Friday night we went into the town and had delicious BBQ pork and chicken at a little bar called, Da Spot. We sat next to a table of local men playing dominoes. Their style of playing is nothing like the game we play on Glory Days. There is a lot of slamming the table and yelling. Most of what was being said was we could not understand, except for the frequent "F-bombs." It sounded very angry and aggressive, but was actually all in good fun.
Yesterday morning we got up and Dan tore apart and cleaned the carburetor of the dinghy motor for about the eighth time. This has been a recurring problem, and there does not seem to be an obvious solution.
After that was accomplished Dan went off spear fishing with some of the other cruisers in the bay. This was a very friendly group that we got introduced to by Brittany and Matt on the boat, Great Mysterious. They are on a mooring ball next to us and Dan met them while waiting for the bread to come out of the oven at the small "take away" stand in town.
Laurie stayed back, did some boat chores and looked up recipes for all the fish Dan would bring back. Dan speared no fish, but some of the other guys took pity on us and dropped off two lobsters and a hog fish for the table.
We also had a bunch of conch that we had bought from the local "conch man."
In the late afternoon we went to shore with our two five gallon jugs to get water. The town has a water spigot near the dinghy dock that is used by the cruisers and some of the locals. When we got to the spigot, a lady yelled to us that the water was off and would not be on until, "after 6:00, maybe." As we were carrying our empty jugs back to the dock, another woman beckoned us to her porch and said, "I can help you with the water." When we got there, she took the lid off her cistern and dropped in a metal bucket, while her two grandsons watched. As Dan poured the cistern water from the bucket into one of our jugs, quite a bit spilled onto the floor. The woman disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a large leaf that she formed into a funnel. She held the funnel and Dan dipped water and poured and soon both jugs were filled.
Our plan was to leave in the morning, but we had been hearing about "Surfer's Beach," and we decided we really should see it. It is about four miles north of town on the windward side of the island.
We packed a beach bag and went up to the road and the stuck out our thumbs. The first vehicle that went by slowed and the driver, apologetically said, "I am not going far." The second vehicle was a pickup truck and the driver stopped and we hopped in the back and for the first time in her life, Laurie had hitchhiked.
He dropped us at the turn off to the beach and we walked the dirt trail to the beach. It is spectacular.
Although we had never heard of it, this beach is apparently well known in the surfing world as one of the "places to go." It was pretty low key when we were there, but apparently it can be BIG.
This is Dan relaxing in a surfer hut that was constructed from stuff that had washed up on the beach.
After a few hours of hanging out in the sun, we hiked backed to the main road and stuck out our thumbs. The third car that came by picked us up. It was a van, driven by a younger man, with an older man in the passenger's seat. As it turns out, the older man had also hitched a ride and was going to Rock Sound, another 25 miles up the road to see a doctor.
As we got out of the van and thanked the driver, Laurie said, "we were afraid we were going to have to walk." He replied, "you won't have to walk." Hitching and helping others is the way of life on this island.
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Location:Alice Town at Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera
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