Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

The Valentine's party got started - Maxine had arrived with lots of food and a generator!

 

Duane and Sam from Booke-end helped tote the heavy generator ashore.  They used it later to power a big speaker system.

 

Things started out slowly around 10AM as people started to come ashore.

 

Duane and I got the conch fritter frying station going! Maxine had provided a 5 gallon jug of oil and a 5 gallon bucket of conch fritter batter!

 

Some of the cruisers toted the pots of food to warm on the cook fire.

 

The kiddos played some volleyball.

We met sortof famous bloggers from Out Chasing Stars.  Nice folks.

As we fried up the conch fritters, they were almost instantly eaten....Carol and several others volunteered to roam the crowd offering up the fritters.

 

Me at the cooking station.  We cooked non-stop for almost 2 hours...hundreds of fritters were eaten!  (I only had one with my lunch though - it was delicious!)

Maxine bossing one of the mailboat crew.

 

Lots of dinghies on the beach!

 

Kids make friends so easily!

Time for dinner!!!

 

Dale and Debbie from Mokakat.

 

Great Bahamian fare - rice & peas, goat stew, sliced turkey, coleslaw, baked mac'n'cheese. 

 

The goat stew!

 

Nicholas chatting with Louie from 360

 

After lunch getting ready for the auction.

 

Sam and Cindy from Booke-end (and Saba, of course)

 

Some of the kiddos making new friends.

 

Maxine taking a short break.

 

The auction underway - good fun.  The auction proceeds will go to benefit the school on Duncan Town that was demolished in Hurricane Irma several years ago.

 

The locals have a particularly good time bidding.

 

The kiddos were un-interested in the auction!

 

Ryan from Wabi-Sabi took my camera up to the hilltop and got a nice panoramic view of the 40+ boats in the harbour.

 

The day was winding down, some of the locals heading home.

 

Since I was finished with the fritter station, I was free to try on a Junkanoo head-dress.  Good fun.

 

Some of the locals partied into the evening....loud music!

We all gathered on the beach for one group shot.  A great day!

 

And a drone shot courtesy of Booke-End.

 

Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, Bahamas

 We had collected quite a bit of colorful flotsam over the past several weeks - for marking the "Creepy Doll Trail"....after rigging it all up with ties we headed over to the trail.  Our lone dinghy parked at the head of the trail.  You can see a large contingent of boats anchored in the distance - this will probably clear out to a more reasonable number after the Valentine's party.

 

We carried a few bags full of colorful or interesting items from the flotsam.  If you're concerned about the items being "trash", there is no real way to dispose of the rubbish that washes up on the beaches here....so it's either going to sit on the beach where it washed up or it can sit in a tree marking a trail.  Think of these items like you would paint on trees to mark trails in parks in the US.

 

A truly creepy doll that we rigged up with wire and parts of 4 different dolls.

 

 

Some other generic flotsam.

 

And Barney!!!

 

And this strange wood carving - turtle, bear, who knows!

 

Creepy monkey!!

 

Creepy inch-worm

 

Mickey Mouse knee pad...

 

We had found this little puffy ball with a bow...used some hamburger beans to make a creepy face.

 

This one was colorful but we have no idea what it is!  That's it for the bags of markers.

 

Out to the ocean side for a pretty walk back to the dinghy.

 

Found another doll to string up on another day!

 A couple of shots of the very crowded anchorage!

 

 

Looking forward to the party tomorrow.

We did take a dinghy ride later in the afternoon over to see Joe and Tina on Sea Seaker.  They had been in Georgetown and had offered to tote us a few groceries.  Had a nice visit and was nice of them to bring us stuff!!