Here are some pictures from the past few weeks. enjoy!
yes, thats my finger in the pig's nose.
Skippy wanted to get them soooooo bad!
My barracuda
Ben & the lizard having a stand off
cute little birds
great hunter
Monday, February 16, 2009
Pics
Here are some pictures from the past few weeks. enjoy! yes, thats my finger in the pig's nose. Skippy wanted to get them soooooo bad! My barracuda Ben & the lizard having a stand off cute little birds great hunter
Hi everyone!
We finally made our way to Georgetown & caught up with our Aussie friends Sarah, Hamish, & Jack & are really excited about it! We thought we’d never catch them since they left the states so far ahead of us. We’ve been having a blast & have finally got some real provisioning done with some actual vegetables & fresh fruit, so we are feeling good! It’s unbelievably hard to find real produce here! No one can grow it, because the ground is all coral & limestone & has no nutrients in it. It’s all low lying bushes & an occasional palm tree & sparse scraggly pine trees.
Georgetown is a world all in it’s own. It’s the hub for cruisers in the Bahamas. Some cruisers spend the whole season here alone visiting hardly any other islands. There are nets on the radio every morning announcing the events coming up & the activities offered for the day. We were told by a man in the coffee shop in Oriental North Carolina that Georgetown is like day camp for adults & he was correct! You can choose to do yoga on the beach at 9am, church on Sundays, volleyball, bridge games, Texas hold ‘em tournaments, trivial pursuit in the evening, valentines dances,
Races, cocktail hour on the beach, etc…… it’s so funny! I really do feel like I’m at camp! We have never done any of the activities, because we are so busy doing our own things, but every morning when the radio announcements go on you can hear it echo across the harbor like a loud speaker, because every single boat has it on & even if you don’t you can hear it. Everyone keeps their vhf on channel 68 & it’s really busy all day everyday. People here snoop on other people’s conversations & it’s actually really fun to do so sometimes. We have been known to do it to friends. When you call on it, it feels like your phone is being tapped though. You have to be really careful not to offend anyone, because everyone is listening to your conversation.
The whole group of us from Free @ last, Wind-borne, and Nauti Girl hiked across the island yesterday & the guys went on the hunt for some fish with their spears. They didn’t have too much luck, because the reef was relatively empty of good eating fish & the one big grouper they did see was out of season, so they couldn’t spear it. We all had fun though. There was an 8 foot black tip shark in the water with them towards the end. It was right next to Ben, but he was so concentrated on fishing that he never saw it!
We are heading into town again today to work on the internet for an hour or so, I’m writing this up in the Boat right now & we will paste it into the blog when we get over there. They charge for Internet by the hour here in Georgetown, so we are trying to write things up now to make it cheaper. We have tons & tons of photos to put on & will try to do as many as possible this morning!
After we wrote at Staniel Key last week we went to the island just above it called Big Majors Spot. We found Sarabande there again which was awesome & we also found the “wild” pigs of the island & had a blast with those! These pigs know you are going to feed them, so they swim out to your dinghy as you are coming in & open their mouths so you can toss food in! They get so excited & squeal & swim over each other to get closest to your boat! Skippy touched noses with the biggest one! He was so excited about them he was shaking! He wanted out of the boat really really bad, & we had to hold him down the entire time….Thaat’s why he is in all the pig pictures…we were trying to contain him & feed the pigs while keeping the dinghy from floating away, & also take pictures. Pretty hectic, but fun!
We also had a really nice fire on the beach & cooked dinner with Alicia & Brian. Their dog Louis & Skippy got to hang out. Skippy wasn’t really into sharing his prime space in front of the food cooking on the fire though & was a little snappy at poor Louis most of the night though. Louis didn’t seem to mind. He was thrilled to be on land!
Well, we hope to update you again fairly soon. Hope everything is going well at home & we look forward to hearing from you! We still miss you & can’t wait to see you when we get home!
-Kristen, Ben, & Skippy the wild pig hunter
We finally made our way to Georgetown & caught up with our Aussie friends Sarah, Hamish, & Jack & are really excited about it! We thought we’d never catch them since they left the states so far ahead of us. We’ve been having a blast & have finally got some real provisioning done with some actual vegetables & fresh fruit, so we are feeling good! It’s unbelievably hard to find real produce here! No one can grow it, because the ground is all coral & limestone & has no nutrients in it. It’s all low lying bushes & an occasional palm tree & sparse scraggly pine trees.
Georgetown is a world all in it’s own. It’s the hub for cruisers in the Bahamas. Some cruisers spend the whole season here alone visiting hardly any other islands. There are nets on the radio every morning announcing the events coming up & the activities offered for the day. We were told by a man in the coffee shop in Oriental North Carolina that Georgetown is like day camp for adults & he was correct! You can choose to do yoga on the beach at 9am, church on Sundays, volleyball, bridge games, Texas hold ‘em tournaments, trivial pursuit in the evening, valentines dances,
Races, cocktail hour on the beach, etc…… it’s so funny! I really do feel like I’m at camp! We have never done any of the activities, because we are so busy doing our own things, but every morning when the radio announcements go on you can hear it echo across the harbor like a loud speaker, because every single boat has it on & even if you don’t you can hear it. Everyone keeps their vhf on channel 68 & it’s really busy all day everyday. People here snoop on other people’s conversations & it’s actually really fun to do so sometimes. We have been known to do it to friends. When you call on it, it feels like your phone is being tapped though. You have to be really careful not to offend anyone, because everyone is listening to your conversation.
The whole group of us from Free @ last, Wind-borne, and Nauti Girl hiked across the island yesterday & the guys went on the hunt for some fish with their spears. They didn’t have too much luck, because the reef was relatively empty of good eating fish & the one big grouper they did see was out of season, so they couldn’t spear it. We all had fun though. There was an 8 foot black tip shark in the water with them towards the end. It was right next to Ben, but he was so concentrated on fishing that he never saw it!
We are heading into town again today to work on the internet for an hour or so, I’m writing this up in the Boat right now & we will paste it into the blog when we get over there. They charge for Internet by the hour here in Georgetown, so we are trying to write things up now to make it cheaper. We have tons & tons of photos to put on & will try to do as many as possible this morning!
After we wrote at Staniel Key last week we went to the island just above it called Big Majors Spot. We found Sarabande there again which was awesome & we also found the “wild” pigs of the island & had a blast with those! These pigs know you are going to feed them, so they swim out to your dinghy as you are coming in & open their mouths so you can toss food in! They get so excited & squeal & swim over each other to get closest to your boat! Skippy touched noses with the biggest one! He was so excited about them he was shaking! He wanted out of the boat really really bad, & we had to hold him down the entire time….Thaat’s why he is in all the pig pictures…we were trying to contain him & feed the pigs while keeping the dinghy from floating away, & also take pictures. Pretty hectic, but fun!
We also had a really nice fire on the beach & cooked dinner with Alicia & Brian. Their dog Louis & Skippy got to hang out. Skippy wasn’t really into sharing his prime space in front of the food cooking on the fire though & was a little snappy at poor Louis most of the night though. Louis didn’t seem to mind. He was thrilled to be on land!
Well, we hope to update you again fairly soon. Hope everything is going well at home & we look forward to hearing from you! We still miss you & can’t wait to see you when we get home!
-Kristen, Ben, & Skippy the wild pig hunter
Friday, February 6, 2009
The Computer lives to see another day!
Hi!!!
Our computer is miraculously working again for the moment! We have been checking e-mails & trying to skype people. Hope you are all doing well back home!
We are in Staniel Cay. We are stuck here until the weather clears up next week. We will be headed to Georgetown to meet up with "Free At Last" so that will be really fun!! Staniel Cay is pretty cool. It's a small laid back island with nice people. We went for a walk to the "grocery store" the other day & it ended up being a small house up someones driveway & there was just a little bit of most of the staples that we needed.
Everyone has a huge interest in Skippy here. It's so funny. We can't walk him anywhere without locals asking us about him. "does he bite?" is the most common question & "is he a snow dog from Alaska?" is the second. Everyone thinks he is a husky... weird. We were coming down the driveway & the little kids playing at the bottom were completely freaked out by him, but wanted to touch him really bad, so after some coaxing they all got to pet him & the smallest little boy who couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 insisted on walking him. ...he didn't get very far before skippy pulled the leash out of his hand & kept on going. THey were really happy though. None of them had seen a dog like him before, let alone walked one!
We were off to find the post office after our grocery adventure & never did. I guess it is a green house on the island & you just go up & knock on the door & the lady takes your mail. I saw three green houses & really didn't want to knock on them all, because I thought it might be rude, so we will hold our mail until Georgetown.
The coolest part of Staniel Cay is something we are waiting to see when it gets sunny out. It is Thunderball cave! It's a cave you swim into & it opens up & there is a huge skylight in the top that makes the water a crazy color apparently. I'm a little nervous about swiming out here though, because yesterday we saw 9 sharks & I caught the worlds largest Barracuda the other day really close to the caves on accident. We will just be extra carefull when jumping in. THe Barracuda was insane!! We can't stop talking about it! We had the fishing lines out finally, because we are out of the no fishing areas in the Park anymore & we were heading around a small rock island to anchor & Bam.. fish on the line, so Ben drove the boat slowly around the rock as I tried my best to reel in this monster who kept taking all my line out as soon as I had reeled any in & Ben ended up having to throw the anchor down right there. The Barracuda would not stop fighting. It was a really good jumper too.I got it to us & we didn't want it in the boat, because of it's razor teeth, so Ben had the gaff hook out there & as the fish was fighting & flailing it's 4 foot self around he managed to yank the hook out. We were releaved! We got some nice pictures of it though.
We caught a few more small fish & kept the one that was actually big enough to eat. It's nice to be catching our own food again!! When we get to Gtown Ben will go spear fishing & get us some big groupers hopefully. We don't want to spear fish here, because we can't imagine swiming around with a bloody fish in the middle of all these sharks. No thank you!
-well, keep on writing comments! We like to read them! Hello April, Kevin, & Kelly! Thanks for writing! It's good to hear from you! :)
-Kristen, Ben, & Skippy
Our computer is miraculously working again for the moment! We have been checking e-mails & trying to skype people. Hope you are all doing well back home!
We are in Staniel Cay. We are stuck here until the weather clears up next week. We will be headed to Georgetown to meet up with "Free At Last" so that will be really fun!! Staniel Cay is pretty cool. It's a small laid back island with nice people. We went for a walk to the "grocery store" the other day & it ended up being a small house up someones driveway & there was just a little bit of most of the staples that we needed.
Everyone has a huge interest in Skippy here. It's so funny. We can't walk him anywhere without locals asking us about him. "does he bite?" is the most common question & "is he a snow dog from Alaska?" is the second. Everyone thinks he is a husky... weird. We were coming down the driveway & the little kids playing at the bottom were completely freaked out by him, but wanted to touch him really bad, so after some coaxing they all got to pet him & the smallest little boy who couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 insisted on walking him. ...he didn't get very far before skippy pulled the leash out of his hand & kept on going. THey were really happy though. None of them had seen a dog like him before, let alone walked one!
We were off to find the post office after our grocery adventure & never did. I guess it is a green house on the island & you just go up & knock on the door & the lady takes your mail. I saw three green houses & really didn't want to knock on them all, because I thought it might be rude, so we will hold our mail until Georgetown.
The coolest part of Staniel Cay is something we are waiting to see when it gets sunny out. It is Thunderball cave! It's a cave you swim into & it opens up & there is a huge skylight in the top that makes the water a crazy color apparently. I'm a little nervous about swiming out here though, because yesterday we saw 9 sharks & I caught the worlds largest Barracuda the other day really close to the caves on accident. We will just be extra carefull when jumping in. THe Barracuda was insane!! We can't stop talking about it! We had the fishing lines out finally, because we are out of the no fishing areas in the Park anymore & we were heading around a small rock island to anchor & Bam.. fish on the line, so Ben drove the boat slowly around the rock as I tried my best to reel in this monster who kept taking all my line out as soon as I had reeled any in & Ben ended up having to throw the anchor down right there. The Barracuda would not stop fighting. It was a really good jumper too.I got it to us & we didn't want it in the boat, because of it's razor teeth, so Ben had the gaff hook out there & as the fish was fighting & flailing it's 4 foot self around he managed to yank the hook out. We were releaved! We got some nice pictures of it though.
We caught a few more small fish & kept the one that was actually big enough to eat. It's nice to be catching our own food again!! When we get to Gtown Ben will go spear fishing & get us some big groupers hopefully. We don't want to spear fish here, because we can't imagine swiming around with a bloody fish in the middle of all these sharks. No thank you!
-well, keep on writing comments! We like to read them! Hello April, Kevin, & Kelly! Thanks for writing! It's good to hear from you! :)
-Kristen, Ben, & Skippy
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