Modern Cultural Euphemisms or Stories About Cows

November 17 - 23, 2007

Saturday, November 17, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We moved back up to Hamburger beach this morning. We had both wanted to get away from people for a couple of days and since there aren't any boats anchored up here, we decided it was closer than heading down to Red Shanks or Hog Cay.

The anchor was down and the sails put away by 9 am and then we made breakfast bacon egg and cheesies on a couple of bagels Linda from Lattittude gave us last night. This will sound kind of weird to those of you playing along with the home game, but when a boat is going to be laid up for a period of time without any crew, it is customary to remove all perishable food items from the boat and give them to your neighbors and friends. This way, all of the systems on the ship can be shut off and you don't have to worry about charging the batteries or running the freezer pump.

Anyhow, Linda presented us with a bag of goodies last night at dinner as they are leaving today to spend the holidays with their family back in Oklahoma. In addition to bagels, she also included three bags of dried blue berries for the weasels who in turn are now eternally grateful. By the way, Milo promised to never again try and eat Flip, their Amazon Grey parrot and he swears the last time was all just a big misunderstanding. (Don't ask.)

Ok, so after breakfast we did very little except clean up a few small boat projects. The majority of the day was spent swimming off the back of the boat, reading books and playing with my wind surfer. By late afternoon, we were both hungry and I made little pizzas on the grill for dinner. Post dinner we watched Mr. and Mrs Smith before retiring for the evening.

I suspect tomorrow might be a repeat of today with the addition of the Pittsburgh Steelers game thrown in at 4:30pm. See you then.

Sunday, November 18, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

And welcome to Sunday. I was up at first light with the four legged members of the crew in search of breakfast. We settled on blue berries for them and a ham and cheese sandwich for me, which we ate together in the cockpit.

The wind came up last night and built to a solid 25 knots, which I thought would be great to surf in. Unfortunately, the sail I had on was my biggest (6.4 meter) and it took no time at all for the board to completely beat the snot out of me. I must have eaten wave at least 6 times in the first 10 minutes. The last time was in fact so spectacular that no less than three people who had been watching from the shore waded out to see if I was dead. Hmmm.

An in showing how out of touch I am with popular culture, one 13 year old, vacationing punk watching from the beach told me and I quote "Dude, you got boned!". Now, I am not ashamed to admit I am not the best surfer in the world (or the harbour for that matter), but I really had no idea what this kid was trying to tell me. I mean, it's like I knew he was speaking English, but the message just wasn't getting through.

After a brief discussion with said punk and fifteen minutes of internet research, I was able to determine that what he meant was I got owned by the board. This is turn means the board basically kicked my ass. Now this is where it gets tricky.

Apparently, since the word board starts with the letter B, you add that to the base of "owned" and get the newly formed word, "bowned".

Take this example that my internet research turned up. A dumb kid of about 14, walked in to the field to smack a sleeping cow on the ass with a stick. The cow woke up startled and kicked out with it's hind legs, connecting with the dumb child's head and inducing a concussion.

Dumb child's buddies were nearby filming the whole episode and when the motionless teen crashed down to the ground one of his buddies laughed and said "Dude, you got cowned!" See, it's "owned" with the "C" from cow. "Cowned"

And this concluded our lesson into modern cultural euphemisms.

Anyhow, I got back to the big boat and secured my board for the day. By the time I got cleaned up, it was 3 pm and Amy and I shared a rum punch in the cockpit. At 4 pm the Steelers game came on and we listened in disgust as they lost in overtime. Damn it team!

For dinner we made broiled grouper and rice with some fresh home made bread. It was good and only some bread survived the onslaught. To bed by 8:30

Monday, November 19, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The crew was up and fed by 8 am and with the veering south of south east, we opted to up anchor and move down to Volleyball Beach which offered more protection from the wind driven chop. On the way down to the anchorage, we passed this behemoth mega yacht shown at right.

Please note the Bell Jet Ranger (Helicopter) just taking off from the aft flight deck. I suspect that these guys idea of cruising is slightly different than the rest of us. Oh well, to each his own.

The anchor was down and the boat settled by 9:30. After a brief stint online, I took the dinghy over to town to get some sodas and some veggies. Back on board, we put the groceries away and then worked on boat projects.

For me this entailed fixing the twist in one of our engine pulleys and then removing our one empty propane tank so it can be taken to town and refilled. I also spent an hour working on the dinghy engine choke, but I am still no closer to coming up with a fix for it.

Amy spent her time inside cleaning out the ferret room and removing the accumulated three pounds of Milo fur. For some reason Milo shed really bad over the last two months. It got so bad that we thought maybe something was wrong with him when all of his hair on his tail fell out. Then suddenly, about two weeks ago, he stopped shedding and all his hair grew back almost over night; kind of like a Chia Pet. Weird huh?

We spent the late afternoon hanging out in the cockpit reading books and watching the world go by. Around 5:30 we went up to St. Francis for poker night. My secret strategy of not showing up until a few minutes before starting time worked and neither Amy or I had to deal or setup. I'm pretty sure this is the first time that's ever happened.

We had 11 players and in the end Amy was fifth and I was third. Speedo Ed finished first beating out Charlie from Landfall for the top prize. The rain showed up right at the end of the game and we quickly retreated to our boat as we had left the hatches open over our bed. Fortunately, the angle of the rain kept our bed dry and no one was forced to sleep in the wet spot tonight.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind was really howling this morning. After breakfast I launched my wind surfer and spent the entire morning tacking back and forth in the relative protection of our anchorage. I couldn't really go too far out because as soon as I got around the corner of the anchorage, I would hit the large swells that were rolling up the harbour. It was fun regardless and by noon I was dead tired.

Around 1 I took the dinghy to town and got our propane tank filled up at Forbes. The surly propane lady was there and she glared at me the whole time I was waiting. I'm not sure what's up with her, but maybe she needs to stop sniffing the fumes?

$17 dollars later, I dropped my ten pound propane tank back on the dinghy and went to the market for a couple of things where I ran into Arlene, our favorite Bahamian bar tender. Arlene is quite the entrepreneur as she has recently purchased the Hot Dog wagon (a food truck) and hired someone to run it for her while she works over at the Chat and Chill. We walked down to where her wagon is parked and she bought me a hot dog and gave me the grand tour.

Back at the dinghy I returned across the harbour and re-installed our spare tank full of propane in the propane locker which lives in the lazarette in the cockpit. Once complete, Amy loaded our weasels into their carrier and we took them to the beach to run for an hour. Afterwards, it was back to the big boat where all crew members received showers to remove the sand before dinner.

Tonight's menu included fresh grilled lobster served over a crisp garden salad with a side of home made bread. 7 percent sales tax and 15 percent gratuity was included in the bill for your convenience.

To bed by 8.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I was up early and back on wind surfer by 8 am. The wind slacked off a little bit from yesterday and I didn't take quite the pounding as I had then. I was back on the boat by 10:30 and we had a late breakfast of blue berry waffles.

Post breakfast, we dinghied over to town to drop off some trash, mail some post cards to friends back home and also to pick up a ham from the market for Thanksgiving tomorrow. The smallest one we could fine was still 14 pounds, so I guess we'll be eating ham for quite some time.

Back on the boat, we alternately surfed the internet and read books. In the early afternoon I discovered that our holding tank was full (don't ask how), but when I tried to turn on the macerator to pump it out, nothing happened. Damn it man!

I broke out the multi meter and after 30 minutes isolated the problem to a bad connection in the wiring and I was able to put a temporary by pass in place to get it running again. Once the tank was empty, I dinghied up to NAPA to get a remote solenoid to install next to the pump so that I could replace the old wire with a new, ultra small run back to the control panel.

As the macerator draws 12 amps when running, I decided to install the solenoid so that I wouldn't need to spend $2.50 a foot for the twenty foot run I need to get 12 volts to the pump. It went pretty well and after and hour or so, we were back in business.

I cleaned up and then made broiled grouper sandwiches for dinner on the last of our home made bread. As tomorrow is a holiday, at least for the Americans, we have called for a moratorium on work as we celebrate the enslavement and eventual complete obliteration of the native American Indian culture.

Is it just me, or is this quite possibly the dumbest holiday ever? See you tomorrow.

Thursday, November 22, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

And welcome to Thanksgiving, the most obscene and ugly holiday on your American calenders.

Today we did absolutely nothing productive what so ever. I got online this morning around 6 am and played video games right up until 11:30 when it was time to put the ham on. Food prep was completed just as the first of three football games started, so we turned on the satellite and listened while doing nothing at all.

The ham was ready around 1:30 and after we carved it up and made a few sides, we proceeded to eat our way through the afternoon. By 4 pm we were all full and Amy and the weasels laid down for a nap while I returned to the internet and more video games.

At 6, we joined most of the other boats in the harbour up at Saint Francis for a Thanksgiving day drink. It was a nice time and we got to meet a couple of new boats that arrived today and yesterday. We hung out til the end of football game number two and then returned home.

By 8 pm we were in bed reading and no one on board felt bad about doing absolutely nothing productive all day.

Friday, November 23, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The weasels had me up this morning by 4:30. The three of us sat out in the cockpit under the dying remains of a full moon and shared several of the left over pieces of ham for breakfast. By 5:45, the sun was coming up and the three of joined Amy back in bed and slept in til the more sensible hour of 8.

Once everyone woke up again, we decided to move the boat up to Hamburger Beach to avoid the building weekend traffic off of the Volley Beach anchorage. It definitely seems like the cruising season has started as not only are there more boats arriving everyday, but also lots more tourists as well.

By 9, we were anchored in our usual spot and I decided to take the dinghy out to my super secret lobster spot off of Skip's reef. The wind was still up and the waves were over three feet, but I was still able to make a couple of quick dives and retrieve three lobsters, two conch and a partridge in a pear-----no no, wait, wrong song.

Back on the boat Amy helped me clean the catch and get it stored in the frozen foods aisle. We kept one of the lobsters out though and thirty minutes later, he became lunch for two served al Fresco in the cockpit with a nice bottle of white wine.

In hind sight, it seems kind of decadent to be eating a 2 pound lobster and drinking wine at 11:30 am on a Friday afternoon, but there you have it. If this keeps up, we might need to change the boat name to something French and snooty sounding, like Chez Dream Catcher.

Trust me, by Bahamian standards, we'd be the first four star restaurant in the Exumas.

Lunch took a leisurely two hours and after clean-up, we went for a swim off the back of the boat. While in the water, I dis-assembled my wind surfing gear and stowed it back on the boat as the sailing from two days ago has bothered my back so I have decided to take a couple of days off.

Around 5, we gathered in the cockpit to watch the sun go down before retiring to the salon to watch the first three hours of the five hour marathon, Dances with Wolves. We've seen it before, but we both like it, so no one minded a repeat screening.

By 8:30 we were too tired to watch anymore and retired for the evening just after Kevin Costner married Stands with a Fist. Amy cried at the wedding.