Spear Whacker Fatigue or Acute Lobster Sabotage

September 27 - October 3, 2007

Thursday, September 27, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I was up at 5 am this morning surfing the internet and shooting space aliens. The ferrets woke around 7 and Amy shortly there after. We had random leftovers for breakfast and then headed in for volley ball.

We played 4 games and they were ok. Volleyball was followed by swim time and then we took showers on the back of the boat.

I tackled several boat related fixes today, including re bedding a leaky port light, replacing a burned out LED light and greasing the big boat's engines. Amy worked on various inside jobs assisted by the weasels.

In the afternoon I finally finished reading Riding the Iron Rooster. It wasn't very good. For some reason the book took me five days to read, so now that it's behind me I can switch over to Orange Crush by Tim Dorsey. Tim has to be the funniest writer I've ever read. If you get a chance, pick up his books, but try and start with the first one as all of they all revolve around the same character Serge A Storms.

By 5:30 we were heading up to poker night. We had a couple of new people show up so we played with two tables and thirteen players. Speedo Ed won followed by George.

We hung out watching tv with George and Jillian until almost midnight and then dinghied home and went to bed

Friday, September 28, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke to more squally weather. The wind was blowing at twenty five knots, but fortunately it was from a direction that we had protection from, so other than being a little wind blown, all was good. It was actually cool temperature wise today which is a welcome change from the last two months.

The weather didn't let up at all, so consequently we never got off the boat. We munched on leftovers for breakfast and afterwards Amy made the crew peanut butter cookies. We love peanut butter cookies.

I did very little productive today other than read two more chapters in one of my new computer programming books. Even though I no longer work, I like to keep up on the latest technologies. Currently I am working through Professional AJAX Examples in C Sharp, a real page turner to be sure.

Around 5 I fired up the grill and cooked up the last of our Hogfish. Hogfish beware, this is fair notice that the hunt is about to resume!

Dinner was excellent and after the clean up, we watched Finding Nemo (again). The weather is supposed to start clearing tomorrow, but when NOAA is involved, anything can happen.

Saturday, September 29, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke to relatively calm, but overcast weather. At 7 am I decided to take advantage of the lack of rain and head out to the reef for a quick look around.

The usual cast of fishy characters were present and after careful selection I invited a Nassau Grouper and a large Mutton Snapper to join us back on the boat. With two fish in the dink, I was ready to head back when I spotted the tell tale antlers of a lobster sticking out from under a rock in about twenty feet of water.

Down I went trying to think stealthy thoughts. Ok, ok, at 6 foot 1 inch and a svelte 220 pounds stealth isn't exactly my forte, but work with me here.

I got to the rock and pulled myself down to take a peak and lo and behold 3 pairs of black eye stalks stared back at me. The largest morsel was absolutely huge and I pulled back my spear whacker device all the way to the stops to inflict maximum damage. Just before I fired, the surgical tubing broke and the spear flinging device came back and hit me in the head! Shitty Death!!

Total pandemonium ensued as I darted for the surface and then my dinghy and the spare spear flinger I carry for just such emergencies. One big breath and I was simultaneously diving and re-arming my sling. I got to the rock for a second time and the fat bastard was still sitting in the same position. Low on air I made no attempt at hiding my intentions as I swam right at him. Six feet! Five feet! Four feet! Whammo! A clean hit directly to the head and he never even flinched.

Desperate now for air, I grabbed my friend by the shell, pried him and my spear from under the rock and sped to the surface. Safely back in the dinghy, I realized I had just experienced either Spear Whacker Fatigue (SWF) or Acute Lobster Sabotage (ALS)! I'm probably lucky to be alive.

Between the two fish and the mega lobster, I decided to leave the other two smaller bugs for another day.

I was back on the boat by 9 am with my catch cleaned and in the frozen section of the Dream Catcher mini mart. Amy was awake and made us breakfast hot dogs which we shared with Mila and Milo.

After clean up, I worked on installing the second anchor (foot path) light, this time on top of my R2-D2 radome. If you squint, it almost looks like that eye stalk that R2 had. See supporting evidence, side right.

Around 4 we loaded up with a lobster from the freezer and some salad goo that Amy created and went up to St. Francis for the Saturday afternoon potluck and poker social. There was so much food that I only cooked half of the lobster and Amy and I couldn't finish all of it. Of course you never have trouble getting rid of lobster in a crowd, so rest assured it didn't get left behind.

Around 6:30 we had a 13 person, 2 table, 10 dollar buy in poker game and when it was all said and done, I beat George for first place while Amy tied for third. We also said good bye to our good friend Miguel who is with the U.S. Army stationed here for drug interdiction duty. The DEA is taking over and the Army is going home, so Miguel's last night on the island is tonight.

I know I speak for everyone when I say we'll miss having the Army guys around. Take care guys and be safe.

We returned home to the boat at 11:30 pm and promptly turned in for the evening.

Sunday, September 30, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

So everyone knows that the biggest sport in the world is what Americans call soccer and the rest of the known universe calls football. You red necks out there sit back down. Nascar is cool, but not nearly as popular as soccer even though soccer is not a huge sport in the U.S.

Outside the U.S., rugby takes second place on the list of most popular sports, which brings us to today's log entry.

George (St. Francis) is originally from South Africa and grew up playing rugby the way most Americans grow up playing baseball. As an American I can honestly confess that my knowledge of rugby was pretty limited until George made me watch a couple of games with him last year.

I won't say I understand all of the rules, but I know enough to at least be able to watch the game and follow the general gist of whats going on.

Ok, so as it turns out, the Rugby World Cup is going on right now in France. Believe it or not, the U.S. actually has a team and out of something like 96 countries, we qualified for the final round of 22 nations.

The bracket we were placed in had five teams and each team in the bracket played one another with the best two records moving on. Suffice it to say we didn't win a single game, but our final game was today against the South African team.

So now you understand how 10 American cruisers wound up watching a game with a militant South African rugby fan on this particular Sunday afternoon.

We all gathered to watch the game at George's bar. We mostly drank his beer and munched out on the appetizers we each brought to share. In order to keep us rooting for our respective national teams, we also put down a 40 dollar, America versus South Africa, winner take all bet.

Now, given how much of an underdog Team USA is, George agreed to give us a 40 point head start. As it turns out we lost by 52, but it was still fun to watch.

And so now you know how we spent our Sunday.

Monday, October 01, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke to rain once again, or rather I should say that Amy awoke to rain this morning. I was up shortly after 2 am when a mega squall rolled through the anchorage. The wind kicked up to twenty knots out of the west and while it wasn't too rough, it did leave us facing a lee shore about 100 meters distant and I felt it best to stand anchor watch until things settled down.

I ended up hiding from the rain drops in my foul weather gear in the cockpit with my LED rechargeable flashlight and a book from 2:30 until about 5 am when the wind finally started to back to the south. A pretty soggy and miserable time to be sure.

As an aside, the U.S. Army pulled out for good this morning. The last three Blackhawks did a fly over to say good-bye and then they were gone.

Amy made us breakfast and then I headed out to the reef, but had to turn back as there was a serious rage going off outside. For those who have never seen it, sometimes in the cuts and openings to the ocean side from the bank side of the islands, you get this big build up of waves that makes passing through them dangerous at best or down right un-doable at worst.

The rage condition isn't necessarily caused by the local weather and can in fact be the result of a large storm hundreds of miles away that just sends goofy wave trains in our general direction. When I got out to the cut to head ocean side, I was greeted by nice 5 or 6 foot breakers stacked right on top of each other. Needless to say, I turned around.

I was home and cleaned up by 11 and we spent the early afternoon hanging out reading and playing computer games. Around 3 pm Pete and Sharon stopped by with their lap top so I could fix a couple of problems they have been having.

Apparently they tried in Nassau to have it fixed, but the guy who took their computer away for a week brought it back in the same condition for the low price of $150. They tried again here in G'town and Julius at J&K kept the machine for 10 days and returned it broken as well. No word on what Julius charged, but I know he did charge something.

After hearing about their problems with the local computer people, Norm on Wind Minstrel volunteered me to take a peak. Hmm. Thanks Norm.

Fortunately I was able to detect and fix the problem in thirty minutes, so I can at least pretend that I lived up to the hype. Go team!

Anyhow, the four of us hung out and had a few rum drinks on our boat until the rain showed up and Pete and Sharon headed back to their boat. We closed our windows and headed up to Monday night poker where I finished second to Speedo Ed.

We were both hungry when we got home, so I fired up the grill around 11 pm and cooked steak fajitas which we proceeded to devour with the help of our weasels. To bed by 1 am.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007 - Kids Cove, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Another rainy day in the neighborhood.

The remnants of tropical storm Karen are starting to move through the area. There isn't any real wind associated with it, but there are lots of random squalls passing through. Unfortunately, the depression has almost stalled and the forecast is for this mess to continue for at least two more days.

During a lull in the rain, we upped anchor and moved to the town side of the harbour so that we could take our lap tops and run in to Eddie's Edgewater to get on the net and have a beer. Once the anchor was set we piled into the dink and made it in to town just before the skies opened back up.

We hung at Eddie's for two hours enjoying the high speed internet connection as well as the air conditioning and cold beer before we headed back out to the big boat by way of the grocery store.

Back on board, we put away the groceries and then it was time for dinner. Tonight's menu featured grilled lobster tail with potato wedges and a side salad. It was good and there were no left overs.

We hung out reading books until 9 pm and then called it a day

Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We upped anchor early and moved the boat back up to Hamburger Beach. Once the anchor was down we decided to both go out to the reef in search of life.

The dinghy was anchored and we were swimming among the wild things by 9 am. The mega swell from the other day was gone, but the visibility was still less than 10 feet. We saw a large Hogfish and mega sized Nassau Grouper, but we were unable to apprehend either one.

After an hour or so, we were heading back to the boat and made a final stop at Skip's reef. Sure enough there was another Jurassic lobster peaking out at me and after a brief discussion with Amy, I dove down and made him my own. See photographic evidence side right.

Back on board, we cleaned our bug and washed and stowed the dive gear and then took fresh water showers. We hung out reading books and playing on the computer until 4 pm when Pete and Sharon stopped back over so that I could set them up with a spare wifi adapter I found while cleaning up the boat.

The adapter installed without trouble and they were on their way by 6. The rain started back up as I fired up the grill to cook a couple of ribs and 12 shrimp. After dinner we just sort of hung out listening to the satellite radio. To bed by 8 pm.