Spanish Wells Yacht Haven

Wednesday morning we picked up the anchor early and headed for Spanish Wells. The weather is supposed to clear some tomorrow, and today is a good day to do some town stuff.

My ear is sort of holding its own. Not any worse, maybe a tiny bit better. It is really a great incentive to watch blood sugars!

We came in and docked, did laundry, and each of us explored the town a little on our own. There was only one other boat here, who has since left. The wooden docks and side pilings are great

I enjoyed the fish pens some of the commercial fishermen showed me, and one of them had a 100lb jewfish the guy had been feeding since it was 7.5lbs, 2.5 years ago.

Spanish Wells has great conch houses, all nicely painted bright tropical colors. All the houses have yards, most nicely manicured with a lot of flowering plants. Most folks have clean white roofs, where they catch the rain water for their cisterns.

Much of the traffic is gasoline powered golf carts, but there are cars and trucks as well. I'm not sure why everyone drives so fast on a two mile long island, and while they drive on the left side of the road, it is more like down the center. It can be a little disconcerting when you are walking.

We're cooling off this afternoon, catching up on internet stuff.

Adding to the post: I saw flyers around town for an outdoor church meeting to be held in the parking lot of the food store. I figured I had to check that out. I walked up to the store a little after 7pm to see chairs throughout the parking lot. I checked the flyer, and it said 7:30, so I found a seat. Folks began arriving and filling the seats, until there were maybe 200 folks in the chairs, and pulling up in golf carts. A drive in church service! All of the women were wearing hair coverings, except me, of course! The choir sang a great song, and there was a good solo, and duet. There were a couple of congreational hymns, same words I know, but different music.

The local Gospel Church (Brethren) brought in a preacher from Canada, originally from Mississippi, great guy, great speaker, great Word. Great attendence. And a congregation of people who have no clue of the idea of evangelism or outreach. When did the church lose its fire for evangelism? Not one person said a "hello" to me. (and the uncovered hair should have painted me as a potential lost soul....) I understand John and Charles Wesley were on this island in its origination... hey, we've seen them in the blog before!

The speaker, his wife, and his sister gave me a ride home, and toured the boat. Super nice folks.
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Royal Island, Spanish Wells Clinic and a small world

At home in Royal Island Anchorage

Royal Island Anchorage is a great place to be in a blow. The bottom is great holding, and the surrounding terrain keeps the bay pretty calm. It is still windy enough to not be too hot.

Monday we cleaned the inside of the boat a little, and played chess for several hours. We're listening to audiobooks, and well, it was sort of a "down" day. I've been fighting an ear infection for a few days, and in general, felt miserable.

Tuesday, I decided I'd better get some antibiotics. Allen and Mercy stayed with the MERCY while I took the Whaler to Spanish Wells. It was blowing about 25, and I was really surprised that I could make it to Spanish Wells dry! I will say, however, that every bounce was like someone hammering my head...

I went to Pinder's Grocery Store in Spanish Wells, and Gurney Pinder greeted me at the dock, and told me where the clinic was. I asked him if he knew the two men I'd gone to tankerman's school in Ft. Lauderdale with, and he told me that the one was his brother-in-law, and pointed to a woman driving off, and that was his wife, my sister! I decided to try to make contact with them before I left.

I went to Spanish Wells Yacht Haven Marina, and Treadwell greeted me, and let me tie the Whaler up to go to the clinic. He gave me great directions, and off I went.

The clinic was an interesting place. In the time that I was there, I saw one other patient, who was coming in as I was leaving. I walked in, told them about my problem, filled out a registration form, and was accompanied back to a room by the nurse. The nurse took my vitals, my medical history, and my blood sugar, looked into my ear, and exclaimed how inflamed my ear was. She called the pharmacist across the street to see if he had an otic antibiotic with a steroid for inflammation, and issued me some oral antibiotics as well. The clinic visit was $30, and the antibiotics were $8. She asked me if I needed any pain killers, and me, not big on pain meds, said no. She said she could give me something that evidently they don't have in the States, the name I can't recall, that was popular in the Caribbean. I declined, although I sort of regretted it later, as I was swallowing more Alleve. I walked across the street to Food Fair, and had my script for the ear drops filled. Fast, clean, efficient, thorough, competent... what a great clinic!

Before I left the clinic, I asked the lady at the desk if she knew my friends, and the next thing I knew, she'd picked up the phone, called them, and Donald came to the clinic, picked me up, took me to his house to meet his wife, and offered me a ride anywhere I needed to go. By that point, I just wanted to get my script filled, and go back to the boat!

I made it right before the rain hit. Allen changed to a swimsuit, and scrubbed the boat down, and then we caught enough water to top the water tank off and fill the sunshowers. Water at the marina is .20/gal for city water (that you would NOT put in your water tank) or $.50/gal for RO water, I was glad we topped everything off!

It rained and blew all night, while we slept in a great anchorage.

Coconut bocce ball instead of Harbour Island

Sunday

We decided that, in spite of the wind, we would see if we could run the Whaler around to Harbour Island. We ran to Spanish Wells, and then stuck our head around the point in the Atlantic Ocean, still hiding behind the reef. You should have seen the size of the breakers! We figured out very quickly that while great to look at, definitely NOT something we would do that day in the Whaler, wisdom being the better part of valour, and all!

When the high speed ferry went from Spanish Wells to Harbour Island, we stuck our nose out once more, just to watch him go around the corner. I would think that the passage could get impassable for the ferry if the weather turned really bad out of the north!

Then we returned along the lee side of Royal Island, and found a sand bar, about a foot under water at low tide, where the wind wasn't creating many waves, and turned into a submerged beach day. Allen and Mercy climbed up on the rocks, and Allen pulled a piece of fruit off a tree, about the size of a lemon, green, with a kind of rhind on it, but otherwise, kinda hollow in the center. I have no idea what it was, but they were just the tiniest bit bouyant, and made the best toys! He brought two, and a coconut, and we spent awhile playing bocce ball with the coconut. It gets pretty interesting with the coconut bouncing on the slight chop, moving downwind with the current. It took us awhile to perfect our game, but now we are ready to take on any challengers.

Mercy had a blast with the fruit as well, for when she would bump it with her nose, it would go underwater for several seconds. I know, we should have got a picture of the fruit, but it is hard to play in wet stuff, and still remember to get dry pictures.

We returned to the boat tired and hungry, and cooked a turkey, with potatoes, onions, peas, cranberry sauce... it was pretty good!

Royal Island Anchorage and Spanish Wells

This morning dawned a little windier, but we were in the perfect anchorage for that! The long oval anchorage is open directly to the Eleuthera Sound in a pretty narrow cut to the south, and aside from that, surrounded by land in all directions.

We ran in the lee of the island out to make a dive on the wreck of the Arimoroa. The water was super clear, and there were a lot of fish, including the largest lionfish I have killed to date! It was a little surge-ey, but we were diving at slack tide, so it wasn't bad.

We went back to the boat, had lunch, showered, and got ready for our trip to the town of Spanish Wells. The trip by Whaler was nice, as we ran in the lee of the islands, and we idled through Spanish Wells, looking at all the commercial fishing boats. There is a high speed ferry that runs from Nassau to Spanish Wells to Harbour Island every day, and it only takes 2 1/2 hrs from Nassau. It is an impressive looking boat!

We stopped at the local grocery for a loaf of bread, and then returned to Royal Island anchorage.

We climbed around the old ruins from the 1920's of a fallen estate, and saw some older walls as well.

After supper, we're enjoying some audio books, writing our logs, and enjoying air conditioning as the battery charges. Since it is almost dark, it is almost bedtime. Truly another beautiful day in paradise!