We love to quote our wonderful new friend Carole who, with her beautiful French accent, just up and says “It is a good life!”  She often gets caught up in the moment of a pretty flash of sunlight on the beautiful gin clear blue green water, or an unexpected sea turtle popping his head up to sneek a peek at us crazy cruisers, and spontaneously comes out with this sentiment. We couldn’t agree more !

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be”.  Again, we concur! You’d have to try really hard not to smile at the beauty that surrounds us here.

Cooking in my my tiny boat galley can be a challenge at times. Tom is a good sport when my “cooking experiments” turn out less than tasty.  I rediscovered a recipe from a book I used years ago called, “Whole Foods for the Whole Family”. The recipe is called “Puffed Pancake”I used our big iron skillet and the simple one dish, one pan breakfast pancake Was a huge yummy success! I served it with fresh lemon slices and real maple syrup. If you’re interested in getting the recipe, just let me know.

We had the opportunity to visit with our friends Burrelle and Earl Meeks. Burrelle was the principle of Knight Elementary School in Georgia where my sons attended. They are both retired now and enjoy their lovely home on Man-O-War Cay, 6 months each year.  Earl is a physicist turn artist.  He set up his telescope, during our last visit and showed me the rings of Saturn. It was an amazing sight I’ll never forget.  Since our last visit a few years ago, their yard has been transformed. Earl has created and placed several fun and whimsical sculptures around the property, and Burrelle has managed to get beautiful plants blooming all around that attract lots of emerald green  hummingbirds. She also volunteers in the local school a couple of days each week. I’m sure the children and teachers are delighted to have her lively, creative and experienced input. I’m sorry I missed getting a picture with lovely Burrelle, but we’ll capture that one on our next visit .

 

We enjoyed a lovely dinner on the island. Burrelle and Earl have also given us valuable information about how to have necessary boat parts affordably shipped in through the appropriate channels. It can be a complicated, expensive, endeavor figuring out customs and tariffs and VAT’s. We also attended an “Arts in the Park” fund raiser for the Bahamas National Trust. The trust strives to protect the natural habitats, and are keepers of all of the national marine sanctuaries. Tom was pleased to buy an original water color painting from a very talented 10 year old local artist, Joshua Higgs. The sand pictures were taken by Tom out on the beach and created by Mother Nature herself.

We will be out of touch for the next week, and I mean literally out of touch, as on Saturday we will be heading for a life’s dream vist to Cuba. It’s only for a week, but we are very  much looking forward to having the opportunity to walk the streets in this previously forbidden land. Tom has long dreamed of visiting Havana. His daddy, Cap’n Vivian Bessent, worked on a dredge boat there, back in 40’s, as they built Guantanamo Bay. He remembers hearing stories of Old Havana, and seeing pictures of Vivian, dressed in high waisted white linen pants, standing out in the square.

Don’t worry, this is a legal, sanctioned trip, so we won’t be thrown in jail, or get our boat confiscated when we return. Actually we will be leaving Southern Trawl in the Abacos and flying to Florida, where we will meet up with our travel group. It is a Metroplitan Museum of Art associated trip, so we will more than likely be over our heads when it comes to the expression  of culture  and symbolism of the emerging art world.  Hey, we’ll look really interested and try to keep up as best we can, while enjoying the colorful scenery and looking forward to eating some incredibly delicious Cuban food. We have friends who escaped Cuba during the revolution, and have not returned for many reasons, so we will also be taking lots of pictures to share with them as well, upon our return.

Stay tuned as we promise to bring back as much of the sights, sounds, and culture of this beautiful country. Unfortunatly we’ve been told that cigars would be immediately confiscated, if we were to try to bring those home. We are allowed to bring back unlimited “educational and artistic ” works. Let’s see how broadly we can expand that definition! Also with the US administration’s announcement that the US will be normalizing relations, we are hoping that the people will be encouraged to open up and speak more freely of their lives and hopes and dreams for the future.

Adios para hora!

P.S.   In case you’ve been wondering about Lizardo, we felt sure we’d be writing to share the sad tale of his demise. Lizardo has been making appearances every few days since our return back to the boat after Christmas. Tom had decided to help the little guy out. He placed  an empty sardine can, with a piece of fruit or fish in it on the lower shelf of a wicker table on our back deck, where he’s been spotted lately. The can and offerings were meant to attract fresh bugs for Lizardo to snack on. Much  to our dismay, there is a cat who lives at this marina. In the wee hours of the morning we heard a commotion on the deck.  We saw the cat leaving our boat while trying to drag the sardine can with her. We were afraid that the cat had probably already eaten our beloved Lizardo and was just taking the can for dessert.  We were very relieved when a few hours later Lizardo crawled out from hiding in the folded chair covers.

I’ll leave you with a few more photos from the lovely Abacos!