Walking around Rum Cay

Thursday, 13 June





In the morning, the wind was coming straight down the pier, and it was looking like rain. I decided to do some household chores and maintenance while I waited to see if I could catch some drinking water.





I defrosted the fridge and both freezers, cleaned, and vacuumed, moved stuff around, and re-cycled the little bit of rain water to pretty much get the salt off the boat.





I talked with one of the boats at noon, who had brought their SeaVee in from fishing to eat lunch on still ground. They had hooked two blue marlin, and one had totally stripped the line from the reel in under three minutes while they did their best to keep up with the fish, and hope he would turn.





In the afternoon, I walked a mile into town, and made a loop. I found two stores, and a restaurant, all closed as I went by. I saw an Anglican Episcopal church, and Saint John Baptist church.





I saw a couple of cemeteries, the most interesting one being just above the government dock, along the coast road. It is easy to find, surrounded by a low wall, between the road and the shore. Most of the graves had no markers, but appear very old. The markers I could read were from deaths in the 1880's.





I looked to sea, and was surprised, and delighted, to see my friends on the Full Deck and the Simpatico coming to Rum Cay. I had spoken with John in the morning on the SSB, and they had talked about going to Conception until Saturday, and then coming to Rum. I figured our paths would be crossing as we headed our separate directions.





I started walking for the marina, and Ben, a Bahamian captain of a 70' yacht docked here, was coming from the marina in his goft cart. He turned around and gave me a ride back to the marina, and we caught lines for the sailboats.





In the evening, a couple, Gene and Cat, and their friend Bill, that were anchored on a Leopard 40, Kalakau, invited us to join them for a pot-luck barbecue at the public park. We cooked fish and hamburgers, and chicken, and ate chips, and scalloped potatoes, and carrots, and bean salad.





This young couple took off last November to sail the Caribbean. Now they are returning to the States to go back to work in August. We talked to them about their adventures, and told them about some places we'd visited. They'll be in the Exumas for a little bit, and I hope our paths will cross again.