When Lobsters Go Wild

December 15 - 21, 2007

Saturday, December 15, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind was down to 15 - 20 knots out of the south east, so I broke out my wind surfer at first light. I tried to talk Ollie into getting his out, but he had to take the big boat to town for water, supplies and a stop at the straw market for his kids and grand kids.

Around 11 am, Toby and Donna on Carriba moved into our anchorage and took up a temporary position right behind us. Toby borrowed my remaining sand screw and spent half an hour getting it set before he tied his boat up to it.

He and Donna are heading back to Texas for his son's wedding and as such he will be leaving his boat on our mooring so that it is safe and free from anchoring issues while they are gone. Ollie and I have both offered to keep an eye on the boat in their absence as Donna and Toby are good people and would do the same for any of us in an instant.

Of course it also helps that Toby brews his own beer and it's currently residing quietly in the bilge of his boat. Not that I'm saying it won't be there when he gets back mind you, but you just never know. I mean this is El Carib, the Spanish Main and pirates do still roam these waters.......

Anyhow, we played ball again at 1 pm and the games were ok, but not spectacular. We almost have enough players to start playing 2 on 2 death ball at 1 pm, but right now we are still one big hitter short and so we play 3 on 3 in a much more friendly manner.

After ball, George from Sequel gave my wind surfer a shot and for someone who hasn't done it in like ten years, he did pretty well. He was able to stand up and go, but couldn't move upwind, so after half an hour I dinghied out to him and swapped his dinghy for the wind surfer which I sailed back home.

Dinner tonight was a grilled steak and potato affair, served with a small side salad. Post dinner, we headed over to Carriba where Toby showed me and Amy and his wife how to play Bahamian dominoes. It was a lot of fun and we all had a good time.

Home and to bed at the insane hour of 11:30

Sunday, December 16, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning started quietly enough with me and Milo sharing a piece of leftover steak for breakfast around 5:30. By 6 we were online and playing video games, checking the weather, sending emails and basically feeling connected with the online world.

Around 8 or so, Amy and Mila woke. Mila came out to play with me and her brother, while Amy took her kayak into the ocean beach to do some yoga. While she was gone, the ferrets and I wrestled in our bed and then watched the last half of the Guardian, starring Kevin Costner. It was ok, but not great.

Amy was home by 10:30 and after she cleaned up, we loaded our laundry into the dinghy and went up to St. Francis. While our laundry spun, we had lunch and watched football. Our Steelers went on to loose, but the lunch time pizza was pretty good, so no one was too disappointed.

While we were there, we met several tourists down from the US and it never ceases to amaze us how skewed their priorities are from our own. The one woman we met say that she is going to file a law suit against the government because it's getting too expensive to drive her Hummer (original, not an H2) around to go shopping. Hmm.

It took a lot of self control and more than a few beers to keep me from smacking her in the head and yelling "QUIT BURNING SO MUCH FUEL YOU WANKER !!!".

As a side note, I recently added "wanker" to my vocabulary after spending so much time with Anne and Mike who are new to the island, but originally from England.

All kidding aside, this woman actually told me she burns 75 to 100 gallons of fuel a week in her Hummer. Keep in mind, she is a stay at home mom with one kid and a full time, live-in nanny. I tried to explain that we haven't burned that much fuel in the last year, but to say it was lost on her would be an understatement. It's no wonder the rest of the world hates us Americans.

Anyhow, post laundry and lunch, we returned to the big boat, dropped off the laundry and then headed in to volleyball beach to see some friends. We hung out, played dominoes and threw bocci balls at French people until 4 pm when the wind shifted to the west and we had to return to the big boat.

A front was scheduled to move through tonight, so we hauled up the anchor and headed across the harbour to Kidd Cove where we dropped the hook next to George and Julie on Sequel. The rain showed up fifteen minutes later and we spent the remainder of the evening hiding inside and reading books

Monday, December 17, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

George from Sequel called me at 6:30 this morning to go hunting. I dinghied over to his boat at 7 am and we took my dinghy out through the first cut heading south and anchored off a rocky outcrop in 25 feet of water.

Five minutes later, George signaled me over. He had found a cave with at least two bugs in it and wanted back up. I gave him a 20 second head start before following him down. About 5 feet from the ocean floor, George passed me heading top side with a lobster in hand and he gave me the "there is another" signal.

I followed his trail down into a small cave and lo and behold two more lobsters stared out at me. The closest one was so small that there would be nothing left if I were to shoot him, but behind him was a large sized morsel that I quickly made my own. Low on breath, I darted towards the surface with all possible haste and then George and I swam our bugs back to the dinghy.

We moved to another, larger rocky area and within ten minutes, eagle eye George spotted another cave with four bugs hiding inside. Once again, we spread out in attack formation with our X-wing's locked (starwars joke).

George dove down and snagged the lobster standing closest to the door, but when he did, the remaining three panicked and all exited the cave running at warp factor 6. I dove down and shot twice at a tasty morsel, but missed him both times. I was so low on air that I'm pretty sure I was turning blue, but in a total desperation move, I reached out and grabbed the fellow with my gloved hand and drug him to the surface.

I broke through into fresh air coughing and spitting sea water and then the lobster poked me in the head with his antenna. He followed up the poke with a viscous frontal attack using all 10 of his legs.

I was dazed, but not down and before the evil bastard could regroup and attack again, I pulled my dive knife out of its super secret concealed location and stabbed him right between the eyes. Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Final score me 1, him 0.

I doggy paddled back to the dinghy and threw the now expired bug into the dinghy before rejoining George at the scene of the lobster exodus. George made several dives down while I caught my breath and confirmed the where abouts of another escapee. We conferred briefly on the surface and then I dove down to take a shot.

As I closed within shooting range, I noticed the large bulbous head of a Grouper watching the action unfold from a small cave to the side. I quickly rolled over onto my back, adjusted my aim and BLAMMO! I nailed his fishy ass from a distance of about 6 feet.

I drug my fish from his rocky home and as I ascended, George came down and shot the bug I had originally gone down after. The fish turned out to be a whopping 8 pounder that yielded 6 single servings and that added to the five lobsters we shot brought a close to today's hunting. Remember, don't take more than you can eat.

We returned to the harbour just as the wind started to build and I dropped George off on his boat and then returned home to clean my catch. One of my two lobsters was big enough to keep the legs, so we ended up with two tails, about a pound and a half of legs, and a ton of Grouper meat.

After cleaning up from fishing, we took advantage of being close to town and took trash to shore as well as all of our water jugs. While I disposed of said trash and filled our water tanks, Amy hit the market and got some needed supplies. As we returned to the boat, the wind shifted back to the north and a huge squall rolled through the harbour.

We upped anchor in a driving rain and motored through high winds back across the harbour and into the lee of the barrier islands. We dropped anchor in our usual spot off of Hamburger Beach in a whopping 4 feet of water.

The rain subsided by noon and at one we headed in to play ball. We had enough people to play 3 on 3 and between 1 and 2:30 we managed to squeeze in 5 or 6 games. The sun never made an appearance, so we didn't linger after ball. We were back on the boat and cleaned up by 3 pm. It started raining again shortly there after and it kept us below decks for the remainder of the day.

Dinner was pressure cooked beef short ribs with rice, which we ate while watching the animated penguin centric, Surf's Up. The movie was funny and we both enjoyed it. To bed by 7:30

Tuesday, December 18, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind picked up overnight and brought with it torrential down pours. Fortunately, the wind stayed out of the east-north east and our anchorage provided plenty of protection. The wind and the rain stayed with us all day and we didn't do much at all until noon, when we went up to St. Francis and did a single load of laundry.

The rain let off long enough for us to get back to the big boat, but then started right back up. We spent the remainder of the afternoon hiding below deck reading and surfing the internet.

Dinner was fresh lobster from yesterday's hunt and the last of my home made bread from two days ago. To bed by 8 pm.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The rain disappeared overnight and we awoke to another beautiful day. The wind was a steady 15 knots and as such I donned my bozo deluxe wet suit and launched my wind surfer.

I spent 2 hours tooling around the harbour and returned to the boat by 10 am in time for breakfast Egg-a-Moobie muffins with Amy and the weasels. After breakfast, Amy cleaned up the kitchen and I took the dinghy ashore to fix the tilt up mechanism. I had to remove it about two months ago when the engine proved difficult to raise up out of the water. Through the liberal use of WD-40 over the last several weeks, the tilt is now working correctly and as such it was time to re-attach the hold up device.

It took an hour to get everything squared away and then I returned home. After a turkey and cheese sandwich for lunch, we loaded into the dinghy and headed in for volleyball. The games were pretty good and we played until 3:30.

After ball, we hung out on the beach with another 100 or so cruisers and just enjoyed the warm sunny day. We returned to our boat around 5 and had yet another lobster for dinner before watching Spiderman 3. To bed by 8:30

Thursday, December 20, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

After an early morning breakfast with the weasels, I headed in to town to drop off trash, get some water and score some fresh veggies. I was back on the boat by 9 am and found a very sick Amy who I forced back in to bed. Apparently she has contracted what ever evil bug I had last week.

With Amy stuck in bed, I was left to amuse myself with my wind surfer. By 11 am I was tired and returned to our boat to play with my weasels until 12:30 and volley ball time. The games were ok, but not great due to the high winds. In any case, it was better than nothing.

While on the beach, Willis from Whistling Winds asked me to come up to poker with him tonight and show him how we have been running things. Willis is the poker chairman for this year's regatta, so he had a bunch of questions and despite our current poker boycott, I agreed to help out.

I was back on the boat around 4 and Amy was still resting in bed. After a quick swim to clean up and a fresh water rinse off, I donned my lucky poker shirt and headed up to St. Francis. We had 28 people show up at three tables and in the end I tied for 4th.

Afterwards, George (St. Francis) bought Willis and I several drinks as we discussed the upcoming poker season and how we wanted to set it up. I didn't get home until 10 pm and after placing my ferrets in their up right seating positions, I turned in for the night

Friday, December 21, 2007 - Kids Cove, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning found us in a moderate 10 knot south-south westerly wind and as such we upped anchor and moved down to Volleyball Beach. After we got the anchor set, we cooked up some bacon and eggs for breakfast and then Ollie came over and he and I set up our wind surfers for some serious riding.

Ollie did much better this time around and actually managed to get the sail to power up several times. He even pulled off his first jibe and we were both mega impressed. We sailed around for about 2 hours and then returned to our boats to get ready for volleyball.

We had 13 players of various caliber show and ended up playing a mixture of two's, three's and four's on two different courts. Depending on the players that ended up on the courts, the games ranged from excellent to down right hilariously bad. Some people should probably stick to fun volleyball.

Ball lasted until 4 pm and then we returned to the boat and picked up anchor and moved over to Kidd Cove to wait out the westerly winds.

We decided not to go in to the managers party at the Peace and Plenty as we were too tired. Instead I cooked up some home made pizza for dinner and we spent some quality time on the internet and watching reruns of movies we have seen 43 times.

To bed by 9 pm. See you tomorrow.