M is for Mayaguana

It is the people that we meet that make things fun. The fellows at the gazebo helped me do that last blog entry?!?

Getting diesel and a take out conch dinner are high on the priority list of a town visit. We have spent the last week in Mayaguana pinned down by squalls and relentless winds. We have almost given up getting to the Dominican Republic; however today we are pushing on to Great Inagua in hopes of getting our momentum back. It is going to be a challenging passage for us with NE to E winds of 20-25 and seas upwards to 8-10 feet. We have 90 miles and an overnight sail ahead of us in these conditions. We are both a bit nervous but we either wait for another week in hopes of less wind or see how we do in these conditions. It has not been easy this year.

We did manage to get to shore on Saturday the 9th as the wind was down to about 15. It is frightening watching the dinghy bob up and down as Rob hoists the motor over the transom and onto to Goldberry. We do it together but the timing with the waves has to be just right. At least all of our efforts paid off and we had a lovely day getting to know Mayaguana. The local ambassador/ greeter/tour person by the name of Sculley Cartright met us at the beach and welcomed us to Mayaguana. We hired Sculley to take us the 18 miles over to Pirate's Well to fill our jugs of diesel. We went along with him to learn about the island and the people. Sculley spends most of his time taking people bone fishing; however from what we could see we were about the only white folks on the whole island...population 350 in three tiny settlements. There was one couple at a small hotel in Pirate's Well and we hope that they like being alone because the place was deserted. This island could be called the very very out island. Much to our disappointment the mail boat did not "done reach" Mayaguana this week because of the weather around Nassau. However we did find a head of lettuce that didn't look too bad and some cheese but narry a carrot or a piece of fruit to be had. I hope you can keep scurvy at bay with fruit cups??!!

On the more positive note we did find Mrs. Emmeline Morris who made us take out conch dinners. Two dinners fed us to two nights...even Rob? We also made several friends at the gazebo in town where you can pick up the local restaurant's wifi signal. The little restaurant wasn't open so we were just going to sit and wait for mrs. Morris to make our take out and we were invited by the fellows at the gazebo to come and sit down. Before we were through they helped me get on line with the password and I was off to the races. When I send my blogs out you just never know where I will be?? Before we were through we had five locals all sitting around having a great old chat with us. Rob and I both felt very lucky to have spent a little time with these hospitable folks. As Freeman said, "It is better in The Bahamas"!