The wind blew hard all night and all the next day, but the anchorage was fairly well protected. In the morning I started on a project I'd been planning for some time, refinishishing our companionway steps. The varnish had worn down, exposing bare teak in several places; without its protection, the wood was starting to weather, and I wanted to restore it before things got out of hand. Sanding took a few hours, and cleaning all the dust off took another half hour or so. I got two coats of varnish on that afternoon, planning on doing a third and maybe a fourth the next day.
Meanwhile, Britt went with Alex and Jeff on the usual fishing expedition, where the usual huge quantity of snapper was speared. (Lately, we've been eating fish for both lunch and dinner. Even a few times for breakfast: we've had lobster omelets and Penelope's famous triggerfish sausage.) They cleaned the fish back on Whish with the aid of several large rum drinks, and by the end of the afternoon a well-lubricated Britt cheerfully volunteered our boat as the site of that night's fish feast. So much for my newly varnished steps!
Fortunately, the steps were mostly dry by the evening, so I covered them with little tents of newspaper and threatened everyone with dire punishments if they dared step on them. With six adults and four children on board, the steps did get a little rougher treatment than I would have liked, but a bit of sanding and a few more coats had them looking beautiful again. I admit to having been somewhat peeved, but my mood was easily refinished with a few applications of rum drinks.
The following day the wind moved more into the northeast, so we moved as well, reanchoring on the east side of Buena Vista Cay. In the afternoon Britt and I hiked down the long curving beach. We found a trail leading to two small caves, and various signs of attempted habitation: aluminum pipes, roofing shingles, 2x4s, old wooden lobster traps. We also saw three of the goats which roam wild on the island. Britt offered to go back to get his pole spear so he could shoot one for dinner, but since we still had some fish left from the day before, we left the goats to their goaty pursuits and continued beachcombing.
The amount of junk that washes up on shore in the Bahamas is truly remarkable. Probably the most common single items are shoes and bottles, but we found everything from toothbrushes (two of them!) to lightbulbs (three fluorescent tubes and one regular bulb. I have no idea how they survived without shattering). Bits and pieces of plastic are all over. Since plastic doesn't decompose at all, we guess it's only going to continue to get worse, until all the beaches everywhere in the world are covered with a layer of plastic junk.
There are always a few treasures, though. A few days later, at
Johnson Cay, Mallory found a really nice gaff made from a good hook
lashed to a long bamboo pole. Since Whish already has a gaff, she
didn't take it, but when Britt mentioned that we didn't have one, she
led him to it. Now we are ready to catch a really big
mahi-mahi!
By the next day we were getting low on our seafood supply, so it was time to go hunting again. It was a beautifully calm and blue-sky morning, and I'd hardly been out snorkeling since we got to the Jumentos, so I decided to go along with Britt. We stopped by Whish to borrow Jeff's extra Hawaiian sling, then started our dive on some coral heads in the anchorage. I took a few practice shots, but there weren't any food fish on the little heads, so we moved around the corner to another spot.
There were lots of small reefs right along the edge of Buena Vista Cay, so we swam from place to place looking for fish. A nice school of jacks swarmed right under the dinghy, but in trying to get lined up for a shot I managed to spook them, and they scattered. I followed a few triggerfish around, and got off a few shots but missed every time. Britt found a lobster that he wanted me to spear, but somehow I even missed that easy target, and it hid deeper in its hole and wouldn't get within spear range. I chased a couple of mojarra around, and took a good shot at a big schoolmaster snapper, but that darn spear never went quite where I aimed it. The schoolmaster must not have thought it was in serious danger, because it didn't go hide but instead just circled around. Britt got a good shot and we had our first catch.
At this point I was getting a little miffed. Clearly, I needed a really big fish. Broad side of a barn size. Fortunately, just as I was about to give up and we were heading back to the boat, a big fat triggerfish swam right in front of us. Britt pointed, and I aimed. For a moment it looked like it was going to duck into a hole, but triggerfish are stupid; it just hovered there, watching us to see what we'd do. Bam! One speared triggerfish!
As I shot it, it finally figured out it was in trouble and started
to squeeze into its hole. It took the rest of my breath of air to
wiggle the spear and fish out of the crevice and get it aloft. This
is when I discovered it's really, really hard to swim with a
fish on the end of your spear. It's also a bit of a challenge to flop
into a dinghy with a speared fish. But I was elated -- my first
fish! 
Having tasted blood, I was eager to dive some more. We moved to another spot, where I repeatedly failed to hit mojarra and snapper, then took the dinghy out the cut between Buena Vista Cay and Little Nurse Cay, to a reef shown on the guidebook chart. The water was astoundingly clear, and big fish were everywhere. Britt dove after a grouper, which moved aside just enough to reveal a lobster hiding behind it -- he chose the lobster, and added it to our pile. He got a few more fish, then another lobster. We were happy to see the bugs because it really looks like the Jumentos have been picked over well by the commercial outfits.
I sat in the dinghy warming up for a while, then grabbed the spear and took a little swim. I'd hardly gotten a chance to look around when a triggerfish, even bigger than the first, came sauntering by. Okay, I can't even get close to any fast-moving fish, but so what? Triggerfish is yummy. I speared that puppy with fine style and flopped back into the boat.
The next time I got into the water to snorkel, I was sans spear, and immediately noticed how different it was. Swimming around looking at fish is not the same activity as swimming around hunting fish. A few days later, I borrowed Jeff's spear again, and bagged my first lobster. Britt has promised to make me a Hawaiian sling when he can get ahold of bar stock to make spears. Watch out, you sea creatures.
When the wind swung around to the southeast, it was time to move.
Along with Odyssey and Whish, we went about ten miles
further down the Jumentos, to Johnson Cay. This little island has a
lovely U-shaped northwest-facing cove, a perfect anchorage for the
southerly weather, with a fine-grained sand beach which just cried
out for a beach party. We obliged.
I made lobster rumaki (lobster hunks marinated in soy sauce, wrapped in bacon slices, and broiled) and we washed them down with wine as we prepared the coal pit for cooking the fish. We all stuffed ourselves on fish and salad, then somehow made room for a big brownie-cake which Donna had made in honor of Christopher's tenth birthday. It wasn't quite his birthday yet, but Penelope and Alex had promised him that they'd be in Cuba for the occasion, so we celebrated early.
The folks on Odyssey had been trying to talk everyone they knew into going to Cuba with them, us included. We would sure like to go, sometime, but we just aren't ready to do it now; we have no guidebook, haven't prepared the paperwork or arranged for insurance, haven't brushed up our Spanish. There is still a lot of the Bahamas we haven't gotten to yet.
So our party on the beach was also a goodbye party. Alex, Penelope and their kids are finishing up their second and final year of their cruising sabbatical. After Cuba, they'll return to in Florida in June, then truck Odyssey back to their home in San Francisco. It's tough saying goodbye to people we've spent a lot of time with.
The next few days were spent in the usual way. We snorkeled, speared a lot of fish, ate a lot of fish, hiked around the island, played games, read, and downed a few rum drinks. We changed the oil in the outboard and did a few other boat chores. We gave each other haircuts, which turned out about as well as we could expect, considering the scissors were being wielded by entirely untrained hands. If you wonder why our photos of this cruise (which we will upload a bunch of once we are no longer paying $1/minute) show us wearing hats all the time, well, now you know.
Today we're heading for Ragged Island and Duncan Town, the only settlement in the Jumentos. Hopefully we'll be able to upload this log entry and get email; we'd also just like to check out this frontier town on the edge of the Bahamas. Duncan Town's closest neighbor might be in Cuba; it's certainly closer to the Cuban coast than it is to George Town. Ragged Island will be our most southerly point. Actually, we can't even take the big boat there -- the water around Duncan Town is so shallow that the mailboat even has to anchor several miles away. We'll anchor in a bight off yet another Hog Cay (I think there are at least a dozen Hog Cays in the Bahamas!) and dinghy in.
Whish has opted to skip Ragged Island and start heading north slowly, so we'll meet them in a day or two. We had to rush past a few of the more interesting islands in order to get to a safe anchorage when the front went by last week, so we'll both take our time as we go back toward the Exumas. We also want to take full advantage of the great diving here, especially since lobster season ends with the end of the month. We don't really need to go back to George Town, since we've got plenty of fuel and food, so we may take the Comer Channel route to Long Island rather than retracing our path through Hog Cay Cut. Either way, we will probably be in the Jumentos for another week or so.