Beware the Seventh Kalik

Nassau – 6 kilometres walked, 15 miles in dinghy

I decided a boat chore day was in order so after I dropped off the ladies near downtown I started working on my list. First task was to get water and diesel. Yesterday Donny at Potter’s Cay told me about a free water tap under the bridge so I found a beaten up floating dock to tie the dinghy to and filled up our four water jugs with 24 gallons of sweet, free, drinkable water, getting a decent leg and back workout in the process. From there I dinghy’d back to our marina tied up, paid the $11 daily charge, and carried two diesel jugs to the nearby Esso station. Back at the boat I emptied all those into boat’s tanks and got us very close to full.

The two groundings we had experienced had shifted some of cabinetry, and broken some of the adhesive grout, so I was hoping to fix that but found out it was a public holiday today so most of the stores were closed. Instead, I put on my wetsuit and scraped all the growth off the underside of the boat after doing a check to ensure the groundings hadn’t done any damage, which they had not. They did, however, put a fine polish on the bottom foot of our rudder and keel, which were now back to brilliant blue after the Bimini sand exfoliation process. After the cleaning, I did a bit of snorkelling around the area, enjoying the incredibly clear waters and schools of fish I saw loitering around.

I collected the girls in the dinghy late in the afternoon (after filling up the two diesel jugs again) then we motored back to SeaLight, had a slow and delicious dinner of grilled burgers and fresh cut fries, then returned to shore and walked to Hammerheads for the Friday night party. As the drinking age in Bahamas is 18, this was the first time the girls had ever been in a real bar in a bonafide position to order drinks – a milestone moment. Our lovely server Tyra, who was the only server and the bartender, hooked us up, then happily put on some bitchin tunes after we asked her if she could turn off the sound on the American football game playing on the tv. Hammerheads is not a tv-watching, lame-assed, sports bar. And the most amazing thing was all drinks are five bucks, period. Beers, fancy cocktails, shots. Five bucks. Makes for simple math.

We had a great time. Alex the owner who we had met on our first day was thrilled to see us and we spent a lot of time talking, particular about the bar’s bewildering new name – HPOS10I. It is based on an infamous image of a backpack with a patch showing random stuff – Obama, Harry Potter, Sonic the Hedgehog. Nobody knows where it was taken or who took it. The whole thing is too internet-kooky to explain, so I’ve included a link if you are interested/bored/curious/etc. Anyway, Alex did tell us they had considered reverting back to Hammerheads and invited us to keep calling it that, which we most certainly will.

Some other friends of Alex’s showed up – a couple from Montrealer and a couple from Vancouver (Canadians are everywhere here) – so the girls struck up a conversation in French and got some excellent, practical practice which just proves the primary reason of learning multiple languages – meeting people in bars. The Montrealers were sailors and Shawn carried a tiny chihuahua as a fashion accessory. Its name was Lulu, despite the poor dog being a boy, but I don’t think he cared much as we’d seen this situation before in the Azores - a man dog named Ruby, but that's a whole different story. We talked about sailing and got his contact information as he’d lived, worked, and sailed the Bahamas for years so had all sorts of connections for getting supplies out to the islands if we ran into trouble and needed something.

I was careful with my Kalik consumption, remembering a text my brother Marty sent me a couple days before. It read, “Beware the seventh Kalik.” We learned this the hard way living in Nassau so many years ago. Well, I’d say we really didn’t learn anything, as there were limited behavioral changes stemming from this discovery. Kalik is a magical Caribbean beer, but they put something in there that makes you think crazy thoughts and do crazy things. And it kicks in at the seventh Kalik. So if you stay under that limit and respect the Six Kalik Maximum, you’ll shouldn’t sustain any serious damage, and you will definitely become funnier and more attractive. But exceeding the limits? Best to be wearing a hockey helmet, mouth guard, elbow pads, and have your name, address, and emergency contact number pinned to your shirt, as shit’s about to get hairy.

Some of the things I’ve seen happen to myself, friends and family after breaking the 6 Kalik Maximum rule, in no chronological order or level of severity, and leaving the afflicted unnamed, include driving sailboats into coral heads and getting stuck, going to bed at 5:30pm, relieving oneself in the bow of the Exuma Powerboat Adventures on a wildly turbulent ocean, falling sound asleep in your car while waiting at a red light, doing unplanned dismounts off fast moving speedboats, crashing a (family member’s) car into a power poles taking out electricity to the island, ramming a (friend’s) car through locked gates because the clicker isn’t working, losing outboard motors off dinghys, face punching your large and muscular American friend cause you think he’s after your girl (which he wasn’t), driving so drunk you need your passenger to handle the wheel while you focus on the pedals, losing your glasses then wearing a prescription mask with a snorkel sticking out the window while driving home plastered, waking up and not remembering where you left your car, getting pulled over obliterated doing 100 kph the wrong way down a one way street, throwing up over clean dishes in the sink, hitting on beautiful women far outside one’s league, lashing together couch cushions with string to make a cozy bed then passing out face-first on the tiled floor, getting stucco rash on your back after falling into a house then trying to sleep it off on the side of the road full of traffic, getting sunburned so bad your face peels off, being chased by a pack of potcake street dogs, rowing a dinghy through a wicked current in the dark after Happy Hour at McDuff’s and climbing aboard the wrong boat, nearly getting shot by the angry owner, missing flights, forgetting where you live, dancing erratically, speaking in tongues, and having the greatest time of your life.