West End

Our Bahamas chapter came to a bitter sweet ending at The Old Bahama Bay Marina at West End, Grand Bahama.   West End is the point of land closest to the US.  Because of this, it was full of million dollar yachts, sport fishing boats (with names like Boys-R-Us and Wahooters) and a few sailboats, like us, many of which were waiting to cross the Gulf Stream.   

It was a beautiful place, in a fancy resort kind of way.  Luxury in fact.  We took hot showers for the first time in weeks.  And the girls took to the fresh water pool like salmon returning from the sea.  They even had bikes available for guests to use.  

We stayed there two nights, rather than expected one.  We needed a day to recuperate from the 80 mile crossing from Stirrup Cay at the tip of the Berry Islands.  It was an easy crossing as far as crossings go, flat calm with no wind, but we had to motor the entire way.  At just over 5kn, that took a while.  We pulled anchor at 2:30am and didn't arrive in West End until 5:30.  We were pretty beat and in no shape to undertake another 80 mile crossing to Florida the next day, especially across the Gulf Stream.  So we stayed and pampered ourselves, with all the guilt that goes along with staying in an expensive marina when you're used to roughing it on an anchor.

2:30 am, heading out from Stirrup Cay

Exposure by moon and electronics

Math time...

and more math time

The Captain taking a break

Old Bahama Bay marina

Oh, joy!

Bloggin'

I took a much needed run into town the next morning, past the manicured lawns and bougainvillea lined walkways of the marina.  Past rows of neatly planted palms and through the guarded gate to the town of West End.  The "other" Bahamas.  The real Bahamas.  The Bahamas that I (we) had come to love.  The contrast was stark. 

The main road paralleled the ocean.  Simple weather beaten houses stood weary against the sea. Most were made of concrete, cracked and crumbling, made cheerful by coats of rainbow sherbet paint.  For every occupied house sat one nearby in ruins, trees growing up through the ceiling, the victims of hurricanes. 

Potcake dogs eyed me warily from the shadows of drying laundry.  Potcakes are the typical "breed" of Bahamian mutt named after the scorched bottom layer that forms in the beans n'rice pot, which they might get to eat if they're lucky.   All the potcakes we met in our travels were too timid to approach.  This was a major frustration for me and the girls.  We were missing Blue and were starving for dog love.  We wanted to pet them and let them lean against us and lick us.  We wanted to throw things for them to retrieve. But potcakes wouldn't even think of chasing after a ball or Frisbee.  Everything they do is about survival.

The tide was low and the conch boats were just returning from the flats fully loaded.  Men sat on buckets shelling their catch, some pounding it as they went, to tenderize it.  Empty conch shells formed rows of middens along the shore, generations old.  No matter how busy they were, everyone I ran past looked up from what they were doing to say hello.  Everyone.  Usually, the sight of a group of men by the side of the road brings on a certain anxiety when I'm running.  Not here.  Warm smiles is all I got,  and,  "Hello miss!", "G'day miss!"  I waved back and exchanged greetings, perhaps a bit more enthusiastically than usual,  partly because of endorphins and partly because I knew I was saying goodbye.  I felt silly running. Everything moves slow in the Bahamas. Slow, like a conch.  I felt like a black lab chasing a Frisbee.

We borrowed the marina bikes and rode back into town later in the day so we could all say goodbye.  And I wanted to photograph things.  

Nobody home

Town market

Conch boat

One of many middens

Potcake

Totally Ten

Fun with the Go-Pro

The "line"

Tricks

Last meal in the Bahamas.  Mahi and Wahoo, of course.  Purchased from a local fisherman.