Green Turtle Cay

Mar 20 & Mar 21

--Blogpost written by Bob

Tuesday, March 20

The clouds that came through during the night are beginning to dissipate as the sun comes up this morning. The 10-knot wind is out of the southwest but it is predicted to clock around to the northwest tomorrow (and a couple days thereafter) and get a lot stronger when another cold front comes through this area. We are watching weather patterns for crossing the Gulf Stream back to Florida. There is a nice weather window on Saturday (3/24) and Sunday (3/25) but it is too early for us to leave. When we see a similar weather window in early April we will probably take full advantage of it.

Just another beautiful day in paradise...

A house painter from Vermont.

An abandoned yellow house
in New Plymouth.

We've learned a little bit more about the abandoned houses in New Plymouth.  When the owner of the house dies, the house is left to children of the deceased.  In many cases, they now live out of the area.  If the children of the deceased can't decide what to do with the house, it just sits.  There is no property tax in the Bahamas, so it requires just maintenance costs, attention to the roof and paint.   The little houses in the settlement, like the one shown above, sell for about $250,000.  I'm sure that the children remember the home as it was when they were growing up--not in its current (decaying) condition.  The old houses are very costly for their small size and poor condition.  So, they sit, and sit, and sit.

True Bahamian color.

A fish cleaning station along
the Sea of Abaco.

The north side of New Plymouth.

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We went out for lunch at the Turtle Crawl Cafe, a tiny restaurant in town that we have grown to love. We met another couple there who used to be sailors and now rent a cottage on the island for a couple months in late winter/early spring. They live in St. Augustine. As we were leaving, the Vermont house painter (shown in a photograph above) and his wife came in for lunch. You just don’t find these kind of circumstances in the hurried lifestyle of the U.S. east coast.

It got up to 83 degrees this afternoon!  It was a hot and muggy (Florida style) weather except that there was a nice breeze most of the day.

This afternoon, Maggie, who loves to be in the water, cleaned the bottom of the boat with our long-handled deck brush...until...(wait for it)...a nurse shark appeared near her.  I thought she was going to jump right out of the water and onto the boat’s deck.  Nurse sharks do not typically harm humans (and she knew this) but I’m sure it was still unnerving. I can now honestly call her “shark bait.” Locals who are not involved in scuba/snorkel activities have a healthy respect for sharks. However, scuba/snorkel instructors advised us to be aggressive with sharks—get in their face and they will swim away from you.

Wednesday, March 21

The wind really picked up during the night--to over 20 knots and it rained for a short while.  It really had no impact on our sleep since we are on a secure mooring in a well protected, snug little corner of Black Sound.  It's the first day of spring, a day we used to celebrate in Annapolis by burning our socks.

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Even though I’m currently outside the country, I am avidly following the news and doing a lot of reading.  You may call the next four paragraphs a "political rant"--if you do, skip them.  If you are an American and care about your country, I encourage you to think about my "political rant", read some of the books I've listed, and act accordingly.  (I have provided hyperlinks to each of the books on Amazon.com.)

I just finished reading Russian Roulette: The Inside Story on Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump.  Reading this (best selling) book coupled with the recent ongoing revelations about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica (and Brannon’s involvement in this matter) all ties together.  I can easily understand how the mere 70,000 specifically targeted votes in critical areas were influenced to tilt the electoral college count toward Trump. 

I just began reading the (best selling) book, How Democracies Die—this book has really raised my level of concern for our country!  Democracies have died all over the world during various periods of time and countries were taken over by “outsider” authoritarians, usually first introduced by a democratic election—these include people like Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, and others, but, more recently, Chavez and then Maduro in Venezuela. In the book, there are four characteristics listed that have been common denominators in the original election of all of the autocrats:

(1) Rejection of (or weak commitment to) rules of the (election) game (Remember, Trump’s statements about the “election is rigged”?)

(2) Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents (like Trump calling his opponent “Crooked Hillary” during the election and afterward)

(3) Toleration or encouragement of violence (pick one of many instances for this one—I guess the most obvious is asking the “second amendment folks” to deal with Hillary’s eventual federal judge picks).

(4) Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media (like calling the mainstream media “fake news” just because they report the facts that are not favorable to Trump.)

The book (mildly) states that ANY ONE of these factors is an indication of the candidate’s autocratic motives. Trump has expressed, not just one but, all four of these factors throughout his election cycle and regularly after becoming president.  Plus, remember how he recently congratulating Xi on his lifetime power grab in China and stated that maybe we should try that sometime?  He also congratulated Putin on his recent “electoral” win even though it is widely known that Putin jailed his serious political opponents and he controls the media.  Where will this all end up for America?

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Today, I tackled the project of removing the dining table and some floor boards to find information on the antenna cable running up the mast and the cable to my masthead light, both of which probably need to be replaced in Vero Beach.  I could easily identify the antenna cable but I'm just guessing which one is for the masthead light.

There are three holes in the bottom of the mast carrying
wires and cables from above.  The uppermost hole
seems to carry the newest cables.

This is a jumble of mostly old wires that may have nothing to
do with the masthead light problem.  What a mess? 

We will have to sort this out in Vero Beach when we arrive there.

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Our Maine Coon cat, Lizzie, has had some labored breathing (and occasional coughing spells) which seems like asthma.  After calling the vet in Marsh Harbour, we decided to take Lizzie there tomorrow morning which involves carrying her to the ferry terminal in New Plymouth (about 1/2 mile away), boarding the ferry for Treasure Cay, then taking a 35-minute taxi ride to Marsh Harbour.  The vet has agreed to see her anytime after 10 AM tomorrow.  I am very concerned about her...

Unlike Captain Jack, Lizzie always lays
with her head on something
higher than her body.

More about Lizzie in our next blogpost...

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