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Tuesday, March 29, 2016

"Nippers, Nippers, Nippers"


Nearly every morning, we listen to a half hour broadcast on the VHF marine radio that is called “The Cruisers’ Net.”  It’s an interactive broadcast.  Cruisers are able to ask questions and contribute information on the Net.   It is also a forum for a bit of radio advertising about events on various islands.  Kinda like your local PBS station telling you about the school board meeting coming up, or fund-raising dinners for some charity.

Great Guana Cay, ocean side from Nippers
One of the ads we hear every morning starts like this, “Nippers, Nippers, Nippers” in a very cheerful crescendo.  Nippers (apparently you only need to say the name once) is a bar/restaurant/resort on Great Guana (goo-AH-nah) Cay.  We don’t attempt to check out each of the Cruisers’ Net places to visit, but we were planning on going to Guana Cay anyhow, and who would not be curious about Nippers, Nippers, Nippers?   Besides, for the last few weeks, we’d been hearing about the “Barefoot Man” event in relation to Nippers. I thought the Barefoot Man sounded like one of those quirky festivals like the “Rhubarb Festival” or the “Largest Ball of String in the World” festival.  Had to check that out.
Grabbers

We anchored well offshore at Guana Cay.  It was a lovely dinghy ride to shore for the three of us—two humans, one dog.  My first impression was ‘oh, how colorful!’  There was a bar/motel right on the beach called Grabbers with brightly colored “scarves” tied above the tables for shade.  There were several dinghies pulled up on shore and people aimlessly roaming around enjoying the day.  Idyllic!  I can aimlessly roam with the best of them.  Our plan was to come back later in the afternoon (without Jax) to participate in a Cruiser’s Potluck on the beach hosted by Grabber’s, which happens every Wednesday.  We wanted to meet some other cruisers.

Jax at Nippers, a calm and obedient customer
We walked around the island to get our bearings, including climbing the hill to where Nippers, Nippers, Nippers was perched high above the ocean.  Stunning location!  Wow!  Then we headed back to the beach to bring Jax to the sailboat and prepare for our evening’s potluck.

A few words about dinghy transportation…. Our dinghy is 10’ long with large rubber tubes filled with air and a hard bottom.  We have an 18 HP motor on the back which Carl usually operates when it’s the three of us.  There are two basic options to take a dinghy to shore.  1)  Find a dinghy dock (floating platform) or another elevated dock with a ladder.  The ladder is for those of us with two legs.  Jax jumps—sometimes amazingly high.  We pull up to the dock; I catch hold of the dock and tie off.  Jax jumps off, followed by me, then Carl.   
Jax prepares to jump down into the dinghy from dock

2) Pull the dinghy up onto a soft sand beach.   In option 2, I again, tell Jax to jump out first, then I climb out into the water and I pull the dinghy up onto the sand.  Carl tips the motor up so that it doesn’t dig into the sand, and then he gets out.   Returning to the dinghy, we just do everything in reverse.  Carl gets in, then me, then Jax if we’re leaving from a dock.  The only difference is that from a beach launch, Option 2, I have Jax hop in ahead of me, before the water gets too deep.
Preparing for picnic on the beach at Grabbers

So, Carl climbed in, Jax leapt in and then I pushed the dinghy away from the shore so that Carl could tip the engine back into the water.  You know that old TV show, “Starsky and Hutch?”  They had this slick way of sliding across the hood of the car to get in.  Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about when I turned my backside to the dinghy and jumped backward onto the side of the rubber tube, while holding the painter (line attached to the dinghy) in my left hand.  Yeah, it didn’t turn out the way I had pictured it in my head. 

From underneath the dinghy, now in deeper water, I came up sputtering and laughing and scrambled to get my footing.  Of course, the only things I had to hang onto were the painter now wrapped tightly around my left pinky finger and suddenly hurting like h***.   With my right hand, I was holding onto the dinghy tube which only succeeded in pulling it over top of me as I tried to get my feet under me.  I believe Carl’s exact words were, “Ardys, get in the boat.”  Oh, really?  You think that would be a good idea?  

View of Atlantic from Nippers, high above

After a few dunkings, I did get my feet under me.  Determined to get it right this time, but not yet ready to give up on TV from the 70’s, I squared myself off on the bow more carefully and jumped backward a bit more exuberantly this time.  I was onboard!  Of course, since the dinghy was wet, and now I was wet, too, the boarding was a bit more like a slippery seal sliding off a rock.  My bottom landed on the anchor locker behind the bow, my head landed on the cushioned seat and my legs.  Well, what could a pair of legs do with that degree of momentum leading them forward?  The offending limbs went straight up and over my head.  Jax had wisely moved aside for this escapade.  
Jax' assigned spot in the dinghy.  Stands on locker at bow.

I clambered to right myself in the dinghy and quickly scanned the shoreline.  Just how many people saw that, I wondered.  My eyes darted back and forth across the beach—I saw no one laughing, pointing, or otherwise reacting to this debacle.  Including Carl.  As the engine started up and the dinghy moved away from shore, there was nothing—no comment from the stern of the dinghy.   I couldn’t stand it of course.  “Well, that was quite a spectacle, huh?”  Carl responded, “What?”  Really?  He didn’t see that?  I said, “I don’t usually get in the dinghy like that.”  Turns out, he’d been fiddling with the motor.  Missed the whole second act of my performance.
Barefoot Man, aptly named


The potluck, by the way, resulted in meeting two cruising couples and they were planning on going to the “Barefoot Man” too, and said they would save us a seat.  Hmmmmm.  So apparently, we were going to be observers, not participants in this barefoot thing.  Fine with me.  Turns out, however, that the “Barefoot Man” is a man and he has a band that has been around in the Bahamas for quite some time.  We had seats in the shade, closest to the band.  The songs were bawdy and the crowd, mostly people of a certain generation (mine) were loud and raucous.  It was a hoot!  Nippers, Nippers, Nippers.  You gotta see it to believe it!
Hard to imagine a more enthusiastic crowd of middle-aged and seniors

Friday, March 25, 2016

Jax' Story: Living on Land


Are you ready to hear my story?

My humans tell people that when I am left alone, “Jax is writing his memoirs.”  I don’t know anything about memoirs, but I do have a story to tell, and this is it.  

Is this not a handsome guy?

I was a young guy here.
My name is Jax.  I am a dog—fairly handsome if I do say so myself.  My mother was a Border Collie.  My father— who knows?  I never met him.  I was born far away from where I am now.  I kinda remember crawling over my brothers and sisters to get to my mother’s milk.   That’s what pups do.  But then I lost them.  I  don’t know how .  They disappeared one day and I was all alone.  

Children!  Grrrrrrr...
Some humans picked me up and brought me to some other humans with little children.  I didn’t stay there long.  The humans complained that I was herding their children.  Well, yeah!  I’m a herding dog.  And besides, small humans need herding.  They run this way and that—shrieking and—oh it’s just too much!  A guy’s gotta get ‘em to stay together!
Maybe he'll go away if I don't look at him?

Showing off my expert rolling skills.
Those humans dropped me off at a place with lots of dogs, and cats too.  Now those are some critters!  You can’t herd ‘em for nothin’!  They gave me a name there which I won’t repeat.  It lacked class.  Then one day, some other humans came to take me for a walk.  I showed off how high I could lift my leg and how I could roll around on the ground.  They must have been impressed because they took me home with them.  
Watching for my humans out the window.

There were no small humans at my new home.  So what was my job supposed to be?  It became clear that these humans needed watching.  One of them might go up the stairs to the third floor;  one might go down the stairs to the basement.  It was constant work to keep tabs on them both and I took my job very seriously.  I had to find the spot that was half way between them when they did that—it was the best I could do.  When I took my humans for walks, I discovered that squirrels were in need of my attention, too.  Grrrrr.  Bark!!  grrrrr….
Going under the aerial lift bridge.  The tourists stand over there and wave at me. 
My humans took me on a sailboat with them on a big lake they called “Superior” and the boat they called “SweetWater.”    They called me “Jax.”  It was a long jump from the cockpit down into the dinghy behind the boat.  The first time we did that, my humans put a harness on me with a rope attached and they lowered me….whoops, they dropped me into the water.  I don’t think they meant to, but you never know about humans.  The next time, I didn’t wait for them to drop me in the water.  I just jumped.  Some things a dog just does better by himself.  
Step 1:  Jump up.  Step 2:  Do my business.

There was a lot of snow at that big house on the lake.  Sometimes it was hard to find a place to—you know—do my business.  Most of the time it was fun romping and rolling around in the snow.  I have a lot of fur.  I hardly ever get cold at all.  Maybe my feet a little, and then the humans put small boots on me.  Weird.  I lose them as soon as I can.  

I made it outside before they put those silly red booties on me.  Whew  

There were lots of fun things to do when we lived there.  The humans skied and snowshoed.  We went to the beach when it was covered with ice.  In the summer we went fishing.  It was the life!  

I can carry huge sticks.  I'll swim if I HAVE to, to get them.
One year, the humans brought me to what they called “agility training.”  I’m already agile, but at that place, I got to show off what I could do;  I could jump up on things, ride a teeter totter, weave through posts, leap over and under things and run through a long tunnel.  The trouble started with the tunnel.  I could hear the other dogs racing through the tunnel—I just had to catch ‘em when they came out the other end.  I had to!  For some reason, nobody wanted me to do that.  Go figure. 


Deer.  Chased 'em away every day.  They always came back.
One day, my humans and I moved to a smaller house on a little lake.  My humans let me outside by myself whenever I wanted there, which was awesome!  Probably because the house was surrounded by deer.  Talk about critters that need herding!  I did my best to keep them out of our yard.  But they always came right back.  Deer are not the smartest animals on four legs.  Well, duh, of course…….that would be me and my bros.

That's me, worrying about what will happen next.  It was a time of turmoil in my dog life.  
I could tell something big was going to happen when the humans began to put just about everything in the house, into boxes.  Frankly, I was worried.  Were they going to go off somewhere and leave me behind?  Were they going to put me into one of those boxes?  I would have to hide if it came to that!  

I'm in the back seat.  This is MY seat.
But when everything was packed that could be packed, they called me to get into my seat in the car.  I was in that back seat in a flash!  I lay down fast in case they changed their minds. I hate being left behind.  Then we started driving, or rather, my humans drove.  I more or less supervised and watched the countryside fly by.   


Monday, March 21, 2016

A Woefully Brief History of the Bahamas

It’s hard to explain to folks who have never looked at a map of The Bahamas (like me, for example, until a few months ago) where they are and that they are NOT part of the Caribbean Islands.  The Bahamian Islands do not lie within the Caribbean Sea.  However, that information eluded me until the last year prior to moving onto our sailboat when I began to take more notice of The Bahamas. 
Bordered by Florida to the west and Cuba to the south, lie the Bahamas. (map taken from The Cruising Guide to Abaco Bahamas 2016)

The Bahamas are a group of approximately 700 islands, our closest foreign neighbors off the coast of the eastern U.S.  Many of the islands are tiny, little more than rocks protruding from the water and those are uninhabited.  Many of them, thirty, are inhabited and have been so since about 400 A.D. 
Statue of a Lucayan, also referred to as the Taino,

The first known inhabitants of the islands we now call The Bahamas were the Lucayans, an Arawakan speaking group who were a very peaceful people living off the ocean’s harvest. They came from the land we now call Cuba.   
Pottery from era of Lucayan or Carib.

Some time later, they were invaded by a warlike people that sailed across the water from the south, perhaps from the area of Venezuela or thereabouts.  These invaders were called Caribs from which the word “cannibal” is derived. When the Caribs came, the Lucayans essentially disappeared, probably by the women being kidnapped and raped and by the murder and perhaps cannibalization of the men. There can be no darker moment in history for a people like the Lucayans who are now, no more.

One of the early maps, this one drawn by French navigators/explorers.

The next invaders were the Spaniards.  History books refer to them as the Conquistadores.  They came with their horses and armor and European diseases which in effect wiped out large populations of the natives, even before many of them had even seen a white person.  Columbus first landed on the island of Hispaniola (shared by the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 1492.  He established a church there to prove to Queen Isabella who funded his ventures that he was establishing a Christian settlement there.  For good measure, he abducted a few natives to bring back with him to Europe to prove his point. Columbus referred to the area as "the baja mar" (Spanish pro. 'ba'ha mar') which means shallow sea and the name stuck -- The Bahamas.  
The Bahamas population is about 330,000.  Most Bahamians are of West African descent.  Many Haitians have migrated to the Bahamas as well, over the past few decades. 

By the 1600’s, the Spaniards were spreading over many of the islands of the Caribbean and into some of the islands of The Bahamas.  Naturally, the white settlers goal was to establish commerce on the islands and if they could find gold or a fountain of youth while doing it, so much the better.  Commerce required slaves, as it turned out, and for a couple hundred years, the Spaniards (and folks from other enterprising European countries as well) bought or stole hundreds of thousands of black slaves from the African continent to the Caribbean Islands and into The Bahamas as well.
Bahamian teens swimming off the dock in Marsh Harbour on a warm Saturday in March, 2016.

Commerce included attempts at growing crops like pineapples, coconut and sugar cane—all crops that required hard labor in extreme heat.  The white entrepreneurs believed that the slaves were more resilient to the heat than their white counterparts and found that they were immune to some of the diseases that came along with the mosquitoes which were inadvertently imported from Africa as well.  White soldiers, property owners, businessmen and priests died by the thousands, while the people stolen from the African continent died in proportionately smaller numbers, but there were so many slaves brought into these islands that their numbers continued to increase, regardless.  
Gravestones resemble early New England/English markers.  Graves appear to be more hallow however.

With the search for religious freedom as the impetus, a group of English Puritans settled in The Bahamas along about 1649.  They may have found that, but they also found they did not have enough to eat.  The Massachusetts Bay Colony actually helped them out with a shipload of food and the Bahama Puritans repaid the Colony with brasileto wood.  It must have fetched a handsome price because Massachusetts used that money to put toward land for a school, Harvard.
Stories abound about pirates hiding their treasure around the islands.

It must have been easy pickins to be a pirate in the Bahamas in the 1600 and 1700's.  Shipping lanes to the American colonies were nearby.  With its' shallow water and reefs that snatched unsuspecting ships loaded with booty,  
Statue commemorating the Loyalists who fled to the Bahamas.  New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas. 

Another group of invaders came into the Bahamas much later, in the 1780's.  Those were the Loyalists to the British Crown.  While the American Revolution was in full swing in New England, the Loyalists escaped to The Bahamas, many with only the clothes on their backs.  Those Loyalist communities on some of the Bahamian Islands still resemble the New England villages that they fled.  
Princess Margaret.  The Bahamas were a British colony until 1973.    

The descendants of those Loyalists are still here in the islands.  They are of English, Scottish and Irish heritage.  They tend  therefore, to have blonde or reddish hair, blue eyes and fair skin.  They have names like Lowe, Curry and Roberts.  When they speak, their Bahamian accents lead me to ask for repetition as often as I do for any Bahamian of color.   Linguistically speaking, this is an interesting place, and I would like to learn more about that—a 200 year old English speaking population that has stirred up that language with folks of African heritage in communities isolated from the influence of any major populations, at least until more recently.  It’s unlike any spoken language I have previously heard.  When two Bahamians are speaking to each other, it may be virtually impossible for me to glean even the topic of their conversation.   
The Bahamas are an independent member of the British Commonwealth.


To further confuse the reader, the Bahamas are divided into different groups of islands.  The northernmost group of islands closest to the U.S. are the Abacos.   The Abacos’ largest islands are Grand Bahama Island, Great Abaco Island and Andros.  None of them are heavily populated. 
Pineapple coconut jam.  Coconut grows naturally. 

Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas is on the tiny island of New Providence.  The Bahamas also includes the Bimini Islands, the Berry Islands, and the long string of little reef islands that border the Atlantic which we have begun to visit beginning with Green Turtle Cay, Manjack Cay and now Guana Cay.  Further southeast are Man o' War, Elbow Cay, Eleuthera, then the Exumas, followed by the Turks and Caicos.  By the time one has passed through the Caicos, you may safely say you are in the Caribbean.  The Caribbean is yet another 7000 islands representing 28 different countries.  Fascinating stuff, huh?
The Bahamas extend about 550 miles across the waters north of Cuba and east toward Hispaniola. 

Thursday, March 17, 2016

What If You Can't Afford Toilet Paper?

All vegetables but for potatoes, onions and tomatoes are in the stand-up cooler

I was wondering, what do the local people do who don’t have enough money for the toilet paper?  I have not sought out an opportunity to ask anyone that question—my mother taught me there are some questions that should not be asked and that maybe are none of my business.  I’m putting this question in that category. 

I have mentioned that paper products in the Bahamas are expensive.  I saw a woman getting off the ferry the other day carrying a plastic bag of with (2) 4-roll packages of toilet paper and my eyes turned into saucers.  I thought, “She’s got $32 worth of toilet paper there!”  Paper towels are treated like gold by us now.  We filled the open spaces along the hull in the bow of our boat with individually packaged paper towels and toilet paper before we left the States.  Although we’ve always looked for the paper towels with the “choose a size” option, we now use 1/2 of a small sheet whenever possible.  

Some things are quite reasonable in the grocery stores.  We hadn’t figured out why, but a cruiser explained to us:  “Everything that comes from a country within the British Commonwealth does not have duty tax placed upon it.”  So, we can buy lamb chops from New Zealand for $5/pound and beef for $4/pound.  The tea biscuits and “Digestives”, shortbread and thin ginger cookies that come from England are very inexpensive.  Anything from the U.S. is NOT.  All goods and services include a VAT (value added tax) of 7%.  Tips are usually included in the bill for you at restaurants.
Best burger we've found, at Harvey's

The local fish, conch, lobster, snapper and so forth are affordable at the grocery store.  Once it’s prepared, the cost rises significantly.  The 4 oz. of salmon filet from Alaska is incredibly expensive.  A box of Triscuits may be $10 and a bottle of my favorite flavored creamer is $9.00.  We have cut those out of our regular diet.  However, we can buy a huge block of cheddar cheese made in the Bahamas for less than $3/pound, and eggs that are a little less than we pay in the States.  Fresh whole wheat, raisin, white or coconut bread (when you can get it) is quite reasonable.  Ice cream is a major luxury.  
Bahamians make two beers:  Kalik and Sands

Cruisers tend to come into the country with crates of American beer onboard.  The local beers, Kalik and Sands are good but not cheap.  Since I don’t like light beer, I can’t fairly evaluate the flavor, but I’d guess there’s a reason that Americans go to the trouble of bringing their own.  Rum is inexpensive, however, and comes in about 15 flavors, I think.  I’ve tried a couple of them.

Fresh water is valued highly here. Water is in short supply on all the islands but for Great Abaco and Grand Bahama, so to grow one’s own food seems fairly unusual.  Fresh water is stored in private tanks above ground by each house. Hot water faucets are generally nonfunctional.  When we fill the water tanks on the boat, we may pay anywhere from 20 to 35 cents/gal.  Water is not offered in the restaurants but is provided upon request.  
This road cut reveals the porous limestone rock and minimal soil on the islands.

The issue of fresh water affects the grocery store prices as well.  Fruits and vegetables are all shipped to the Bahamas, and the variety is limited.  We did see tomatoes growing on the vine in one person’s backyard only on Green Turtle Cay. The other reason that we do not see personal vegetable gardens is that the soil is virtually nonexistent here.  The islands are made from calciferous deposits from shellfish over the millennia.  The ground is therefore basically limestone and quite porous.  
Live conch (large snail) in its' shell.  

It seems that the foods that are produced by the people who live here are either from the ocean, or naturally occurring such as coconut.  Perhaps there are more products but I haven’t seen them.


Bahamian money is exchanged 1:1 with American money.  Their money seems a little prettier however.  Everyone seems to have a mobile phone just like the Americans.  When we have had to replace a part on the boat, the cost was three times what we could have purchased it for on Amazon.  However, the shipping would have made it ridiculously expensive and we would have had to wait for a few weeks.  It’s the Bahamas.  

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Visitors to Green Turtle Cay

International arrival at Marsh Harbor airport

At last we had our first visitors in the Bahamas.  It was marvelous!  There have been relatively few visitors to Northern Star since we moved aboard last April, and until now, visitors were all while in the U.S.  Perhaps then you can understand our excitement at traveling to Marsh Harbor to pick up our guests from Memphis, TN.  
Carl's sister at Treasure Cay

My husband’s sister and her husband arrived last Tuesday noon and departed again via Marsh Harbor Intl. Airport on Saturday.  It was our (okay, more my) goal to pack as much Bahama life into those days as possible.  My husband reminded me that we had to allow them time to do what they wanted to do, too.  “Ya, ya, okay, okay,” I said.

Walking beaches of Green Turtle Cay
From the Marsh Harbor Airport we drove to Treasure Cay where we had a beautiful lunch on the beach.  Then, we rode the ferry to Green Turtle Cay, crossing the Sea of Abaco from Great Abaco Island.  The aqua water does not disappoint any visitors to the Bahamas, I’m sure.  

First time driving a golf cart
We walked the beaches both along the ocean and the bays on Green Turtle Cay.   A golf cart helped us cover a lot more ground that we might have done on foot, or in our dinghy.  Theoretically, we could take four people in our dinghy, but I might not want to be one of them.  Just sayin’.  There were strong winds for their visit.  With four in a dinghy, we’d have been riding low in the water, and would have been drenched.  Although we’ve become used to getting sprayed on wet dinghy rides its probably not the best way to entertain one’s new guests to the Bahamas. 
Bronze Sculpture Garden

We were pleased to show off  “our” little town, New Plymouth, the settlement on Green Turtle Cay.    Our guests enjoyed the Albert Lowe Museum, which is housed in an 1826 house and explains the history of Green Turtle Cay in the Abacos.  The Loyalist Statue Garden was a must, as well.  And the cemetery; I always think a walk through a cemetery has much to say about the history of a community.   Bahamians, similar to the Americans, tend to care for the gravestones of loved ones, and mark the places on the island where deaths have occurred.   A delightful lunch on the beach at Harvey’s followed.
Lunch at Harvey's on the shore

Our guests stayed at the Bluff House Marina and resort in a lovely second floor room overlooking sunsets over the Sea of Abaco.   The remark was made that the scene was a “1940’s postcard of the Bahamas.”  Ya, I think we’ve all seen that postcard. 
Sunset from Bluff House

The major event of the week was an “Adventure Day” with Brendal’s Dive and Watersports.  Brendal is a well-known waterman in the Bahamas, bringing people out to snorkel, scuba dive, learn how to spear lobster, and can teach folks how to sail too.   Just about anything that takes place on or under the water Brendal can do with ease.  The Wall of Fame in his dive shop includes names such as Pierre Trudeau, the Discovery Channel and the Food Network.  He is quite an amazing character.  Complete with an incorrigible sense of humor. 
Brendal's Dive Center boat.  The manta rays met us here.

The four of us met at 9:00 at the Dive shop and three of us were outfitted with wetsuits and snorkel gear.  Carl’s  sister opted to watch us from the boat.  Carl and I had recently purchased our own snorkel equipment which we were eager to initiate.  We each also wore a small buoyancy vest.  
Snorkeling is so easy with wetsuit and buoyancy vest.

There were six paying customers, along with Brendal and two helpers onboard.  Because the winds were still rather strong, the water on the ocean reefs was a bit dicey.  Therefore, rather than the reefs, we snorkeled on a shipwreckThis day was spectacular and I am now determined to snorkel every chance I get.   The plentiful fish on the wreck were gregarious.  The more rare specimens were shy and required a bit of patience for their appearance. 
 
One of the shy fish
While we were snorkeling, Brendal and one of the helpers swam up along the shore looking for indentations in the shoreline that were suspicious for housing lobsters.  They speared a few to add to the ones that he had brought with him, just in case.  Brendal made some lunch preparations on board—then took us to a pristine beach where his helpers showed us how to feed manta rays pieces of fish from between our toes.  
Manta rays waiting for their fish from our toes

The rays were waiting for us — apparently they have an ongoing relationship with Brendal.  One of them he calls “Tony.”  The rays swam back and forth vacuuming the tops of our feet for the chunks of fish.  With a bit of practice, we were able to feed them the fish from between our fingers too.  Did you know that manta rays like their underbellies scratched; I was reminded of our dog, Jax.  We were told that later in the day, the really huge rays would make an appearance.  Amazing creatures!  Simply amazing!
Snapper in the big pot and butter sauce

While we were shrieking and flirting with the notion that the manta rays could nip our toes, Brendal built a tiny fire and cooked our lobster and fresh mutton snapper in a big old Dutch oven over a few sticks the two men had gathered.  A wonderfully aromatic butter and citrus sauce bubbled on the crude grate as well.  
Bendal preparing the salad on the beach

We had as much lobster as we could possibly eat, the snapper, salad and coconut bread; and of course, the ubiquitous rum punch.  Mmmmmm.   Could the day have been any better?  Maybe, but I don’t know how.
All the lobster we could eat.  I had three!