Another blustery night and morning! The weather gurus anticipate this will continue till the weekend. We each got up in the night to check our lines and the positions of anchored sailboats behind us. On one of these trips above decks Orion was bold and bright just above us.

This morning Tommy finished up the work on our tax return and was able to use the free wifi here at the marina to file online. It didn’t take long to do, but it seemed like a very wrong thing to be spending time on in paradise. But, it’s over and done with and now we don’t have to think about it anymore.

Coffee and chores over, we headed out to “Radio Beach”. We got lunch at CJ’s deli, a one-room eatery (a small ordering area separated by a counter from the kitchen) with gaily-painted wooden tables out back. Paula had excellent fried chicken and salad and Tommy got fried conch and fries. The meal was handed over the counter on a paper plate. As Tommy seasoned his food at the counter, an islander waiting for his own meal expressed horror at the inadequate amount of ketchup Tommy put on his plate. “No, Mon, you gotta put it all over, bring out the flavors!” The cook shushed him, “Be quiet now, you know they don’ eat like we do.”

As we carried our plates back to the tables, two salesmen, each peddling coconut milk and piña coladas, dashed up to us from their competing tables 20 feet apart, singing the praises of their wares. We went for a chilled coconut with a straw inserted and a virgin piña colada to share. Both were very refreshing.

The beach sand is more like tiny shell crumbs than the soft sand of Carolina beaches and the water was just as clear today despite the chop and wind. Once we were lulled into near stupor by the waves, wind, and our full stomachs, we trudged back to the boat.

On the way home we stopped at a grocery which the waitresses at the Big Game Restaurant told us often had frozen meat for sale. The grocer said hello and asked what we needed. She escorted us to her upright box freezer, opened it, and displayed chicken wings, chicken leg quarters, frozen baloney and a few bags of frozen vegetables. We requested leg quarters, and got a hand-tied plastic bag of 3 huge legs weighing almost four pounds. The price was modest: $1.70/lb. We wondered if these were imported from elsewhere, or native Bahamian chickens that been butchered locally for sale.

We also came across another Bahamian creature: a plump curly-tailed lizard (about 8 inches long) with a truncated tail that indicated a close-call in his recent history.

Once aboard C Ghost, the unthinkable occurred-Tommy took a nap! Paula was very happy to see him snoozing and relaxed, and she tried to be quiet as she thawed the chicken legs and put them in a Caribbean jerk marinade in the fridge. Then she took a nap too.

Later, we went to the Big Game pool and had a swim. Four children played in the pool calling to each other in Spanish. The smallest, about four years old, showed Paula his collection of tiny plastic sea creatures, and Paula talked to him in her limited Spanish. She picked up a plastic manta ray and asked him what the name of that creature was in Spanish. “La manta”, he told her. He then rattled off the names of all the rest, but all Paula understood was “pulpo” (octopus) and “tiburón” (shark).

On the way back, it was dead low tide. As usual, the herons were hunting in the shallows on the nearly-exposed bar. It looks like they are walking on water. The water shows varying shades of blue and green depending on the depth and is very restful to the eye.

Tonight we had the baked jerk leg quarters, leftover sautéed sweet potatoes and apples, and canned rutabaga, seasoned and heated. Again, not our typical meal back home, but very tasty. Since we now have a good amount of ice, we had iced lemonade to drink.