Tuesday at Black Point

Tuesday, May 28





The east corner of this bay has a sand beach that is shallow for a long ways out. The local boats have moorings along the edge of where the tide goes out to. It is a great place for dogs and the young at heart to walk.





Mercy and I walked across the beach, crossed the paved road and worked our way to the east to see a blowhole that we had found before. After a lot of unsuccessful attempts to get a photo of it blowing when the waves slapped the rocky shoreline, I did find this little fireman, and I thought of Darrell, my cousin's husband, the fireman. I took this photo for you!









We tried to walk to the south a little ways to a beach I'd spotted the day before, but gave up when Mercy protested that she wasn't wearing shoes. I was wearing my good Keen sandals, and would have rather had my hiking boots. The rock is sharp and jagged, and it would be pretty easy to turn an ankle walking on it. Besides, there are easier beaches!





We returned to the paved road, and followed it until after it turned to gravel in the north, and then veered NE along a trail through the sand to a beach. I searched unsuccessfully for sea beans, but did find where someone had lined up a bunch of shoes.





How do people lose this many shoes? One of the amazing things to me, is that on the most remote beaches in the Bahamas, you don't have to walk far to find a washed up shoe. I guess I'm not the only one who is baggled by this, since many places I go, somebody has lined a bunch of shoes up for a photo.





The Lady Francis remained tied to the dock today. She is one of the mailboats that services this area, an old steel-hulled vessel that was taking on water the day before. A rust hole had opened under the waterline, and folks from several islands were scrambling to get big pumps to her yesterday. A diver put a temporary patch on her, and she was waiting on the tide to turn to get out Dotham Cut to go to San Salvador. The Bahamas gov't issued a special marine warning this afternoon for vessels to remain in port, and I'm glad the Lady Francis did. The folks on San Salvador may find their fresh cargo isn't fresh by the time she's able to make the crossing.







We made one more trip to the beach in the evening.





A lot of the men on this island work on neighboring keys, and commute to work by small boats towards Staniel, and some of the other cays. I was asked 3 different times this evening to give the captains on the skiffs rides in from their moorings, and complied. Typically, they all help each other, but, I think this evening, everyone was scrambling home, watching the coming rain.





We caught another 5 gallons of rain, as the rain mostly missed us today.