Back to home base for now

We have been making our way back north over the last week, heading towards Ft. Lauderdale. When we are there we can get our engine and generator fixed and then head back down.

We have been waiting for favorable winds so we have been taking our time and enjoying the anchorages along the way. I'll post more about those when we're back to internet.

Eating like the locals

Nurse sharks waiting in the water below. They supposedly won't bother you
 but I wouldn't want to get my toe near one when it's chomping down on fish guts.

It's hard to see the mountain of huge spiny lobster tails on the ground but they're there, along with a few groupers and the pile of shelled conch. $20 a tail is a bargain for megayacht patrons that frequent the area. It's hard work diving for these bugs.

It's strictly bring your own bag. I saw one woman walking around with a lobster tail in her hand because she didn't have a container for it. Good for the environment but bad for your shoes. We settled for some conch to make conch salad and cracked conch. One local woman was eating a hunk of conch raw, like sashimi.

Back in Bimini, the older woman making our conch dinner offered Matt the private parts of a conch. When he said no thank you, she laughed and popped them right into her mouth. Many restaurants advertise it as an aphrodisiac. If it's true, it's surprising that there aren't more little Bahamians running around.

Island time

My name is Jennifer and I'm addicted to the internet. There I said it. Now you can laugh at me for moving onto a boat and sailing away from civilization.

The thing is, when you're in civilization you don't notice that you're addicted. It's just normal to be online all the time, especially when you work with computers for a living. When we were still in the northern islands--near Bimini and Nassau--we had decent internet. Staniel Cay has internet but it's too expensive for our taste (as non-residents) except on occasion. We have 3G temporarily so we can get emails and weather but for the most part, we don't have internet. And it is slow. Here is the message on the login page for the local wi-fi:

Reminder:
This service uses a satellite uplink for all traffic. On its best day, it will seem slow compared to any land-based service. It's 22 thousand miles to the satellite, which means it's 44 thousand miles before your request hits the Internet, and 44 thousand for the data to come back. No matter how you slice it, 88 thousand miles may take more than a few seconds for a response. So remember, you're in the Central Exumas with the most beautiful water and Cay's anywhere on the planet. Fast Internet is available at most office buildings and cubicles in the states. Would you really want to trade where you are for a cubicle?

The secret to happy surfing on a slow network?
1. Click on the link
2. Take a drink of your Kalik [a local beer]
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 above until network appears to have blazing speed.

Hm, good point. So anyway, if we don't respond to you right away, you'll know why.*

*By the way, many of our blog posts have been scheduled when we did have good internet. So even when it seems like we're on line, we're not really on line.

Beaches

There are a lot of beaches in the Bahamas, all surrounded by the clearest blue water you have ever seen. Yes, I am stating the obvious but every day I am surprised that we are able to have a new beach all to ourselves pretty much anytime we want.

There are lots of boats anchored near us, especially here near Staniel Cay but there is still a lot of room to spread out. The boys are still digging holes like mad men but they have added snorkeling to their repertoire.

What do those floating condos run you, anyway?

I spent $27,000 and all I got was this T-shirt. Oh, and
 $27,000 worth of equipment and services.

I have published our boat costs here, for those of you who are interested in doing this some day (and for those of you who are just curious). We will update the page with our monthly costs so everyone can see if our predictions about living more cheaply are accurate.

Does it seem like I have been talking about food a lot lately?

This was our dinner the other day. A grouper, four lion fish, and a slipper lobster made for a "fish feast" as Conrad called it. We only ate the larger lion fish but they want you to kill all you can because it is an invasive species.

Matt managed to clean them without getting stung by the nasty spines. They are very tasty when you bread and fry them (but then again what isn't). Unfortunately, Matt lost the last tip from his Hawaiian sling and there are no replacements to be found anywhere on the island (Staniel Cay). There is a shipment of groceries and supplies to the island every week except that it is three weeks on and one week off and this is an off week. So no chance of replacing it this week.

We have been at Staniel for a bit now because one of our engines isn't working. That wouldn't be so bad because we have another engine but our generator, which we need to "make" water, is acting up too. So we would have to dock with just one engine, which is a challenge for the behemoth that is our boat. We are deciding whether to continue on to Georgetown, head back to Nassau, or go all the way back to Ft. Lauderdale. In the meantime, we are enjoying the view while we decide.

Mmmm, bacon...

Staniel Cay is famous for its swimming pigs. They hear the dinghy motor and swim right out to see what you have for them. These babies are very well fed. We learned that they prefer bread over vegetables and can get very enthusiastic about the food. One grabbed a piece of bread right out of my hand, quick as lightning.

That's one reason not to swim with them. Another reason is all the stingrays swimming around looking for leftover snacks. There are some roosters and other poultry milling about too.

We saw one climb on top of a kayak with a college-age girl paddling. Matt was very disappointed that it didn't capsize. Because he's a terrible human being. Not me, though. Nuh-uh.