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!