Marsh Harbour – 2 miles in dinghy, 8 kilometres walked
Bahamians are cool. They dress cool, they walk cool, their hair is cool, and they talk cool. I remember seeing a t-shirt in the Nassau straw market that read, “I Identify As Bahamian.” I should have bought that shirt because I’d like to be cool, and Bahamians are as cool as they come.
Today we did a long walk into town and saw areas of Marsh Harbour we had not yet seen, including many commercial shops, all newly constructed since the hurricane. I left Ana browsing in a liquation store while I continued walking the busy road with our empty propane cylinder headed for Abaco Gas. I passed a new strip mall called Resilience Plaza and across the street was a worn rest area with benches, canopies, and a small pond full of turtles. A sign threatened, Do Not Remove Wildlife From The Pond. I wouldn’t dream of it. I sat on a bench for a while and watched the little turtle heads bobbing in and out of the water. Then I continued on my way.
I reached Abaco Gas and met a staff member who had lived through the hurricane. We talked.
“I was in Coopers Town, up north, and it wasn’t hit as bad,” he said as he screwed the propane fill hose into the tank standing in the back of a pickup and eased open the valve. “We were lucky, only lost a few buildings.”
“Which place was hit the worst,” I asked.
“Marsh Harbour. The news said there were 35 dead here but my friend is a coroner and he picked up 33 bodies himself, and he wasn’t the only one doing it,” he said, shaking his head. “Those were our friends and family. Everybody lost somebody.”
“It’s unbelievable the damage a hurricane can do.”
“You know, it wasn’t actually the hurricane that did the worst. It was the 200 tornados that spun off from it, which was a little more than normal. That’s what really destroyed Marsh Harbour,” he told me as he swatted away the flies swarming around the tank, attracted by the fumes.
As I pondered this I realized you would have to be from the Caribbean to consider any devastating and deadly wind activity to be “normal”.
“It’s amazing what you’ve been able to rebuild here,” I said.
“It was the wealthy foreign homeowners and NGOs who supplied massive amounts of money and people to clean up and rebuild. They did so much for us. We’ll never forget it.”
The other staff member who was filling my tank handed me an invoice for $11, far cheaper than any fill we’ve ever got in the US or Canada for the 11 pound cylinder.
“Well, it was great meeting you. Good luck with everything.”
"Thanks for visiting us my man. Come back soon,” he said as he waved me off.
I had a feeling we would be.
I walked back to meet Ana then we continued to the grocery store to pick up a few things. I waited outside while Ana did the shopping. I watched the Bahamians coming and going. There were two men, dressed in long pants, fine shirts, and perfectly trimmed beards holding up religious posterboard signs: TRUST IN GOD, JESUS LOVES YOU; HE WILL SAVE YOU. But they weren’t bugging anybody, and one of them seemed to know everybody walking into the store. One man stopped and said, “OK, let’s pick up this religious discussion where we left off last time. So you said that….” They had a long conversation about topics supernatural, laughing and smiling with no yelling, arguing, or lecturing. Another man with thick dreads and a permanent smile stood beside a grocery cart with a bunch of boxes inside. A woman with an immaculate beehive fist bumped him and they laughed together. Another gave him a hug. Soon a taxi arrived and they held a loud conversation as he loaded his boxes into the car, then through the open window as they were driving away hollered to nobody in particular as he motioned to the driver, “Roxy! This is my man right here. He help me out, all the time. Let’s go Roxy!” A young Bahamian lady, red dress hugging her Bahamian curves, with long eyelashes, and hair so intricate I couldn’t tell what was going on, strutted by, with a practiced walk and dark shades. A older couple walked out pushing a cart together; he wore a thick gold chain that matched his gold tooth. She was painted and pressed for a night out, but they were just grocery shopping. A crowd of perfumed, colourful ladies came out together and crowded the exit as one of them told a story and they all burst out laughing, bent over, while other exiting customers waited patiently, and joined in the laugh. Two studly dudes walked in, v-shaped, with tight tshirts straining to contain their thick back and arm muscles, black track suit pants veined by their thick quads, and they wore expensive trainers. A plain looking man sat on a milk crate, and caught my glance, then walked over. He said something in Bahamian I could not decipher, so I asked him to repeat. Without understanding, I laughed and nodded my head. He fist bumped me and said, “Thanks for visiting us brother.”
These are the people that you meet, when you’re standing on the street, they’re the people that you meet each day. In the Bahamas…
We walked back to the dinghy with a blanket of swirling thick black clouds flanking us to the north, bearing down quickly. I was pretty sure we were going to get soaked, but we made it to the dinghy, loaded our gear, unlocked it, then took off at full speed to the boat over the growing waves and line squall bearing down. We arrived at SeaLight, quickly tied up, unloaded the gear, then just as I was hoisting the dinghy up into the arch Ana pointed to the boat beside us and said, “Oh my God, what is that?” A line of torrential rain was sprinting across the anchorage, blanketing everything in grey, as two cracks of lightning hit the ground and thunder filled our ears. The squall hit us and we were surrounded by grey rain pounding the boat as I finished hoisting and tying the dinghy and pulled the plug to let the quickly accumulating water drain. The deluge lasted no more than fifteen minutes, but long enough to wash the thick layer of salt off the boat.
We retired to the cabin. As Ana worked on yacht club stuff, I became engrossed by my phone, adding in dozens of reviews, adding new places, and uploading photos in the NoForeignLand app. I was rescued from this downward spiraling screen zombie episode by Ben, who called to ask if we wanted to join them on Waddington for a sundowner. Within ten minutes we were in the dinghy and on our way across the lumpy anchorage.
As usual, the conversation was effortless and funny. Ben had crafted a magnificent horn from a conch shell and we decided his level of proficiency developed from at least three days of practice should be sufficient to earn him a place in a jazz band Carnegie Hall appearance as the virtuoso conch player. As the sun dropped, Ben put the conch to his lips and bellowed a long singular note, which earned a response from at least three other conch players in the anchorage. Honestly, we didn’t know anything about these conch sundowner salutations despite being cruising nearly three months, but over the past week we’ve been listening for it and have heard the sorrowful conch melodies each night as the sun dropped. I need to make myself one of those.
Ben was on a roll this afternoon and delivered this fine Dad Joke, on the topic of cruising the Bahamas:
"We don’t do it because it is easy; we do it because we thought it would be easy.”
With that, we took leave of Ben and Kate, saying a heartfelt “Hasta luego”, and returned to SeaLight and first prepared the boat for the heavier winds which were coming tonight, then prepared a delicious dinner of buttered dorado, couscous and rice, and mango coleslaw.
At 1:30am, the anchor alarm on my phone started shrieking and we found the anchor had somehow come loose (despite having held solidly for hours) and dragged at least 60 feet, putting us too close to the catamaran anchored behind us and the shallow water. I retrieved the anchor at the bow while Ana motored the boat into the screaming wind then we repositioned her and dropped the anchor amidst the many nearby boats.
She held tight the rest of the night.
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