Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Time Flies



It seems like we just got to Jay and Jan’s dock yesterday.  We only had a couple of good days of weather, followed by more than a week of strong winds.  There was plenty to do while we were pinned down.  Myron worked on building Jay a top-bar bee hive and the two of them worked the community to find bees.  There are two other beekeepers on Man O War Cay, but neither have queens or a nucleus ready yet.  There is a hive living in the side of a local house, but capturing those bees will require subsequent carpentry work.  Maybe a nuc will be ready when we return early next year on our way back north.


I kept busy with my own projects.  Jay helped me with a broken zipper on the enclosure and then gave me 20 plastic pulls to replace the metal pulls that are freezing (metal/salt water reaction) in place on the zippers.  I have replaced all but nine pulls and greased all the snaps and dot springs.  Getting the enclosure panels off when the zipper pull is frozen is a slightly greater challenge than getting them back on with such a tight fit (nice job Pat at Pat’s canvas, that these panels still look so good and tight after five years).  Once the winds got above 20 knots, I could no longer work on the project. 

Myron also helped me replace my cutting board that is also a sink insert.  The butcher block cutting board was slowly breaking off blocks during my pounding (cracking) conch.  The initial plan was to glue the old board back together and hope it holds for the season, then buy some one inch thick polypropylene and craft a new one next summer.  But Jay had some starboard laying around that was 3/4” inch thick and more than large enough to get that project done right now.  I am so glad to have a new and strong cutting (pounding!) board, plus it looks so much better than the old wood boards.  Bring on the conch!  Here is the new (in the sink) and the old (to the left of the sink).


We have been at Jay and Jan’s dock for over two weeks.  It will be close to three weeks by the time we move.  We have had great internet, thanks to Barry’s wifi design.  Life has been pretty easy.  Hold Fast is shy about 10 inches at low tide, so the only thing we have really had to manage is one of the dock lines at high and low tide, especially on a northeast wind.  Here is a picture of Hold Fast on the bottom and leaning on the dock.  Notice the flag shows the wind blowing (at 20-30 knots) the opposite way she is leaning.  

As Myron and Jay go around town together, attend church and sit in the same pew, people have asked if they are brothers.  There must be talk around the town because one of Jay’s daughters, Giovanna, was asked how long her ‘uncle’ was going to be in town.  That is what we shall call him around here now:  “Uncle Myron.”

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday.  Jan had to work Thursday and Friday, as it is not a holiday here.  We had a 22 pound turkey and all the trimmings.  I made three pies:  Bahamian fresh coconut pie, fresh coconut cream pie, and chocolate cream pie.  Myron and Jay husked and harvested fresh coconuts for me.  The Bahamian coconut pie was a new try at a recipe for me, from Jan’s cookbook.  It is always dangerous to try new things at an important gathering (please disregard the over-baked crust edge, we just tossed that out and enjoyed the good parts). Most folks found something they liked.  

Jan set a beautiful table.  Note the turquoise water in the background off the balcony. 

The lousy weather ruined our chances of going out with Uncle Willard to hunt conch.  We are expecting a few days break in the weather soon, therefore we will push on to Eleuthera Island to meet with a pastor in Rock Sound.  We are not sure the timing of our plans with his church and community, but I imagine we will have some time to get down to Long Island and see how we can help Pastor Craig Fox and his flock.

I posted several months’ worth of pictures on Picasa.  Please click on the photo galley link to the right and see the three new albums for South to JAX and MOW, Trip West, and North to Deltaville.  Google changed the format again, so if you want to see the captions, you must click on the 'info' icon and leave that up as you browse through the albums.  If we find free internet during our travels south, I can post more pictures.  Otherwise it will just have to wait.  Will keep you all posted on our whereabouts.

Love to all,
Dena

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