This time around in the Jumentos, Ragged Islands we have company. The cruising season starts in earnest after the holidays when people tend to head south to warmer climates. Many of our friends from our first year in the Bahamas in 2009 continue to make the Ragged’s their winter home, so we’ve have more fun reunions and met some new friends in the process. Still a remote destination, this means that we might have a dozen or so boats in the area making for a nice, laid-back social season.
Klaus & Karin (Lucky Touch) arrived just in time to celebrate Klaus’ birthday with friends again, including his home-smoked fresh salmon.
A few weeks later, Bruce & Val (Windrush) celebrated Val’s birthday on Valentines day with percussive accompaniment.
A birthday is a perfect excuse for a party!
In the meantime, we’ve been doing the usual ~ moving around to avoid wind shifts, fishing and snorkeling, taking a trek into town for supplies and getting together when the occasion arises.
We spent a few days in the protected bay of Southside, Ragged Island for one cold front. The long walk into town is a welcome stretch for the legs... but not so good for getting blisters on feet not used to wearing shoes!
Heading past the beach wrecks, airplane strip with goat-traffic, colorful houses with their cistern roof on the side, the local hardware store and the local gift store, we bought a few items from Maxine in her shop while holding our noses at the drying conch outside. These are heading for China for conch-jerky and use in soups, etc.
Dave & Leslie (Texas Two Step) got a Miami television feed and hosted a great spread for the Superbowl. Half of the crowd were not familiar with American football, but were good sports about it as we all enjoyed the food, commercials and half-time show.
When the hunters get together, usually something good comes out of it. The fishing on the southern islands is the best around so many a hogfish, snapper and triggerfish made their way to our tables.
Mark and I don’t always snorkel together since the fishing grounds aren’t always the best reef photography grounds and vice-versa, but we recently went out a few times together.
Good thing, since I bird-dogged a cubera snapper for him to bring home for dinner.
As usual, if the fish makes one false move then it winds up in the dinghy.
We then moved to another spot to avoid sharks and the next location was hogfish territory.
The cubera snapper gave us a perfect excuse for a sushi night on Reach. I lost track of how many rolls were made, but we were all full by the end of the evening. Mmmm!
As remote as these islands are, we do get the occasional US Coast Guard helicopter fly-by. They work with the Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF) for monitoring the area and are concerned with poaching, drug and refugee traffic as we know from our previous encounters with them.
The reality is that Haitian boats sail regularly here to take their chances with a landfall in the Bahamas.
One such boat sailed recently into a cut directly past us as we sat at anchor behind an island.
By the looks of their sails we were guessing that they didn’t have a GPS nor a very accurate idea of where they were navigating.
As they continued on a west-bound sail towards the middle of nowhere onto the Bahamas banks, the RBDF boat intercepted them.
Our pictures show what we saw through the binoculars with about 10-12 people on deck, so we were flabbergasted to learn that there were 42 refugees on this boat! No wonder it was sitting so low in the water. They were taken aboard the large Bahamas ship to be deported through Nassau.
