Haul-Out.

Up, up and away! The handsome, efficient and tireless crew at Abaco Yacht Services picked Chelonidae up Monday am, and put her back in today, Friday. After a hull inspection, it was my job to scrub the black part. Then Jim sanded it. I dusted and tacked it off. The old bottom paint was the oblating kind: it wears off gradually to inhibit marine growth and toredo worms. When dry, it comes off like chalk dust. Black, top-side-hugging, get-it-in-youreyesearsnosethroat, non-stop chalk dust. In a word...Ew! But! After a wash, shave and haircut, she looks great, once again, see new photo on the title of blog. This new bottom paint is NOT the oblating kind! We will still have to sand it, so what the hell!

Other non-paid staff include these lovely geese. They are fed by Crystal, who administates the operation. The last sound you expect to hear in a busy ship-yard is "Quack-qua-a-ack!", but it made mid-night trips to the loo more interesting!

Our next stop will be back to Marsh Harbour to re-provision, then maybe southward to explore Hopetown and Little Harbour.

Junkanoo at Green Turtle Cay

Junkanoo is what people in the Bahamas do to celebrate the New Year. Jim looked it up and learned that the name pays hommage to (yikes!) an African slave-trader named John Canoe! Whatever it was, it was good, old fashioned family fun! We had a great feed of barbeque, rice & conch and baked macaroni & cheese (Huh? Yes! It's really Bahamian treat!). With a population of maybe 300, we practically knew every one that was there! It was just like attending Hey-Day in Kemptville! Then the Junkanoo Rush (the performers) came down the hill in a whirl of white and blue with flashes of pink and yellow, what a scene! And could these guys press the volume button, or what?!? Even the littlest of boys were shaking the gound with those drum-beats!

After twice around the town (so small!) the Junkanoo headed for the basket-ball court, their version of the Villiage green, and continued to play and dance. According to tradition, there was a scarily-dressed charachter let loose into the crowd to scare all the evil spirits away for the whole year. Alas, he was moving too fast to be captured by either rambunctios lttle boy or the camera! I think it was about then that the "Goombay Smash "(the local tipple) made an appearance, because the highly energized Big Cheese said for all to go around the town again; we cut back to the boat.

We hitched a ride back to our end of the island, and were picked up by a mommy of one of the little girls. This lively sprite told me that she just plain didn't want to go around again!

It was quite fun to be welcomed into the small (TINY!) town crowd for this special event, Green Turtle puts on one of the bigger Junkanoos around.

So Happy New Year, keep the bad spirits away and if you think os us, dump some pineapple and coconut juice into some rum and chase your own spirits away!