Day Seven - Sun and Sea

DAY SEVEN - SATURDAY

After we returned from the fish fry on Friday night, a constant drizzle began. It turned into a dramatic thunder, lightening and rain storm that lasted nine hours. The electricity on Eleuthera is generated by a single diesel generation facility in the south island. Electricity and water began to come to the outer islands in the 1980s and 1990s. Prior to that people had to go to a distribution center in the township to fill up five gallon jugs each day. Most homes now have running water and electricity. Electricity is four times more expensive so people are very careful in its use. The government is beginning to explore publicly supported solar. With the high cost of power, many homes lack air conditioning and become stifling in the late afternoon. Some homes have limited lighting. With the storm, the entire island lost electricity – except for those few souls who have privately installed some form of solar power. After the excitement of Friday, the lack of air conditioning made for a long night. All of us were tired at the beginning of Saturday.

Fortunately, Friday was a day of recreation and refreshment. Our host, Al Curry, owns the Ocean Fox Cotton Bay company that operates an excursion boat business for snorkeling and scuba diving, shark diving, deep sea fishing and private charters. His charter boats operate out of Davis Harbour, South Eleuthera, an hour south of Governor’s Harbor. Davis Harbour was blasted out of sandstone that is largely visible in parallel strata marked by caves.

The geology is similar to what we saw in Gregory Town in the old abandoned gentlemen’s club. Between the ocean and the harbor is a large mangrove swamp which helps clean the water and provides habitat for a large number of bird species. The Bahamas are surrounded by a steep shelf on the Atlantic side where the wave action is strong and the water is colder. The Bahamian Bight or Bank creates a gentle slope into the Caribbean, the water is much shallower along the reefs until the edge of the Bight the ocean reaches 500 feet and deeper. With shallow waters up to 10 or 15 feet, the water temperature around the reefs is 80 to 85 degrees this time of year and visibility is crystal clear.

After breakfast on Saturday we loaded the team into the St. Patrick’s church bus which is air conditioned for a trip to the boat. St. Patrick’s purchased the 30 person bus new in 2006 and use it throughout the week as well as the weekend to transport parishioners to and from church and between the parish churches in Savannah Sound, Governor’s Harbor and Gregory Town. The bus is used daily - about 1/3 of parishioners at St. Patrick’s do not have their own transportation. George is the bus driver, and was so supportive and helpful when we were diverted to the medical clinic yesterday with Claire.

For our excursion to the ocean, our team was joined by Fr. Elton’s grandson, Cameron, who is 9 and has been helping our team this week.

 
 We were also joined by Shannon who has been so wonderful all week long. Shannon lives in Manhattan and Eleuthera. What a contrast in lifestyle! On Monday night she let the girls swim in her pool. Throughout the week she has provided the team with coolers of restaurant ice. She supported our painting and cooking and community outreach. With us also was Al and Janice’s granddaughter, Mandolin, age 11, who is also one of our Bahamian-based team members and has helped with painting and cooking and serving. Unfortunately, Jenness left early Saturday morning to return to Seattle.

The weather was perfect – the sky was cloudy which kept the heat manageable, water temperature was about 80 degrees after the rainstorm the night before, and a slight breeze was blowing. We boated about 45 minutes off shore to a snorkeling reef which is only about 7 to 10 feet deep. The girls were given instruction for using equipment.

With calm waters and a warm sea the conditions were safe and inviting for all of us. The coral formations on the reef are amazing. We saw coral fans and tubes, vibrantly colored fish and a large school of fish that seemed to not move but were transported by the currents – back and forth, up and down. There were schools of minuscule jelly fish that stung arms and legs and feet. They looked like bubbles. Almost none of the group had gone snorkeling before, but we dove in (quite literally). Chris and Ariana were our snorkeling champs exploring all around the reef. Claire agreed to be our videographer since she couldn’t get her stitches wet.

Cameron liked the long spined sea urchins. Al brought up a sea biscuit from the reef so we could touch it and feel its sucking action. Claire captured all of us with a Go-Pro. Janice and Nancy finished snorkeling and then floated in the water alongside the boat. We snorkeled for an hour or so, then loaded everyone up for lunch at the beach.

The beach can only be accessed by boat and is so pristine. The sand is a peachy beige and the consistency of flour paste. Shells were everywhere. Fr. Lance collected a shirt full of beautiful conch shells. The girls put their snorkels and masks back on to explore the shallows out to twenty feet from the beach. Sara and Rachael made the best find - a small conch in his shell.

A conch is a little bivalve that has two eyes, one foot and a body that fills the cavity of the shell. When he hides, he withdraws up into his shell and the foot seals the cavity and keeps the animal wet. It was so weird to look into this tiny shell and see these two little eyes staring back! The living conch and shell are vibrantly colored in reds, pinks and browns. Alexis and Cameron played catch and keep-away with a sponge that we found on the beach. Not a kitchen sponge – an ocean sponge.

One of the families that we visited on Wednesday gave our mission team a watermelon which we had on ice and ate with lunch. This is not the wimpy seedless watermelon that we get in Seattle. It was filled with gigantic seeds so of course we had to have a seed spitting contest. Everyone gave it a try. I am happy to report that Bailey is the seed spitting champion of the trip – with a big arch in her back and a whip of her head she managed to spit it 7 feet.

After the boat trip we sang our way (One Direction) on the bus back back to the Laughing Bird to shower and change, and then to Al and Janice’s for barbeque hamburgers and hot dogs. We met two very interesting men at Al’s who do photo-journalism – Florian and Christian are from Germany. Florian has done videoing for Al in the past including the drone videos of the Glass Window Bridge and the fly over for Eleuthera that can be found both on Al’s website and one of the tourist websites for the Island.

Al and Janice hosted our team for a second hamburger/hot dog barbeque on Saturday night. The no-see-ums (little tiny biting insects) were out in force so much of the team was inside enjoying the air conditioning, while Bailey uploaded the blog from the porch.

While we were cooking Al told the girls that we would be special guests at the service in the morning and suggested that we might put together a song for them. Lance kept suggesting “Bind Us Together” but most of the girls don’t know it. Instead they worked out the BEST flash mob – What Makes You Beautiful. By the end of the evening the whole team was involved – Fr. Lance, Chris, Nancy, Bailey, Alexis, Ariana, Sara, Rachael, Faith, Claire and Mandolin.