Gun Cay and on the way

We reached the teal Bahamian waters and entered into the life of subsistence gathering and barter. When are you ready to set off on a trip around the world? What do you need to know, and what do you need to take? A month of Home Depot runs and Wal-Mart provisioning drained the kitty and the soul, and filled the closets with “things we need”. We couldn’t fit any more stuff on this boat, so it was time to leave- I guess we were ready.

We crossed the border of the US and Bahamas on the eve of my 27th year. It was a great year. I hope to find new ways to make a living that are adventurous and pose the opportunity for personal development and the next challenge.

Rob, Derek and I speared some fish today and got our first sense of what it actually takes to put food on the barbecue. Day one we caught nothing, day two we caught our first, and day three we caught our first meal. The debate is open about what fish we have been catching, but the freshness is amazing, and the experience unbeatable. Derek nearly shot a sleeping shark thinking it was the biggest fish he had ever seen. Numerous sting rays and jelly fish made us aware of our thin skin and vunerability.

The crew had a blast when we decided to fly our spinnaker for the first time…. It’s not a one person activity, and when we got it flying it was so beautiful that I had to get pictures of it. So I jumped into the dinghy and attempted to take some pictures. Well, the boat took off and the dinghy began to sink. The boys had to keep the boat on course so that the spinnaker wouldn’t tear. So there I was, terrified, watching my new boat sailing beautifully off into the horizon with two laughing deckhands. I bailed water and finally caught up- all the while they got more pictures of Captain Ahab out adrift behind the boat than we had taken of the new spinnaker.

Rob leaves tomorrow, to rejoin his wife in their first trimester and the boat is heading South East to Great Inagua and then to Panama. This adventure is continually fueled by the prospect of exploring different cultures and a simplified lifestyle, coupled with the opportunity to volunteer and serve at whatever capacity we can. As Jimmy Rouge used to say “The people we meet make the experience, the places will always be there”.

We are going to take a slow journey to the Eastern Bahamas where the fishing is rumored to be untouched and the surfing is credible. The boat remains named Nicole Marie until Glory comes with a paint brush to reintroduce this old boat as “Ultima Noche”.