Lawyers Do Float

February 4, 2005

Saturday, January 29, 2005 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Kris arrived today. Welcome Kris. Her airplane was only three hours late, which on island time is pretty damn good.

We moved the boat over to volley ball beach this morning to get away from the evil swell coming through our anchorage overnight. We did our final round of sweeping and then went into town to catch a taxi to the airport.

It was funny being in a car after all this time. It was pretty amazing to do more than 10 knots too. The Bahamians insist on running their cars on the wrong side of the road down here and Bahamian driving gives every appearance of being a contact sport.

We arrived sort-of-safely at the airport and then waited for Kris. Once her plane got in it was back to town in the another cab again trying to hit as many pedestrians as possible. I think we hit six, but I lost count.

The worst part of the night was getting me, Amy and Kris, along with her 200 + pounds of luggage back to the mother ship in the dark. We had to stop three different times to bail out the dinghy on our way across the harbour. We should have stopped about 3 more times, but someone who shall remain nameless(Kris) accidentally threw my bailing cup overboard.

Suffice it to say that trip sucked as does my dinghy, but I did establish that the old adage about Witches, Lesbians, and Lawyers not being able to float is at least 1/3 wrong. Kris (the lawyer) floats just like normal people.

So now Kris is here, safe and sound. I hope to be able to talk her into doing the logs while she is here, but she is trying to resist. I may have to resort to ferret torture.

Sunday, January 30, 2005 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Kris

Hi, all. This is Kris -- Tom and Amy have successfully persuaded me to do the logs this week, so I am guest-writing.

So after the dinghy trip over last night (which was as awful as Tom described), we ate bourbon chicken and rice, then hung out and caught up for a while. I woke up this morning realizing that I really am in the Bahamas -- for those of you who don't know this, I live in New York City, where we had 13 inches of snow last weekend followed by a week of temperatures in the teens and twenties, so I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to wear fewer than 14 sweaters, let alone to suddenly wake up in paradise.

Slow morning -- Amy and I got up and drank coffee, read books, and knitted (I knitted, she read), then decided to take an expedition to the big stone tower while Tom fixed stuff on the boat (they tell me it was the water pump -- those of you who are reading these logs for profound boating tips might want to wait till next week).

Said big stone tower, which Amy calls a monument although it doesn't appear to actually be a monument to anything in particular, is on the high point at the end of Stocking Island -- it involved a little traipse down the beach, the a sharp turn at a sign which claimed to mark the "easy trail," which in fact involved a bit of climbing for the first few feet, then evened out.

We got to the top of the hill and found the tower, took some pictures of each other and the boat, then retired to Volleyball Beach. Tom was already there, playing with the professionals -- I play a little, but took one look at their court and knew I was way the heck out of my league. So Amy and I joined the 9 on 9 games -- lots of fun, lots less scariness. I couldn't tell you how many games we played, let alone how many we won or lost, but it was awesome if only because I was playing on a very white sandy beach less than a hundred yards from the waters of the Caribbean.

We got back to the boat and Tom made pork chops which we ate with bread and rum and pineapples. We were all in bed by 9 -- I can tell you that Tom and Amy aren't lame -- it's just that volleyball is hard work

Monday, January 31, 2005 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Kris

(Still Kris as your guest writer) We got up early today, drank coffee and read for a while, then motored the mother ship from Volleyball Beach over to Georgetown for errands. Amy and I started the laundry process while Tom did boat stuff (taking on fuel and water). There was lots of laundry to be done, as my luggage did not fare well in Saturday's dinghy ride.

Amy and I hunted for postcards for my officemates, who requested postcards, but there appear to be no postcards in Georgetown. I'm bummed for my officemates, but as it is cold and snowy in NYC perhaps it is just as well that I'm not sending them photos of warm sunny places. We went to the Straw Market and to Starfish (the local dive shop) for sunglasses, which I forgot to bring along. We also sent out some emails from the internet cafe, then celebrated with a beer.

Back on the mother ship, Tom made hot dogs which we ate on bread slices, then Amy and I folded laundry. Finally, we went back to the beach for volleyball (Amy and I played; Tom watched, because the pros didn't play today). We went to Chat and Chill for Kaliks, then back to the mother ship for spaghetti and garlic bread. Thanks to my roommate, there are now some new movie options aboard the Dream Catcher, so we watched Goldeneye. Not going to go down as my favorite movie ever, but at least a couple of things blew up.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005 - Rat Cay, Rat Cay, Exumas
By Kris

So we got underway today. Apparently Farmer's Cay, which is north of Georgetown, has a festival on Friday, which is called the 5F (First Friday in February in Farmer's Festival, or some other arrangement of those words), so Tom and Amy have picked that as our destination. We had coffee and tacos first, but were sailing fairly early. We cut east outside of the islands and followed them up on the Atlantic. It was my first time sailing with them on this boat, so it was pretty damn exciting to have it be on the ocean. Everything was relatively calm -- two to three foot swells, so just enough to be exciting.

The seafood, however, was less smooth. We managed to hook two mahi. Tom estimates that the second one was about 40 pounds, but we can't be sure because he ran off with something like 60 yards of line and the sparkly red whore lure. The other mahi also escaped. However, the other fish whacker did secure us a barracuda. The books say that barracudas are edible as long as they're less than 5 pounds or 26 inches. After that, Tom tells me, they get full of neurotoxins from eating the reef fish, and you can get an arthritis-like condition from them. This guy, who was probably the ugliest fish I've ever seen in person, fell below both lines, and anyway getting arthritis from eating a barracuda sounds much cooler than getting it from, say, typing lots of memos because one is a lawyer. So we grilled him up with a lemony-pepper sauce and ate him with salad. I thought he was awesome, although it's been a really long time since I got to eat something which was swimming that morning. Tom and Amy say he would have made better fish sticks.

We anchored at Rat Cay, and watched Pirates of the Caribbean. However, Amy and I are both lame, and we didn't make it all the way through the end of the movie before we crashed

Wednesday, February 02, 2005 - Big Harbour, Little Farmers Cay, Exumas
By Kris

We got a slightly later start this morning, as Rat Cay is pretty close to Farmers, and didn't get under way until after a breakfast of eggs and hash browns. We sailed out on the ocean again, but things were a little more wild -- three to five foot swells in what Tom and Amy said were "confused seas," which means that all the waves were going all different directions. There was also the occasional six-foot swell thrown in for good measure. However, we reached Farmers Cay in one piece, or rather four pieces if you count Maggie, and I managed most of it without being nauseous.

We went ashore and found our way over to the yacht club, where we had beers and Nutter Butters and chatted with the bartender, who reports that the 5F festivities will actually be going on for three days. Then we moved the mother ship to a new anchorage closer to the town. We no sooner got the anchor down again when Chris from Bel Ami dinghied over to tell us that Ocean Basin was having a free-rum happy hour. This was only slightly disingenuous -- there was indeed free rum, but in fact it was a meeting, rather than a happy hour, and they were seeking volunteers for various events. Amy and I have volunteered, somewhat to Tom's disgust, to judge the Men's Hot Legs competition. We think it will be a meaningful and enriching experience. First prize is a bottle of rum, which is probably the only reason anyone will participate at all.

We had steak quesadillas for dinner. Tom wouldn't let us watch the rest of Pirates of the Caribbean, and Amy wanted to crash early anyway. So he and I watched A Perfect Storm instead (which, if any of you were wondering, is not necessarily the best plan in the world when one is on a small boat)

Thursday, February 03, 2005 - Big Harbour, Little Farmers Cay, Exumas
By Kris

We decided that hunting was in order today. Well, hunting for the actual boaters, anyway -- snorkeling for the tourist, who is quite convinced that she will poke a hole in her foot if given a spear. So I prowled around looking at pretty things -- there were quite a few to be looked at, even though we weren't snorkeling around one of the flashier corals -- while Tom and Amy stalked edible things with their spears. Tom managed to pin one fish (I forget what kind, probably because we didn't get to eat it), but the fish got away -- only to be snatched up by a barracuda. Fair revenge, I suppose, since we ate his cousin the other night. Amy did secure us a conch, which we carted up to the beach to kill in a fairly messy and elaborate process. We will make conch salad with him.

Tom made two pizzas, which we gorged ourselves on before going back over to the Ocean Basin for today's 4:00 festival meeting. The meeting started an hour late, but at least went fairly quickly once it got going. We returned to the mother ship and ate some more pizza, then played Scrabble, which I won. Tom says I got lucky. We went to bed pretty early, so that Amy and I could preserve our energy for the judging of the hot legs