a conch for blowing is to forgo the meat (and cracking it), freeze the shell, tap out of the (dead) conch, and then saw and file the end.
We decided, even if we couldn't quite sail to the Little Harbor, it would be worth the trip down for Pete's 16th Annual 50th Birthday Bash, so yesterday we headed south. We were pleasantly surprised - because there were several jogs around shallow sandbars and we were able to sail (or motor-sail) more than half the way here. We were worried the harbor might be crowded, but didn't have any trouble finding a mooring ball. We did have a little bit of trouble actually mooring because the line on the mooring ball was several feet long and our normal bridle assembly did not work. After a few tries we ended up attaching directly to the mooring ball and heading to shore for a well deserved Blaster (Pete's Pub's house rum drink), a tour of the art gallery, and a walk on the beach. When we got back to the boat, a Manta 40 catamaran was moored next to us. Mike, Cheryl, and their 14 year old daughter Mikala invited us over for drinks which turned into a wonderful chili dinner. Mike retired from IBM, they moved to Florida, bought Happy Times, and are living the dream - sailing south with not much of a plan beyond Georgetown next month and BVI after that.
Location:Little Harbor
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