Russell Island – 3 miles in dinghy, 5 kilometres walked
Any traditional, productive, God-fearing, tiny Bahamian island worth its salt must have its own radio station, and that station in Spanish Wells is 89.9 Stellar FM, the “Jammin’ Station”. We tried it the night before but it was dead so we tried again this morning and were instantly rewarded with a Celine Dion ballad. Next up was an obscure Madonna song from the “Like a Virgin” album. Up came a silly soca song, then a brand new honky tonk tune called “Pickup Man” (there’s something girls like about a pickup man…), and after that we heard Led Zeppelin, two oldies in the form of “The Wanderer” and “Going Up The Country” by Canned Heat. Then it was some Bob Marley “Buffalo Soldier” action, followed up by a Huey Lewis scorcher, another soca song, “Mambo #5”, “Summer of ‘69”, then over to a heavy and scary Black Sabbath tune which I didn’t even know. This erratic and genre-agnostic playlist was representative of what can be regularly heard on SeaLight’s speakers, except with less Celine and more Gojira and trip hop. We remained at the boat longer than we expected listening to the radio tracks, enjoying the unpredictable and seemingly random selections, some good, some terrible, but a surprise every three minutes. I was thinking we should stop by the station and see if they would interview us, to add even more variety to the programming, but we never got around to it.
We rode the dinghy down the channel and into a bay of Russel Island, the island that runs parallel to Spanish Wells, creating the channel. We spotted a man on one of the private docks so asked him if we could tie up. He, of course, said no problem, perpetuating the gracious kindness consistently shown to us by the locals throughout our visits here. He told us a bit of his family history, his career as a lobsterman, and how the fisherman from the Dominican Republic had been plundering Bahamian seas until the Bahamian forces started arresting them and either sinking their ships or confiscating them. The Dominicans got the message and the quality of the Bahamas fishery made a recovery over the subsequent three to four years.
There is one main road on Russell Island with side roads branching occasionally. We stopped at a gift shop and instead of the knick-knack attack that usually befalls me when entering these kinds of places (which immediately sends me running out the door, panicked and needing to go pee), I quite enjoyed browsing the items for sale, which included a cute Bahamian cookbook pamphlet, polished conch shells, cut lengthwise into thick slices by a bandsaw, paintings of typical Bahamian scenes, handmade wicker baskets, and a picture book of “Bahamas Underwater” which kept me enthralled for ten minutes as I flipped through images of sharks, octopus, conch, reef fish, crabs, lobsters, and small shrimp. We ended up buying a wicker bread basket which is going to be a welcome addition to our home kitchen.
From here we walked and walked, passing many fenced-in goats on both sides of the road, more goats than we’ve seen anywhere. One of the pens was marked as “Petting Goats” so we spent a long time there giving the goats head, ear, and back scratches as they stood silently with their eyes closed, enjoying the rub down. That Cake song about sheep going to heaven and goats going to hell is completely wrong. Goats go to heaven too. I’m sure of it.
The day was getting quite hot and we were hoping for a swim but the 25 knot west winds were making a mess of the beach conditions. Instead, we returned to the boat, opened all the hatches, then made cornbread muffins and chilled out while we waited for David, Ruth, Leo, and Willow from sailing vessel Kaia to pay us a visit.
They arrived around 4:30 and we had a lovely chat in the cockpit with snacks and drinks as the kids roamed the boat, exploring every available space, making comparisons with their catamaran, asking questions, and providing commentary. They are a truly lovely family with a great story, a passion for exploring, and the will to do it. We parted ways not expecting to see each other again, as their path was going to take them either further into the Caribbean or possibly back into the US, though much later than us. But as it goes with traveling, you often meet amazing people, but do not have a lot of time with them, so you make the most of it, then leave with “See you sometime!” instead of “Goodbye”.
Young Leo had been very excited about the SpaceX Starship, schedule to launch from Texas tonight at 6:30. It was expected to pass near us, and had already been postponed a couple of times, so we promised to watch it from our boat as they watched it from theirs. We tuned into the live launch broadcast, and scanned the sky, first to the west and south which seemed to be the direction it should be coming from, then everywhere, but we couldn’t see a thing. They ended up exploding the rocket, but by that time we were probably back in the cabin. We did see online that cruisers in the Exumas had a good view of the explosion and were probably in excellent position to collect some of the heat shield pieces on their decks or maybe through their biminis.
Ana assembled a five-star chili which we slurped up with the fresh cornbread as we watched an episode from the first season of “True Detective” which we had decided to rewatch as we remembered both loving it. Though the days are now getting longer, it’s still dark before 7pm, leaving a couple hours of sailboat cabin time to consume before bed.
Tomorrow, we leave for the Abacos.
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