Days 121-- Govenors Harbour, Eleuthera

Days 121-124 Delightful Days in Governors Harbour, Eleuthera
Friday, April 3 to Sunday, April 5, 2009

What a wonderful settlement Governors Harbour is to visit. The big pink public library with great wireless internet connection was located right in front of our boat. Here are pictures of Haynes Library and views of the beach, the bay, and the boat from the beach in front of the library.

Governors Harbour also had ATMs (two of them), grocery stores, restaurants, orchid gardens, free town water, and a movie theatre! We accessed all of these things except the theatre: the movie showing this month didn’t look too good, so we decided not to use the free movie tickets we got from the Buccaneer Bar & Restaurant. The Buccaneer, however, was a fun place that we visited often. They had good food, cheap drinks at happy hour, and a nice owner—Lisa from Canada. Carl & Reva of Three Belles told us about it and we met them there several times. On Friday before the Saturday UNC semi-final game against Villanova, Lisa assured us that the Buccaneer would be glad to run the basketball game on the bar TV for us. Great! We were so happy to know that we’d get to see the game with no problems! Well, sometimes we forget where we are—these are the Far Bahamas and unpredictable things happen.
Saturday evening after dark we dinghied ashore carefully as it is hard to see the sand bars without the sun shining through the water. The town was all lit up with street lights and a softball field near the library was well lighted too. Happily we hiked up the hill to the Buccaneer and got good seats at the end of the bar right in front of the TV. There was a live band assembling on the patio so we knew it might be difficult to hear the game, but that’s not too much of a hardship—right? There we were—so happy—so confident—so ready to see Roy’s Boys whup up on Villanova and WHAM! the power goes off! Actually, it surged a couple of times and then it just died. It wasn’t just the Buccaneer that lost power, it was the whole island. Everything was pitch dark and we seemed to be the only people who had a flashlight. Lisa borrowed our flashlight and found some candles to set around. One of the band members started playing a sad little tune on a harmonica, so we sat around in the flickering candle light waiting for the electricity (and the game!). After about a half hour, Lisa borrowed our flashlight again to get things going in the kitchen. We ordered some delicious ribs and Bahamian macaroni and potato salad. The beers stayed cool and so did we—except that the no-see-ums began to nibble on our ankles. Then—miracle of miracles—the power came on and UNC was returning to the court after half time. The band on the patio cranked up and all was well in our world. The no-see-ums were still biting but we could see Carolina winning so all was well. That is, all was well until the last 8 minutes of the game when the island lost power again. That was enough for us—we took our little flashlight and fled the bugs back to our boat in the harbour where we listened to ESPN on the XM radio to hear that Carolina won. What a night. Here are pictures of the Buccaneer in the daylight.

In addition to our times at the Buccaneer, we did lots of other work and play. Here are John and Carl working at hauling fresh water out to our boats. Although the water was free, it was a chore to get it out to the boats. Carl and John hooked three garden hoses up together to stretch from the town spigot in front of the library across the road and the beach to the water jugs in the dinghy. Then the guys hauled them out to the boats and loaded our tanks. At one point, we even over filled one of our tanks. No problem with that—a nice fresh water wash down in the cabin of the boat. It all runs down into the bilge and gets pumped out.

After the water chore, Carl & Reva invited us over for some wine and a boat tour. Oh my—what a beautiful wooden boat! These pictures are not nearly as good as seeing it with your own eyes, but here they are. Reva and Carl do all the work themselves (the cat does little or nothing). Such a beautiful boat!

On Sunday morning, Mary (from catamaran Rum Tum Tiger) and Penny attended St. Patrick’s Anglican Church. It was Palm Sunday and there was no shortage of palms. The 2 ½ hour service included a processional through town with our hymn books and palm fronds. We sang and marched as the choir master shouted out the pages of each new hymn. This might be a new Palm Sunday event, as the people in town looked at us strangely and some of the congregation seemed to think the march was odd. St. Patrick’s has a young, energetic priest who has lots of new ideas and is working hard to engage the community—especially the young people. It made for a long service, but walking through town waving palms and singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” was a memorable way to celebrate Palm Sunday.

Also memorable, was the Friday night community Fish Fry. The locals do this each Friday night and all the visitors in town come to feast and dance in the streets. It was a fun time for all of us. John took lots of pictures, but the darkness made that a challenge. Below are three pictures of us folks milling around and eating fried fish and chicken. Also included (especially for all our seafood lovers—Mom & Sue Kreuser) are four pictures of Ninja, the local conch salad chef, demonstrating the art of slicing and dicing conch. Enjoy—we certainly did!

The final picture of our fun stay in Governors Harbour is of John and the beach boys! People here are very friendly!