Angel Jen is a Heroine!

Hi kids!

Well, it's been quite a while since our last update. Since we left the
islands and came back to the good old USofA we have been pretty much
hanging around, not doing much. We had to go to Fort Lauderdale to see
a doctor. I had been cursed with a voodoo hex in Nassau by a hobo on
the street and it turns this toothless old man must have had some mojo
because I got an infection and I had to go see four doctors before
they came up with an effective treatment. So we stayed in Fort
Lauderdale until doctor number four figured he had it right. Then we
struck out north.

We sailed thirty seven hours straight to Cape Canaveral. We are much
more adventurous sailors after this time in the islands. Now going out
overnight and sailing long distances that we would never attempt
before are as nothing to us. We spent a weekend with my sister and
brother in law and struck out again.

We went to Daytona Beach to see some people but they weren't home. So
we left a message and decided to stay the rest of the day and strike
out again in the morning.

After a good supper of roast beef, potatoes and carrots with fresh
cherries for dessert we read our books until dark then laid down to
sleep. The weather down here is wicked hot, like 95 degrees all day,
so we left the portholes and hatches open to catch the night breezes.

I slept the deep sleep of a clean living man with a clear conscience,
snoring up a storm and dreaming of the sea.

Angel Jen sleeps a good deal more lightly. She is still a little
excited by the good fortune to be able to lie down next to me and it
keeps her close to wakefulness most nights, I think.

At three AM some guy fell in the water and it was she who heard his
gurgled cry for help. Good thing for him, because I would have slept
right through it, I'm sure. The cry was pretty faint inside the boat.
The picture is of his boat. I took the picture this morning after the
sun came up as we left the anchorage.

She woke me up and we stuck our heads out to listen. We heard the
cries again, laced with long strings of profanity and in what seemed a
voice impaired by the demon ethanol. The night was pitch black as the
moon, nearly new, had yet to rise, so we could see nothing. At night
on the water it's really hard to tell exactly where sounds come from
or how far away they are. What were we to do?

I didn't fancy the idea of trying to start my dinghy in the black of
night and search for some drunk in the water. I figured I'd have a
good chance of running over him since I couldn't see without a search
light or hear him over the outboard motor. And in his panic he could
likely pull either me or the dinghy over even if I found him. So we
called the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard is a service provided by your benevolent federal
government. When we were in the Bahamas there was no equivalent
service over there. We were really glad to have these three
professional young men show up and take over the task of dragging this
souse out of the drink.

They asked him how he fell in the water and he had no idea. When they
asked if anyone else was on the boat he said he didn't think so, maybe
his cat. Oh, so inebriated was he.

The Coast Guard hauled him off to the hospital for treatment, thanked
us and left.

But if it hadn't been for Angel Jen, that man would have drowned for
sure. She is a real life heroine. She saw a problem and did the right
thing to make it better. She saved that guy's life.

Man, I should bake her a cake or something!

So be good kids, do the right thing, make life better and for the sake
of Christmas take it easy on your poor old tired teacher today.

And have a good summer and a fun time in second grade next fall. In
second grade you can look back on your memories of first grade and
say, "Those were the good old days! Ms. Hanzok, Pirate John, Angel
Jen and learning to count! Man, that was good living!". We think of
you often and hope the best for all of you. Au revoir, mon petites amis!

Dessert

Hi kids!

Dessert was key lime pie. There are a type of small limes grown down
here that are used to make it and it's delicious!

I made sure Angel Jen had more than me because: a) it's the
gentlemanly thing to do and 2) I love it when she smiles like this!

So be good kids. Try to make the teacher smile today. She's pretty
when she smiles, too.

Baby back ribs!

Hi kids!

After our marathon sailing session from Chub Cay to Fort Lauderdale
and a full day of running around, Angel Jen said,"Let's eat!"

We had been off shore for months. We needed some good old American
food. No more rice and beans. Not today!

We went to a restaurant and just about turned around and left after
looking at the prices. (Did I mention that we are epic scale
cheapskates? Well, we are.). Then I said,"No. I ain't walking another
step. We're going to eat."

We walked in and ordered up carrot-Ginger soup, barbeque baby back
ribs (note: no babies were harmed in the production of this meal),
sweet potato fries, squash with sun dried tomatos and a couple adult
sodas and we mowed it down. Here's a picture of our first state side
dinner in progress. Yeah, we used all the napkins in that pile before
we were through.

Guess what was dessert. Go ahead, guess!

Back in the USA!

Hi kids!

Angel Jen and I decided it was time to head back to the USA so we took
off!

We had real strong winds, 20-25 knots. It was from a good direction so
we just sailed and sailed. We covered mile after mile, from Warderick
Wells, where the last installment of the blog was written, to Allens
Cay, then Nassau, then to Chub Cay.

We anchored in Chub Cay in a place that was really 'rolly'. That is,
because of the high winds that we were having the waves made the boat
'roll' back and forth, up and down all night. We didn't sleep well at
all but the winds were made for traveling so early the next morning we
headed out for Gun Cay, seventy miles away.

We traveled all day and arrived at sunset. We stopped for a bit but
the seas were 'rolly' again so Angel Jen said,"Lets go! Florida or
bust!"

This meant sailing all night long after our long day. We would be
exhausted, but when the Angel is determined, nothing stands in her way!

I made her stop and listen to the marine weather at least. They were
predicting the good winds to continue so we struck off for Fort
Lauderdale as the sun set.

The night was beautiful. There was a sliver of an almost new moon for
a couple hours after sunset. Then the stars came out and we could see
the glow of Florida's cities way over the horizon fifty miles ahead.

We took turns driving the boat and trying to sleep and sunrise found
us just eight miles off the port in Florida. We sailed in, found a
marina and had a little breakfast.

Here's a picture of Angel Jen after 134 miles of sailing reading her
book. After that we went out around town all day.

That girl is tough!

So there you go kids. There's the moral of the story. Camptown women
are tough! And you can tell'em pirate John said so!

Dumb parking

Hi kids!

Angel Jen and I are back at the Exumas National Land and Sea Park in
Warderick Wells Cay. We were here last April 13th. We are on our way
back to the good old US of A, sailing back up the chain of islands we
sailed down before.

We say this sea plane aground on a sand bar when we got here. Some big
shots from a movie company were in park headquarters. They flew in on
this sea plane.

Sea planes have big floats instead of wheels. The floats allow them to
land on water. Wild, huh?

The pilot parked his plane in a place with real shallow water. Then
the tide went out. So the stupid plane was stuck in the sand. The
pilot had to REALLY gun his engines to get the plane out of the sand
when he tried to leave.

He made it. But I'll bet he was embarrassed.

So if you make any dumb mistakes today, kids, remember: it happens to
the best of us.

John

Smell my feet!

Hi kids!

You won't believe what happened to me yesterday! Angel Jen and I were
on the beach with a bunch of other cruisers. I had just finished
giving a knot tying seminar in which the beauty of the Turk's head
knot was shown and the miracle of the one handed bowline was
demonstrated. (Many cruisers attended and much joy was had.)

We were ambling out to the boat after collecting all our materials
when we saw another 'moving rock' in the water. A sting ray! The
dangerous sea creature that killed the crocodile hunter, Steve Irwin!

We got our cameras ready and went to investigate.

Sure enough, it was a ray but not just one. It was a mama ray and a
baby ray, too!

These big flat 'fish' actually seem to be flying through the water.
They don't wiggle side to side like a regular fish, heck they don't
even HAVE a side, they are flat. They flap their wings like a bird to
move.

So this big, giant Ray started coming for me. She flew straight for my
feet. I stood still, waiting for death. Then she got to my feet. She
took a sniff of them, turned tail and flew off.

Saved by my stinky feet! Even an evil sea creature couldn't overcome
the smell!

I'll never wash my feet again!

Drum major

Hi kids!

Here at the finalé of the Georgetown Regatta the Royal Bahamian
Defense Force Marching Band gave a concert. They were GREAT!

The guy in front was the drum major. He doesn't play an instrument in
the band. He carries a fancy staff with silver and leather all over
it, twirls it around in a fancy way to keep time for the band and
blows a whistle to start and stop songs. He was a big, handsome black
man dressed in a fancy uniform. Needless to say the girls fell for him
left and right. At one point a woman came out, wrapped her arms around
his neck and started dancing with him. He managed to extricate himself
professionally and continue the performance, but, man, it's gotta be
great to have that kind of power over the crowd!

They were all dressed in fancy uniforms with bright white pith helmets
topped with spear points, white jackets with lots of braid and sashes
and stuff. Some of the drummers had leopard skins draped over their
front with the leopard's head over their shoulder and the leopard's
tail hanging from the back of their belts. Very, very African, for
some reason.

All in all it was very different from the Wyalusing Valley marching
band Jen and I were in years ago. But, Jen observed, the same type of
girls are always the majorettes and cheerleaders no matter where you
go, and I think she's right.

Be good, kids. See if you can march in a straight line for the teacher
today and give her a break. She deserves it!

Quiet place

Hi kids!

Here's old Angel Jen chatting up Cat Man Jim at the quiet place we
finally found to watch the races in Georgetown. See all the people
sitting on the wall. There were a lot more you can't see. Looks like a
lot of people wanted to escape the reggae rap blast.

Jim owns a catamaran. That's why we call him Cat Man. A catamaran is a
boat with two hulls instead of one. He's from California and he's
headed for the Dominican Republic. He doesn't know why and neither do
I. He doesn't have a life raft, an EPIRB, a dinghy anchor, not even a
hand held VHF radio. He has a shortwave receiver that he doesn't know
how to turn on so he can't get weather reports. All of his flashlight
batteries are dead. But he's out there, doing it. He's a tribute to
optimism. The world needs optimists. Of course, Darwinian principles
would suggest that there are fewer and fewer every day, so we need
more all the time.

So be good kids, race your boats hard and be an optimist!

Hiked

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of the crew of a Bahamian racer hiked out on their
boards. Man, who's steering this thing?

Next entry...

Boat races

Hi kids!

Old Angel Jen and I are in Georgetown on Big Exuma Island. This week
they had the Family Island Regatta. It is one BIG deal, believe you me!

The Bahamians make these boats from wood by hand. There are three
classes, A,B, and C for long (25'-29'), medium (22'-25') and short
(19'-22'). They rig them with these HUGE sails in a cat boat rig (one
sail, one mast way forward). Since they have way too little ballast to
hold themselves up under these giant sails, the crew has boards they
stick out over the side and then climb out on to serve as movable
ballast. When the boat changes direction, the crew clambers in off the
boards, shoves the board out off the other side and climbs out over
there, usually with a lot of hollering and shouting.

The boats are light, the sails are huge and they really fly along.
There were over sixty boats competing from thirteen different islands
in races from Tuesday until Saturday.

On shore there was the Bahamian equivalent of a big county fair going
on. A big county fair where every booth sells the demon alcohol. True,
they usually sold conch, jerk chicken (whatever that is), ribs or
something but massive quantities of C2H5OH everyplace.

They had many racks of big outdoor speakers set up and fueled them
with some of the worst quality amplifiers imaginable and blasted
reggae rap you could here for miles. Each of these racks was within
fifty yards of another so you got to hear several at once.

Now I have been known to go clubbing myself, but this was too much. I
was so glad to find a quiet spot at the end of the road to watch the
races.

Next entry...

Georgetown Family Regatta

Hi kids!
We went to the Georgetown Family Regatta races today. We are in
Georgetown on Great Exuma island. This is a 'big town' in the Bahamas.
The races here are famous throughout the Bahamas. Each island builds
a boat and sends it here to compete. The boats are hand made wooden
boats with a single sail. The sails are huge relative to the boat and
the only way they can make the boat sail is by using humans as movable
ballast. When they need ballast to one side to keep it from tipping
over they rig a board up way way out to the side and make the crew
climb out there. In this picture you can see several crew members
hanging way out over the water riding on said boards. It's nuts.
Extreme agility is required to keep the boat balanced. Some of the
crew have compromised their agility by having a few ounces of ethanol
(C2H5OH, for you chemistry buffs) before the race. As a consequence
several of the boats tipped into the water during the race. One of
them T-boned a competitor while attempting to round the mark (many
many words were exchanged, quite heated ones at that), and one boat
sank into the harbor before the race even started. How you even begin
to sink a race boat at the slip I have no idea. But there it was. A
dozen guys trying to raise the thing before race time. And it was
still there the next day.
Luckily, most of the competitors survived.
Ashore, loud music played, conch were sacrificed, school children
performed and a fair was held. It was a celebratory day.
I had an offer to rode on one of the boats but I decided to go ashore
and eat conch salad instead.
The conch salad was good.

Sharks!

Hi kids!

While we were hanging out at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club experiencing
the ambiance, the mileau, the je ne se qua there was a guy cleaning
and fileting fish by the dock. He has friends. Friends of convenience
and with a one way attitude about the relationship, but friends. As he
tossed innards and pieces into the water, these rays and sharks were
there to suck up the easy pickings. How many sharks can you count?
How many rays? How many people swimming in the water?

No me, that's for sure! Stupid sharks aren't getting my leg for
dessert!

Beach bar!

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of old Angel Jen bellying up to a sailors beach bar
on Staniel Cay. This is another example of the iconic experiences of
a Caribbean cruise. Sailors brave the raging seas, clawing their way
from island to island, conquering all the difficulties of nature then
they tie up the boat, sidle into the local sailors beach bar and tell
stories about what great times they had. And decide to have another
drink and not go out again for a while.

In the more remote islands of the Caribbean, I understand, they order
cheap meals which take forever to arrive.

In the Bahamas, however, they order extremely expensive meals which
take a very long time to arrive because Bahamians may be islanders but
they ain't stupid. Once you've been out on the water for a couple
weeks bouncing from lonely deserted isle to lonely deserted isle,
you're ready for a burger and a cold one. And there's only one
restaurant in town. Our two burgers and three drinks cost us $60. Yeee-
ouch! But, hey, we checked another box on the list!

Pah-tee!

Hi kids!

When we went cruising we heard about these convivial beach parties
that the cruisers have wherever they congregate. Parties where they
have cocktails, talk about the bad winds and seas, their broken
something or other and how it's impossible for them to do anything bit
stay where they are and have more cocktails at their next beach party.

Man, that sounded like it had Pirate John written all over it!

Here at the Headquarters of the Exumas National Land and Sea Park on
Warderick Wells Cay we found one at last. We were checking in at the
office and some park ranger came around saying,"Its my birthday
today! Bring your drinks, I'll bring the food!"

So at four pm all the dinghies from all the boats headed for the
beach. Pah-tee!

There was something like an old army mess tent from the Korean War or
M.A.S.H. or something. (Don't know the old tv show ' M.A.S.H.'? Ask
the teacher. She can remember it. She was even alive during the Korean
War.) The park rangers and volunteers were cooking up a storm,
grilling wings, ribs, burgers, dogs, buns and more. Salads all over.
Even soda pop.

The cruisers were busting out their enhanced cola colas, enhanced
Goombay Punches, something called 'Bahama Mamas' which despite the
name were red, not black, and seemed to have a much lower fat content
than the namesake article. Pretty soon they were discussing all the
bad seas out there, how amazed they were that we attempted sailing
yesterday, the terrible weather, busted gidgets, the impossibility of
attempting repairs and how long they would stay put. Man, it was
textbook cruiser living!

We met people here whom we hadn't seen since New Jersey. Seems they
reported to Angel Jen discussing us several times in the intervening
months wondering if we ever made it. They were surprised and pleased
to see here and alive.

Hmmm... I wonder why they talked amongst themselves wondering whether
we'd make it? Hmmmm....

We talked to Canadians from Calgary, Alberta and I got to tell my
story about hoboing a train from Calgary to Toronto in 1972. We talked
to a union man from Detroit and I got to tell my story about my
grandfather going to work in the coal mines 12 hours a day six days a
week when he was 12 years old and what great things unions had done
getting the forty hour week and industrial safety standards
established. We met sailors who had been to Maine and swapped tales
about favorite anchorages there.

After being shut up in a boat for a few weeks with just ourselves to
talk to it was nice to have a gab fest.

And man, can those Bahamians barbeque a rib! MmmmmMmm!

Since our sodas were unenhanced it was fun watching the various
cruisers who had enjoyed their enhanced versions wading out to get the
dinghies that were floating off in the rising tide and pouring
themselves happily over the gunwales for the ride out to their yachts
to sleep sweetly until morning's light.

Cruiser beach party! Another box checked in the last great adventure
list!

Killer Ray!

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of Angel Jen hovering over one of those rays like the
one that killed The Crocodile Hunter, Steve SomethingOrOther. We were
rowing around and we saw a rock move. We're like,"Wha?"

So we chased it.

We tried to look inconspicuous as we got closer, feigning disinterest
so as not to startle our prey. When I got over it I donned my snorkle
and mask and stuck my head in the water.

I immediately recognized the murderous animal below as a sting ray,
only three feet away!

I popped up and took a picture then Jen took the mask and had a look.
Luckily, we made it away from the beast before he went mad with rage
and stuck us with his barbed tail.

Man, we are living on the edge!

The future? One word. Plastics!

Hi kids!

We are lolling about, wasting time on a remote uninhabited Bahamian
island again. This time it's Shroud Cay, near the top of the Exumas
chain.

'Shroud' can mean several different things. It can be the cloth a dead
body is wrapped in for burial (ee-yoo!), a cover (an engine shroud) or
a piece of boat rigging that runs from the mast to the beam of the
ship to support the mast. Isn't it funny how the same word can mean
different things? Like 'kid' could mean you, for example, or a young
goat or a kind of joke. Man, language is great. But I digress.

The Bahamians have established this national park here on a stretch of
small islands out in the middle of nowhere. It's about a 22 miles long
and 8 wide. There are twenty named islands and many small ones. No one
can fish or hunt or take anything from the land or sea here. It's the
place where a fish is allowed to be a fish, a bird can be a bird and a
conch's day is worry free. They say this place is the source for a
lot of the good fishing in the other islands since these fish grow up
and go get a job on another island when they're bigger.

We went exploring in the mangrove forests in the interior of the
island. Here's a picture of old Angel Jen lugging plastic crap
shefound on the beach back to the ranger station so Mr. Park Ranger
can dispose of it.

We hate people who throw plastic in the water! It always washes up on
shore and makes a mess and plastic is forever. If you throw out a
paper towel, that's not good but the bugs in the dirt or water will
eventually break it down. Nothing eats plastic. It lasts for hundreds
of years, literally. In this case some nitwit threw an empty five
gallon pail of diesel oil overboard, a whiskey bottle, an egg carton
and a hunk of black rubber. So, like a good, conscientious hard
working Protestant Camptown woman, Angel Jen is soiling her hands
lugging trash out.

Well, kids, be good. Don't litter! And sail straight!

Oasis

Hi kids!

While we were in Nassau we found an oasis. Do you guys know what an
oasis is?

There will be a moment of silence while teacher explains 'oasis' and
briefly explores the concept of 'metaphor' in literature.

Ok, got it? Oasis=metaphor for 'place of respite' in this case.

While waddling around Nassau's nastiest neighborhood looking for a
place to mail a letter, we came across, halleluja!, a Starbucks!
Cappucinos! Ice coffee with hazelnut and skim! Internet! Little
tables and comfy chairs! AIR CONDITIONING!

Dude, you don't know how pleasant it is to slide into a Starbucks when
you've been off America's shore for a while. Finally, something
recognizable.

I had 240 emails to read. I could get Weatherfaxes again (a service of
our benevolent federal government that makes a sailor's life much
easier by distributing weather information).

I drank so much iced coffee I was about to have a heart attack from
the caffeine.

Man, was it good!

After plugging in again, we packed up Mr. Computer, Mr. iPhone, Mr.
Camera and Mr. Backup Hard Drive and schlepped back to the boat
refreshed, renewed and ready for the simple life again. Until the next
time!

Goombay punch

Hi kids!

We went food shopping in Nassau when we got into the harbor to get
some fresh vegetables and fruit. Of course, we don't buy soda. It's
way too much sugar for us. Did you know there are sixteen teaspoons of
sugar in a can of soda? That's nuts! If I saw you putting sixteen
teaspoons of sugar in a glass of water and drinking it, I'd go,"Dude!
What?"

But anyway, we were shopping and this sixpack of soda caught Angel
Jen's eye. Who could turn down Bahamas Goombay Punch?

Me.

"Put that right back!" I said. "You can drink tea or water!"

So we didn't get Bahamas Goombay Punch after all. But isn't it a happy
little can of soda?

Moving to the Berry Islands

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of Angel Jen raising the old anchor ball in Great Harbor off Big Stirrup Island in the Berry Islands.

As you students of the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea, 1972, (COLREGS), are certainly aware, Rule 30 requires vessels at anchor to display a black ball aloft. Soon as we dropped anchor Angel Jen sprang into action hoisting said symbol.

True to her Camptown roots, old angel Jen had made the ball symbol by appropriating a handy round object, our radar reflector, sewing up a black cover from a tee shirt she got in the Salvation Army for ten cents or something and, voilá, cá, tres Bon, suffis*

(French-  it means "you see, there, very good, good enough")

The thing flapping around in front of her face is a flag of the Bahamas. It's considered polite to hoist the flag of the country you are visiting. It's called a 'courtesy flag'. Well!  It'll take more than a dumb flag to make a pirate courteous!  And there's never any worry with Angel Jen. Courteous is her middle name. 

We made it into this harbor after 24 hours of sailing. It wasn't that far but we wanted to arrive at noon so we could see the bottom and avoid rocks, sand bars and other Bahamian bottom biters. So we loafed along most of the night just taking it easy.

The winds were light and agreeable. The full moon on the water was beautiful. The dirty rotten killer cruise ships and freighters didn't come too close. I listened to a beaucoup of podcasts about healthcare, financial reform, poetry, chimpanzees and history.

Angel and I took turns at the helm. First her for four hours, then me. It's hard to get your rest doing that but we managed.  That's the way sailors normally do it when they have to travel for overnight or for days on end. It's called 'taking a watch'. It has nothing to do with swiping timepieces. It means 'taking a turn watching out for the boat'.

All in all, a very good evening was had.

We napped on arrival. Then ate, watched the sun set, then slept.

Tomorrow we move again.

Life is going well.

John

New pinnacle of island cuisine!

Hi kids!

So after our long, dangerous over night trip to conquer new islands,
old Angel Jen was ready for dinner. We whipped up some pork chops,
macaroni salad and, best of all, cottage cheese and, super best of
all, the king of vegetables, bok choy. For you young hill people, bok
choy may be an unknown treat. It's a tall, leafy green vegetable that
grows in a clump of stalks like celery. But it's sweet and green and
white with none of the stringy things inside that celery has. It is a
member of the Chinese cabbage family of vegetables. Celery is a member
of the cardboard family.

After slowly savoring her bok choy with its vinegar and brown sugar
dressing, Angel Jen's ever active mind cast about for a dessert to top
off the meal.

I poured my dessert into its usual glass, added tonic water, ice and
lime and watched the wheels of her mind spin. I knew something great
was going to come.

Sure enough. Angel Jen invented a new dessert! She sent me to our
starboard fore locker where she knew the ingredients lay. "Chips
Ahoy!" she cried. "Marshmallows!"

Taking two chocolate chip cookies and a marshmallow, she made a
dessert sandwich that adds the nutrition of cookie dough to the
delight of her previous invention, the smasher (marshmallow smashed
into chocolate chips). Angel Jen is one amazing dessert chef!

The only thing is that the intense cookie rush wiped out her head and
she can't think of a name for it. She needs you guys to come up with a
name for it, so get to work! Put your little fuzzy heads together and
come up with a name for the new dessert delight.

Angel Jen says she's going to try grilling a half a marshmallow onto a
chips ahoy, too. Man, her mind never stops!

So keep your little minds a working, too, kids. It might be your one
ticket into the second grade.

Guard dogs

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of me hanging out with the guard dogs on my temporary
estate here on Grand Bahama Island as arranged by Bernie the New
Jersey car dealer. We are out by the hot tub. The pool is in the
background. We are generally laying low and trying not to blow this
deal at least until the wind storm predicted for Monday and Tuesday
blows over and my rib knits.

Angel Jen is hanging out on the boat. She claimed to be cleaning but
the last time I went down below she was napping. Then the next time I
came back she was lying in the cabin reading a book.

"Angel Jen!" I said. "Stay true to your roots! Good Protestant
Camptown women are proud of their hard working natures!"

"Mañana! It's island time, mon!"

Old Angel Jen's hardscrabble roots are softening in the Caribbean sun.
Now I guess it's up to me.

And for the jolly young linguists and dialecticians in the class,
around here it's Ca-RIB-ee-un, not Ca-ri-BEE-an. I can't speak for the
other islands but that's what the Bahamians say.

So be good kids. Be mindful of the teacher and reflect on the fact
that two guard dogs will sell out their duty for a handful of ham
cubes, another handful of cheddar cheese and some long sought after
affection. These two man killers are now my friends.

Bernie the new jersey car salesman

Hi kids!

We are still in the first port we landed in at the Bahamas, Lucaya.
I'm still recovering from a busted rib suffered in the maelstrom night
of the trip over, though I'm glad to say Bahamian Spittoon Fever seems
to have passed.

Lucaya is an extensive man made waterway harbor with canals dug hither
and yon for literally miles (and littorly miles, too, I guess). They
did it imagining people would flock to build houses on the waterway
but it has never happened. The lots nearest town center are maybe half
full and the outlying ones much less so.

We anchored in one of the lobes of said waterway happily for several
days. We met some cruisers there and a shoreside ex-cruiser landowner
who let us hang out, use the dock to get in and out of the water, et
cetera. All was happy, happy. There were two other boats anchored
there and the shoreside ex-cruisers lived in several boats at one of
the landowner guy's house's dock. All was happy.

Then the captain of one of the boats anchored there decided to have an
argument with one of the landowner's neighbors. It seems one of the
neighbor's guests had disturbed said captain with a hot rod arrival
aboard a jet ski. Said captain had been anchoring there for six years,
on and off, and he felt he could tell the land owner and his jet ski
guest what to do. Loudly. And in front of the guest.

The anchoring guy forgot a fact of life. You kids should always
remember this fact. It is: big fish eat little fish.

And he was arguing with Bernie, the New Jersey car saleman who had
paid a mil and a half for his place. Bernie was not pleased. He had
embarrassed Bernie in front of one of his biggest clients. And Bernie
knows how to make things happen.

As it turns out, in the Bahamas if a landowner doesn't want you near
his place, he can tell you to move. So yesterday a tall, handsome,
strong Bahamian policeman with a nice uniform with a red stripe down
the legs was riding in Bernie's boat as Bernie took him from anchored
boat to anchored boat telling us all to skiddadle. The guy that
started the argument, us, and the other boat that was hanging out
there were all told to go.

Being good Protestant Camptown type people, we said,"Sure thing,
officer! No problems here!" Then we right away pulled anchor and moved
to another place way out of Bernie's sight and hearing.

Unhappily, it was too near a marina and they said,"Beat it", too. What
to do? What to do?

Just then old Bernie came along in his boat looking for us. He gave us
the lowdown on his run in with the nitwit in the other boat, thanked
us for pulling anchor and told us we could use the dock at his buddy's
place until we were ready to leave the island.

I'm like,"Sweet."

We pull into the place he has indicated and good old Bernie has called
his buddy to square it all away with him, the caretaker of the place
has been put on alert, everything is set up. The caretaker, Luke,
another handsome, strong Bahamian gentleman is falling all over us. He
assures us that anything we need, he can get it in five minutes, ten
max. He shows us around the estate, the pool, the cabanas. He
introduces us to the guard dogs, Bonny and Clyde, two massive Doberman
pinschers, and urges us to feed them if we want to stay friends. (I
immediately busted open a package of cubed ham!). Sweet! Old Bernie
has set us up pretty well!

So I went down to the police station to shake the cop's hand and thank
him for tossing us out of the anchorage. Man, that worked out great!

So remember, kids. Don't argue. Be nice. Get along. And when the man
says hit the road, hit the road!

Dead bodies in a cave

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of old Angel Jen descending a staircase into a cave
entrance.

The Bahama islands are what's left of a way ancient volcano. The
volcano came up, then over like millions of years got worn away by
wind and sea. As the volcanic rock wore away coral grew on top of it.
Like for millions of years. Then it rose up again as islands. So the
islands you can see now used to be coral reefs. The rocks on the
island are filled with fossils and made from old coral.

We went to a national park and checked some of these rocks out. This
park had caves which we went down in to see the old rocks and fossils.
The caves had big pools of water in them. The guide said the
underground caverns went for like half a mile. All you had to do was
get some scuba gear, dive in and swim around to see them.

We were like,"No way. We are NOT swimming underwater, underground. Nuh-
uh."

So we just sat and watched the fishes.

The guide said when they explored the caves underwater they found the
bodies of six Lucayan Indians in the bottom of the water. Man, I'll
bet the guy that found them jumped out of his skin! I mean you're
swimming around underwater, under ground, poking around, you turn and
there's some old dead Indian staring at you! Woof!

It was nice and cool in the cave. We ate our lunch there and fed bread
to the fishes. By the way, they like cheddar cheese, too.

There was a second observation platform for the cave, it turned out.
If you continued on the trail it came up around and you could look
down on the first entrance and see the people going down the staircase
into the cave. I was going to stay up there and wait until someone
went in, then, in my best, deepest, scariest old dead Indian spirit
voice say,"Whoooo's enterrrrrring my caaaaaave??" man, I'll bet I
coulda scared them good.

But someone wouldn't let me do it.

Hmmmm....

I wonder who that would be.

Any ideas?

Frogs in a blender

Hi kids!

We went to the beach fish fry last night. There are three small
restaurants near us that have a 'fish fry' special on Wednesday
nights. We had fresh fish, conch fritters (chewy and delicious!), rice
and guava roll for dessert. No, I don't know what a guava is, but it
was good.

The restaurant was outside. It was nice eating in the warm breeze. The
bad part came later.

After we paid our bill we wandered over to another place, right on the
beach, where they were playing loud reggae music and serving drinks.
We watched a group of thirty Japanese tourists play 'take my picture'
for about a half hour. These guys just LOVE snapping pictures. First
one guy had to take a group picture of all of them using each one's
camera. Thirty 'squeeze in and smiles'. Then all the boys took group
pictures of all the girls. Then they made them turn around and did it
again. Then all the girls took group pictures of the guys. Turn around
and repeat. Lord, didn't they go on with this for a long time!

Then it got really ugly. Most of the crowd was old white people from
cruise ships. The night got dark and the old white people's
inhibitions started slipping away. They got up to dance.

Children, there is nothing uglier than a bunch of old white farmers
and farmettes whose proper Protestant inhibitions have been eroded by
island fare and island air trying to dance to a reggae or hip hop
beat. Oh, praise the lord, was it ugly. They looked like frogs in a
blender. One of these Midwestern escapees had been convinced by his
distance from home to have beads woven into his beard by the lady in
the booth downtown who puts cornrows in people's hair. So he was
kicking up his heels with these beads bouncing around his chin.
Whoop! Who let the dogs out! Whoop! Whoop!

Please, children, dance. Learn to dance now. Dance from your heart. Be
good at it. Maybe, just maybe, when you get on in life and show up at
the Bahama beach to cut loose on the dance floor you can look like
you've been there before.

Cruisers hanging out

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of some cruisers hanging out in the afternoon.
'Cruisers' are people like us who cruise around on their boats,
checking out the islands, checking out the towns, snorkling, and, of
course, fixing their boats. Most of the time they chat with one
another, make arrangements for cocktail parties and plans for travel.
But they usually convince themselves that due to weather, currents or
a broken something or other that there isn't anything to do but stay
where they are and snorkle and chat some more.

Here are some cruisers gathered under a tree in the shade. The guy in
the white shorts with the grey hair (on his head, not on his shorts)
owns the property and the four cottages on it. He rents them out,
parks his boat out front and lives on the boat.

Why? Just likes it that way, he says.

He rents space to other boaters and lets passing cruisers like us come
ashore at his place for a shower, to do laundry and for this daily
chat session.

The guy in the blue shirt is a renter of one of the houses. He gave us
a ride to the grocery store today in his car.

The lady with the red shirt is sailing to the Azores with a seventy
four year old man. The Azores are about five thousand miles away. The
man has never sailed before this trip from Florida to here. Good luck!

We are meeting quite a few interesting people and having some
interesting chats. Everyone here says

"Hi kids!"

to the Camptown first grade.

All of whom obey their teacher like she was the captain of a ship.
Right?

Tropical island beach

Hi kids!

Well, if you were wondering what a tropical island beach looks like
here it is, at least a tropical island beach at a resort town, anyway.
We will explore more deserted islands later.

But this is the basic scene. Sand on the bottom. Blue sky on the top.
Palm trees bent half over in the wind. Wall, behind which is the
resort hotel. And two tourists enjoying the beach.

Only two? Yup, only two. It seems the Great Republican Economic
Implosion of 2009 is not over yet and the Bahamas, which survives
almost entirely on tourism, is still hurting economically. When I ask
the ladies selling the cheap, made in China beachware and 'Gramma went
to Lucaya and all I got was this lousy tee shirt' tee shirts in the
stalls downtown how business is they say,"Basically, zero."

And if each of the tourists I see buys something from them, they are
still going broke. The streets are empty. And this is their busy
month, usually!

The people at the marina we stayed at hadn't been paid since last
year. They still show up for work, though. That's dedication. That's
also no other jobs to be had in town.

So if you young'uns save up your allowances and charter a plane for
Grand Bahama Island, you would be much appreciated.

Camptown meets Bahama beach

Hi kids!

Here is a picture of Angel Jen on the beach.

No swimsuit. No shorts. No flowery prints or bright colors. Not for
Angel Jen.

"I'm staying true to my Camptown roots!" she said. Yessirree bob, you
could pluck her off this tropical island beach and plunk her down in
any church supper in Bradford County and she'd fit right in.

She even refused to step into the water.

"I hate sand in my toes." she said.

Note that I am taking this picture from out in the water, while in my
shorts and with two or three quarts of sand between my toes.

I managed to get her loosened up a trfle later but she's a real
Camptonian through and through, that girl!

Now to get her into the beach wear!

She'll come around!

Bahamian spittoon fever

Hi kids!

Well, old Pirate John has been laid low the past couple days. It seems
I contracted a case of Bahamian spittoon fever. That's a sickness that
makes you have a fever and makes you feel like you've been swimming in
a spittoon for three days. Probably got it from a few mouthfuls of
water ingested while snorkling around to see if the anchor was dug
into the bottom well enough. Or from Bahamian pizza or something. At
any rate I slept a whole day away before we went out exploring again.

We ran into this guy downtown. He's a Bahamian curly tailed lizard.
They scurry around all over here and they curl their little tails up
in a tight spiral curlique when they're thinking.

In this picture I'm trying to convince him that little guys should
stay out of the road. I'm like,"Dude! Use the sidewalk! You're gonna
get scooter squashed put here!"

I must have been convincing because he got up on the sidewalk and ran
away.

And same for you guys! Keep your curly little tails out of the road!

Slick talk

Hi kids!

While we were waltzing around the streets of Lucaya today we were
approached by a young lady promising to shower us with free stuff.
Free dinners, free limbo dancing, free bonfire parties, free tee
shirts, free rum, free scooter rides, man, it sounded great!

I asked her,"Why are you giving us all this free stuff?"

She said,"I get paid $60 of I get you to take it."

I'm thinking,'free stuff for me, $60 for her. Sweet deal'

"Oh", she said. "And they try to sell you a time share."

A time share is where you give somebody a whole lot of money and they
promise to let you take a vacation there once a year for a whole long
time. If it's a nice place and doesn't go out of business it can be a
good deal, I guess.

So old Angel Jen says,"We'll go!"

I was so surprised. I never expected her to do it, but I went along
for the ride.

We took a ride over to the resort and it was really nice. It had great
rooms, a great beach and pool. This lady gave us a real hard sell.
That means she tried every which way to get us to sign up, give her
$16,000, and become 'real Bahamians'.

When we said we would think about it and decide by tomorrow, she got
mad and didn't want to talk to us anymore.

So we left. The lunch we got was good but I'm not sure it was worth
the hassle. But it's another brick in the wall of experiences in life.

So be good kids and maybe some day you can enrage a slick talking
Bahamian predator salesman like we did.

Whitest

Hi kids!

We wound up on the dock at the end of a fishing tournament last night.
Here is the judge weighing the day's catch to determine who the winner
is.

This is the third and largest fish caught during the day. It weighed
25 pounds. There were about fifteen boats in the tournament, each one
bigger than the other, costing from, say, $250,000 to half a mil, with
bridges, fly bridges and super fly bridges, big fishing poles, out
riggers, fishing chairs, hundreds of horsepower each burning at least
300 gallons of fuel a day. And that day's catch was about fifty pounds
of fish. One of these mighty sportsman shared the fact that his boat
(four gentlemen from Georgia, a dozen poles among them) had not caught
a fish in the whole four days they had been competing. Man, this sure
sounded like fun! But I don't even have a fishing pole that would
haul in a twenty five pound fish.

But I got looking around at the crowd and I figured out a competition
I could win. See all the tans on on these people? They hang out on
this tropical island and they are outside all the time. Their tans are
great.

I haven't been warm enough to even wear shorts until today. The sun
hasn't laid a ray on me yet. So I'm going to organize a 'whitest
belly on Bahama' contest. With my fair skin and lack of sun I'll bet I
can win.

Well, nothing left but the doing! I'll let you know how it comes out!

Til then, you all be good kids and listen to who?

That's right, you're getting it.

THE TEACHER!

Bad idea

Hi kids!

Just a short lesson in this picture. Don't put your arm in a shark's
mouth or it will look like this. Right before your arm becomes shark
food.

Remember: shark's mouth + arm = bad idea.

Now there's some math you can understand!

PS
This is not a real shark and no actual arms were harmed in the
production of this public service announcement, nor skarks, neither.

Angel Jens new friend

Hi kids!

Right after Angel Jen took my picture with my fellow pirate she made
the acquaintance of his friend here. Seems like the old pirate was
doing pretty well with the ladies despite his mullet and various
missing body parts.

From the hip huggers I'd say she got her fashion sense established in
the nineties, but you never ask a lady her age. Especially not a lady
that's hanging around with a one legged, one handed pirate with a
three foot sword.

She is a big one, though, isn't she? She's way taller than Angel Jen.
Nice lady, though. Kinda quiet, but so's Jen so they got along fine.

So be good kids, wear your hip huggers if you got'em and someday you
could be a pirate's 'moll', too. Or maybe not.

Yo, Ho! Another pirate!

Hi kids!

Well, last message we were leaving Miami and wondering if we would
make it over the hundred miles of raging sea. We made it, by the skin
of our teeth (that means barely made it because there is very little
skin on teeth, generally). The wind blew a whole lot more than those
liars at the weather bureau said it would and the seas raged higher
than I've ever seen. There was spray every place. Good thing we had
our foul weather gear on! We had to dodge big ships in the night and
fight, fight, fight to get through. Or I did, rather. Angel Jen slept
through the fighting while I drove. (Whichever one of you observed
that it seems like she does all the work, take note.)

In the end we made it to Grand Bahama Island after 24 hours of travel.
We checked into the country with immigration and customs, refueled
again and went out for dinner as a treat.

In town while looking for a restaurant I met this fellow, another
pirate! He seems a little worse for wear as he is missing a hand and
has a wooden peg for a leg and he doesn't stand up too straight. But I
like his Bermuda shorts. The frilly cuff on the shirt sleeve is a
little questionable and the mullet has to go. I had a jacket like that
with all the paint on it once but Angel Jen tossed it out. She says
'appearance is important' and, of course, she's right.

Gotta get me one of those hats, though. Sweet.

So be good kids and, once more, who's always right?

Huh?

Louder!

The TEACHER!

Leaving Miami

Hi kids!

Well, it's finally time to weigh anchor (that's a sailor talk for pull
the anchor up and stow it for traveling). It's early Wednesday morning
and we are leaving Miami harbor.

We got all prepared by putting everything away so it doesn't fly
around when we are bobbing in the ocean, putting on the sails, filling
up the fuel tanks, buying a BIG bag of candy (Skittles, my favorite),
putting on clean clothes and brushing our hair.

It was raining but we didn't care. We put on our 'foul weather gear'
which is what sailors call their rain suits after they have paid $400
for them to keep us dry in the rain.

Under the foul weather jacket I wore my hunting, fluorescent orange
shirt. It's specially made to wick away moisture (hunters get nervous
and sweat a lot, I guess) and B) it makes the bodies easier to find if
they drown.

Here is a picture of me at the helm as we are leaving Miami. The tall
buildings behind me are Miami.

Do you think we'll make it? It's over a hundred miles of raging
ocean. Anything can happen.

Well, nothing left now but the doing. Off we go, come what may. Pray
for the sailors!

Café scum

Hi kids!

We are still in Miami Beach. The wind is blowing so hard we just about
drown trying to take the dinghy ashore. When we drive the dinghy the
same direction as the wind it jounces around up and down a lot. When
we try to go the other direction, into the wind, it jounces around a
WHOLE lot and the waves break over the bow and spray sprays up in the
air when we hit them and we get wet. Poor old Angel Jen gets the
wettest because she rides in the front of the boat (ladies first, you
know!) while I drive. She squeals if I go too fast so I just idle
along but we still get wet.

We are waiting to head out over the dangerous raging seas to the
foreign country called "The Bahamas". When the wind calms down a bit
we will strike out, probably Wednesday.

In the meantime we braved the dinghy ride into town to check out
Lincoln Avenue, a toney pedestrian mall through the center of town. It
occurred to me that this is something you Camptowninians never see:
cafés.

Dining outside on the street (en plein aire, as the young Francophones
among you might say) is a European thing. The French started it, I
believe. They call their restaurants with outside seating on the
sidewalk 'cafés'. In Paris hanging out at a café, chatting with
friends and watching people go by is a tradition. Lots of other
Europeans emulate the Parisians and here in Miami Beach it's warm
enough to do it, too. A person would die of freezation if he tried it
in Maine, of course.

So we went up and down this street looking at all the cafés and café
dwellers. Since I am a bicycle rider I call café people 'café scum'.
They sit outside and clog up the sidewalks where I'm trying to ride.
They are all spacey and self involved and hardly ever look out for
good, hard working pirates in transit so I have to slow down and avoid
running over them.

They sure are cosmopolitan, though. These people are all stylin' with
fancy clothes, shades, fast cars, et cetera. Many languages were
overheard, Spanish, French, Italian, Creole, Japanese, you name it. I
bet they would disagree with the term 'café scum'!

So be cool, kids. Get you some shades, four inch heels and a Porsche
and you could be a café scum with a Blackberry in your ear some happy
day!

Palm trees

Picture for post below which, for some reason, wouldn't come through with post.

Flexibility

Hi kids!

Today we learn a lesson about palm trees, Chinese philosophers and planning.

A very long time ago, some say 2500 years ago, an old Chinese philosopher named Lao Tzu was trying to leave his town to move into the mountains. The guy in charge of the road knew what a wise man he was and wouldn't let him leave until he wrote down his knowledge in a book for people to use when he was gone. 

Instead of cussing about government burocracy and inefficiency stifling the innovations of the free market like some modern conservative cable channel commentators might, old Lao Tzu just got to business and wrote a book called the Tao Te Ching.  

One of the philosophies he wrote down was about flexibility. One of the things he wrote was:

"Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it"

He is talking about how water can wash things away even though it's not hard and strong itself, it's flexible. 

Man, I love philosophy!  It takes a lot of thinking to understand it sometimes, though. 

Well, old Angel Jen and I had our minds all made up to strike out on the big ocean for the longest, most dangerous trip we had ever taken, over a hundred miles of unbroken water hundreds of feet deep. We had bought food, stored water, made chicken salad, put everything back in its drawers, changed our clothes and brushed our hair. We were ready to go, even if we died. We studied the route, studied the landing places on the other end, studied the alternate routes if we had emergencies, I mean we were prepared. 

The weather was supposed to be for good strong winds in just the right direction. We have been waiting for a long time to get the right winds and, it seemed, they were here at last. West winds, blowing 15-20 miles per hour. 

Well, we woke up yesterday and the blesséd wind was blowing twice as hard as predicted!  Now usually I am a man of fixed purpose. I decide, then I act. What I say, goes!  It's part of the beauty of being me, decisiveness. 

But I looked at the palm trees, like the ones in this picture, all bent over and waving around and I remembered the old Chinese philosopher. 'Sometimes you gotta be flexible' I said. 'We'll live to sail another day.'

Man, am I glad I did!  I figured the wind would die down later but it never did. The boat hopped around on its anchor chain all day as the waves crashed around. If we had gone off shore in that we'd a been sunk!

So maybe tomorrow, kids. We still have the food and water, though some of the chicken got eaten (lime and chicken salad! A real scurvy beater!) and we will have to brush our hair again after all that wind.

But stay tuned!  The dream continues! 

John

Haitian restaurant

Hi kids!

Well, little buddies, Angel Jen and I are still lying about in Miami
Beach, a sweet place to lie about if ever there was one, waiting for
the weather to get just right before we head out to sea again. As the
astute young hydrologists you are, you are undoubtedly familiar with
the fact that when wind blows across water in the oposite direction of
the current, the seas rise up in huge waves, steep and close together.
Since the Gulf Stream is running very strongly in the waters between
here and Lucaya, Bahamas, our destination, and it goes north, we need
a wind that is either coming from the south or west. Not north,
because of the waves, and not east because gentlemen never sail to
windward. 'Gentlemen never sail to windward' is an old saying that
came about from the fact that trying to sail into the wind, while
possible, is laborious, slow, generally uncomfortable and you get wet
from all the waves crashing into you. Sailing 'downwind', that is, in
the same direction the wind is going, is much more comfortable.

While we wait for a turn of meteorological fortune, we hooked up with
some other boat folks for a trip to a Haitian restaurant. Florida is
close to Haiti and quite a few ex-Haitians live here. The food was
very spicy and they had murals all over the walls, the tables,
everything! Evidently Haitians love to paint stuff up in bright
colors. In the picture below there are two people and the rest are
paintings on the wall. One of the real people is Angel Jen. Don't the
people on the wall look real? Man, that's good painting!

I had goat meat while I was there. I had never eaten goat before. It
does NOT taste like chicken. It wasn't bad but I'd take a hamburger
over goat any day.

Recently the nation of Haiti had a disaster caused by an earthquake.
Did you hear about that?

Well, be good kids. Wait a minute. That goat was once a kid! I ate an
ex-kid! Well, be good kids anyway, and I hope you are as tasty as
that goat!

Sand forts

Hi kids!

You guys like to build snow forts? Well, we are way down here in
Miami, just about as far south as a person can get and there's no snow
down here. But they have plenty of sand. So people go out on the beach
and build sand forts and sand castles.

Check out my sand fort! I built this big round circle of sand around
this umbrella with this bucket. Man, was that a lot of work! Sand is
about sixteen times as heavy as snow. And trying to make a sand ball
is a lot more difficult than making a snowball. But once you get the
hang of it, they really pack a whollup! I knocked about half a dozen
people's hats off that way and then I had to scoot on outta there.
Attracted a little 'heat' as they say.

Man, I love exploring new lands! Sand forts and sand balls! Who
would ever have imagined?

Spring break

Hi kids!

Well, little buddies, Angel Jen and I are as far south as we are going
to get for a while. We are in Miami Beach. We sailed over the wild,
untrammeled ocean through a raging sea with waves that were six feet
high all day. We were so happy to be at sea again. Angel Jen got up at
four am in breathless anticipation. We said goodbye to Fort
Lauderdale, a town of many boats and tall buildings, and headed out
for Miami, a bigger town with many more boats and many, many more tall
buildings.

Miami is chock full of three things besides boats: real estate
speculators, who are mostly depressed, Cuban emigrés, who retain anger
over events five decades past, and spring breakers, who are happy,
happy, young, pretty and happy.

Spring break is an annual event (that means it happens every year,
from the Latin 'annum', year; you can look it up) where college kids
take some time off from their 'studies' (like 'Getting and Destroying
Ethanol 101'), come to Miami and relax on the beach by day before
resuming their study of 'Getting and Destroying Ethanol 101' at night.

Angel Jen and I went to the library for a while to do our taxes then
took our bikes for a ride along a beach full of spring breakers. These
five lovely young ladies were there. It occurred tome that in Camptown
you just never see spring breakers like this so I'm sharing.

In Camptown you also just about never see people with tans like this.
They ranged from hot chocolate to hot African in shade. But they made
the old white northerner feel right at home.

They had a funny accent. Instead of saying 'party' they kept saying
'pah-tee! pah-tee! pah-tee!' and dragging me sideways. And they asked
about a 'man-kini', did I have one, and so on. Real nice young girls.
I liked them a lot. I would have liked to get to know them better but
Angel Jen wanted to go back to the boat, so we left.

So be good kids, study hard and someday you might be a spring breaker,
too. It sure looks like fun.

Nincompoops

Hi kids!

Well, old Angel Jen and I are on the road again. We left the sweet
harbor of West Palm Beach, Florida, after enjoying two weeks of the
hospitality of the city, tying up at their docks for free, sponging
Internet access in their library, listening to all the music from the
waterfront events just off our bow and schlepped fifty miles south to
Fort Lauderdale. We needed to stop in Fort Lauderdale to repair an
alternator, which makes our electricity, and our raw water pump, which
keeps the engine cool.

Yesterday I negotiated the local public transportation system to get
to the place that sells the raw water pump parts. I showed the nice
man a picture of the pump, gave him the model of the engine and asked
for the parts, which he gladly sold me (for a good high price even
though I asked for the good looking guy discount).

I wended my way back through the torrential fury of a Florida
thunderstorm with my bike on the front of the bus. It was a long ride,
over twenty four miles total, sixteen on the bus and eight on the bike.

This morning I discovered that the nice man was a nincompoop. He had
sold me all the wrong parts. Despite engine numbers, pictures of the
pump, et cetera, he had messed it all up. So today I am carting myself
back along the whole route again.

It occurred to me that you, little buddies, maynever have seen grown
ups riding a bus. In Camptown only kids ride a bus, back and forth to
school. Well, in the cities there are busses that haul people around.
You pay some money and ride where you're going. Of courser, decent
people have cars and drive themselves around but for poor people,
people with no cars, people who can't see and pirates the city runs
busses. Here is a picture of the people riding on the bus while I go
see the nincompoop again and try to get the right parts. This time I'm
taking the whole pump, which I should have done in the first place.
You would think that with all my worldly experience and all the
nincompoops I've seen in this benighted world I would have anticipated
incompetence and prepared better.

Well, live and learn, eh?

So be good, kids, and learn all you can!

Night scene

Hi kids!

Here's a picture of Cahaya in the water in front of the city lights of
West Palm Beach at night. See if you can figure out the ship's
outline. Hint: you are looking pretty much at the back end of the boat.

Now see if you can pick out the light at the top of Cahaya's mast.
This is called an 'anchor light'. If the boat's anchor is down, the
boat is supposed to show an anchor light like this at the top of the
mast so other boaters will know it's anchored and go around it. There
are a whole system of lights that boats are supposed to show to tell
other boats what they're up to. Anchor lights are one part of that
system.

Fireworks!

Hi kids!

This past weekend we spied a specially sweet looking dock in West Palm
Beach. Three docks, actually, all newly built by the wonderful, caring
government of the city were lined up near city center. There wasn't a
boat on any of them. At first we figured we better not tie up there.
After all, if no one else was using them, there must be a reason, like
there's some trap or something. We anchored down the river a ways and
spent the night. But I came back later, checked it out and found out
it was ok to stay there and free to boot. Whoopie!

So we scooted right over and tied up. As it turned out the docks were
part of a waterfront improvement project which included a park. They
were having a grand opening that night. So we had tied up in the
middle of 30,000 celebrants, beside a Cirque de Soleil type outdoor
performance with loud music then a ton of fireworks. We had a great
time! Here's a picture of the fireworks over the boat. The thing that
looks like a UFO on a stick is my radar dome. We were so close the
deck was covered with fireworks ashes the next morning.

Now THATS the way to greet a Pirate!

White alligator sighting!

Hi kids!

Speaking of things that could eat you, while Angel Jen and I were at
the zoo we saw this white alligator.

"Oh, an albino!" I hear you young geneticists exclaiming. And you
would be wrong.

This big baby is not an albino he's "leucistic". What's the
difference between leucistic and albino? Beats me. Sometimes I suspect
scientists of making up words. I suspect it means "white skin" or
something equally obvious in Latin.

Well, he's huge, he's white, he's very very rare and he has blue eyes.
They just about can't survive in the wild because 1) he can't hide in
the water and pretend to be a log which makes it tough to catch prey
to eat and B) the rednecks like to shoot them. What is a redneck, you
ask? Just look around you, kid. The woods up there are full of them.

But don't let the blue eyes fool ya. If you were to cuddle down next
to ole whitey here, throw an arm around him and say, "My! What pretty
blue eyes you have!" Mr. Alligator would say, "CHOMP!" and you would
be alligator lunch. Then he'd say, "Mmmm-mmmm! I loves my kid
lunches! Yeah, baby!"

Remember kids, you can always trust an alligator-to be an alligator,
that is.

So be good today, kids, so the teacher doesn't have to lay an
alligator chomp on you!

This thing could eat you!

Hi kids!

Like I said in the last post, Angel Jen and I hooked up with some
family and took a trip to the zoo.

This zoo had more animals and birds than you could shake a stick at.
Creatures from all over the world. They had signs telling what the
name of the thing was, where it lived, what it ate, stuff like that.
Man, I bet you wish you could read so you could learn about the
animals in the zoo, huh? Well, keep at it, little buddies. You'll
catch on some day. At least we pray that you will.

At thezoo theyhadallkinds of animals that could eat you. They had
alligators and bears, cheetas, jaguarsstuff whose name I can't recall

And they had this dragon. This thing was huge. It's called a Komodo
dragon and if he was hungry he could eat you. It's the biggest lizard
in the world.

Oh, and by "he could eat you" I meant he could eat YOU, not me. I'm
too big to get eaten and pirates don't taste good. He'd spit me back
out in a trice. You, on the other hand would make a delicious meal.
And since you're young you'd be tasty and tender.

Sorry about the size of the picture but I didn't want to get too
close. Maybe he didn't know that pirates taste bad.

So be good kids and stay away from the Komodo dragons!

Man, is this ugly!

Hi kids!

Well, little buddies, Angel Jen and I are in West Palm Beach,
Florida. We came here to visit with our daughter, son in law and
grand kids while they were on vacation in the area. We hooked up and
went to the zoo. More on that later.

In the mean time, I went to the library. I almost always go to the
library when we stop in a town. Free wifi, warm comfy chairs, pleasant
people and computer printers comprise the attractions to be had
there. On this trip to said library, while trying to sync my iPhone
and load some podcasts to listen to while on the lonely seas I got
interviewed by library staff. They wanted a quote from a patron for
use on their website. I waxed long and poetic about what a
wonderful thing libraries are in general and this one in particular.
They were pleased to have a happy customer. Then they asked if there
was anything they could improve. I said,"Yes. You have the ugliest
library furniture I have ever seen! You gotta get rid of this!" The
girl tried to say she liked it, but I leave it to you. Isn't this
chair ugly? Yucky green with an ugly print. Whew! West Palm Beach,
we expect better of you!