From the last blog, someone emailed me
and asked what are sea beans which we try to find on the beach? So I
will explain. They are a seed or a fruit that has made a sea voyage.
They can come from the Caribbean, Mexico, South America and other
countries.
 |
| Various beans found and bracelets I made with the bay beans. |
The Sea Heart bean which we have found the most, comes
from the long, twisting pods of the monkey ladder vine from the
rain forests of the Central and South American tropics. People will
sand the rough gray like substance off and underneath you get a
beautiful shiny mahogany color. One of the beans we found is already
quite shiny. People like to use them in making jewelry.
The
Hamburger bean looks like a hamburger, with a brown to reddish brown
outer covering and a dark band around the middle. Al finds most of
the beans and he found the one pictured. They a more rare than the
heart beans, so we do not find many. These Hamburger beans come from
a spiny pod hanging on long stems from tropical rain forest vines
native to the American tropics and West Indies.
The one lighter colored pod is either a
Coin Pod or an Antidote Vine. I am not quite sure but from looking
in the book Florida's
Living Beaches, they look the
closest for identification purposes to those mentioned.
 |
| Hamburger Bean |
The small beans you see are called Bay
Beans. They are found in hot dog shaped pods growing on dune vines
and are dull when fresh. The older beans are shinier. I made some
bracelets with them.
People into jewelry making are those
that desire the beans and pods. I have seen them for sale on the
internet. So that is my explanation for sea beans.
We left the anchorage at Red Shank and
went to the town side to get water and use wifi to do the last blog.
By the time we got to Monument beach it was rather crowded and so had
to anchor further out than we like. We did some rocking and
rolling that night which I did not like, but it improved so we
stayed. I got to go to water aerobics which was well attended as you
can see. It is a very good workout!
 |
| A warm morning so lots of women and some men came! |
In the afternoon we went for a hike and
took notice of some wild life.
 |
| Ospreys are in the Bahamas too! |
On the same walk Al spotted this
humming bird. Can you find it? It blends in quite well with the
foliage.
 |
| Humming bird at rest. |
 |
| Enjoying a night out at local resort for dinner and Texas Hold'em |
That evening, Robin on Cookie
Monster encouraged us to go to
St. Francis Resort to have dinner and to play Texas Holdem. We had a
group of eight of us and one of the couples had a business holding
Texas Hold'em parties at various restaurants and bars all over the
country and even went international. So with a few pointers from
them and reading the rules on the internet before we left, we played
our first time. I was very intimidated being a first timer and
sitting down with all men at my table but two ladies finally came to
fill in the 9th
and 10th
seat. With some help from the lady on my right with the coins
amounts , I lasted to be the one lady with four men playing. Then
when the five other tables were down with four players still in, they
combined tables. I made it through the next round, I could not
believe it. I got to be in the final round and by the end, it was me
against one gentleman who looked like he played poker a lot! Well,
he did win, but I came in second winning $55 which payed for our
dinner, the $5 per person charge to play and our drinks. I had a
great time and want to try it again, but I know that is was just
beginners luck that I won my first time playing.
We
hung out at Monument the next day expecting to go to an anchorage
wide Happy Hour on the beach. We were already to go. I had a lovely
hor deuvre to take and just before we got in the dinghy to go, Al and
I looked at each other and said, “We should move to Red Shanks now
before the anchorage fills up.” Nasty weather was predicted for
the next four days. El Nino is just giving us so much west wind
which is the worst direction for boaters down here. We got the last
spot in a protected hole, so our intuition was right. Our friends on
Escape Velocity followed
us in but due to their 6 ½ ft. draft they had to stay further out.
We went to their boat to share the appetizers we had made for the
Happy Hour we did not go to, which ended up being our dinner too.
 |
| Walk and Talks on the beach. |
So
with the winds howling, we did get some walks on a beach. I called a
Walk and Talk and several boats showed up. The women walking in one
group and the men in the other. We just walked back and forth on the
beach to get some exercise and to talk to someone other than our
mates.
On one cloudy,
windy day, I baked bread for the first time for this trip. I do not
like the white squishy bread they often carry at the market. Once in
a while they will get in Pepperidge Farm wheat or multi-grain bread at
the grocery store but not always.
 |
| Baking bread once again. I have not done it since the last trip. |
I had some time to
work on my story rug and my pine needle basket. Reading is always a
choice too, which is what Al often does if doesn't have any
maintenance to do on the boat.
Finally,
a boat anchored nearby called Tattoo II invited
us and several other boats for a Happy Hour. Even though it was
blowing quite a bit, most people chose to come because everyone was
getting “cabin fever” from being on their boats so much. It is
the same feeling when there is a blizzard and after three or four
days you just want to talk to someone other than your spouse! Those
up north should know the feeling after this past weekend's snowfall.
We had a great time and even danced in the cockpit and some down in
the cabin. That is one thing the cruiser's are missing. The Chat 'n
Chill bar and restaurant held dances once every two weeks that many
of us enjoyed immensly. The owner said their aren't enough boats in
the harbor yet. They did a boat count. There were 178 boats this
year compared to 262 boats last year. The count is down but plenty
for holding dances! Why is the count down? Well, some say because
the Canadian dollar is so poor against the US or Bahamian dollar that
could be the reason why. Some say because there were lots of fronts
last year that it has deterred many cruisers too. Who knows for
sure, but for whatever reason, it is down but still seems like plenty
of boats to us.
 |
| Lisa coming to Blue Heaven with another rainbow in the sky. |
We
invited our friends, Ben and Lisa, from Saraid to
come and watch the play off game. We were both rooting for Denver
and so it ended well. We had a delicious veggie lasagna dinner with
green salad and red wine and afterward played a card game called
Sevens, which lasted until almost 11PM. That was a very late night
for us cruisers, but a fun time!
 |
| Dinner with Ben and Lisa. |
The next day we
took up our anchor and finally moved. We went near town so Al could
get water and I went to the meat market. There is this nice meat
market which opened 2 years ago outside of town about 4 miles. They
bring a pickup truck every Monday and Friday at 10:30 for the
cruisers. However, they were not there at 10:55am so I said to Lisa,
why don't we hitchhike? I was told it is very safe to do. We did,
and got a ride almost immediately from a younger Bahamian gentleman
who was very nice. We got to the market and the owner said they had
been so busy that they had not had time to come and get us. So he
filled our orders and then had an employee take us back into town
with the truck and he was to pick up the rest of the people who were
still there. Now we know how to do it, and if you hitchhike then you
can go any day, especially the day after their meats come in!
We
then moved over to Monument Beach. After lunch we went to Volleyball
Beach to catch up with some of our friends whom we have not seen for
awhile. We had Helen and Joe from Dejavu come
for drinks and to catch up with what they have been up to the past
year. We were surprised that they have their boat up for sail. It
is 40' catamaran that Joe built himself in his back yard. It is
lovely and I was surprised he could give it up! He said that it was
on line and that they had 38 inquiries about it. That is amazing!
After water
aerobics in the morning in which I wore my wet suit because the water
was down to 64 degrees and a wind blowing, we left once again to
return to Red Shanks for the next blow which is once again suppose to
have west wind.
 |
| Can you see the front coming? |
No comments:
Post a Comment