Cat Island will always be a favorite stop for us and remain in our hearts because of the warm, genuine people we’ve met and feel lucky enough to call friends. We still had the car for Tuesday morning, so on a day already threatening rain, we made an early start (hey, we are cruisers, it wasn’t that early).
We headed “up island” to see the folks that were kind enough to befriend us and show us their garden last year, Clifton & Betty. We’ve only been to their house the one time that Betty drove us but had no doubt we’d find it with Duke’s (turns out accurate) instructions to, “drive about 45 minutes and then just before you hit the LARGEST pothole, look right. There’s the house.” (There was, in fact, even a road crew racing the rain to fill in the potholes! Not this one but maybe, someday…)
When Betty let us in the front door, the house smelled so good. She’d been hard at work trying to have freshly baked bread treats for us, but alas we were too early. So, into the garden we went. It had been very dry recently, so naturally the garden wasn’t at full peak. But the rain was on its way!
Here are a few shots of things to come, grey skies included:
Fun with coconuts!
Betty and Clifton had heard about Susie’s bout with Ciguatera last year and the gentle relief that real coconut water provided. (Thank you, Cordell and Duke.) Out came the green coconuts! And Clifton showed us his way of opening them, complete with small, carved-on-the-spot spoons!
From there, the “Coconut Master,” aka Clifton, gets us to the coconut water:
Ahh, nothing like drinking fresh coconut water.
Now, about that small spoon..
After drinking the coconut water, the coconut is carefully laid out, and…
Once it’s split in half, you use the little spoon as a perfect scoop for getting the coconut “jelly.” And that’s how the healthy parts of the green coconut get consumed.
Todd asked about the dry coconuts with the firmed-up coconut meat? And of course, Clifton made it easy!
(Work smarter not harder. 🙂 )
Unfortunately, the rental had to be returned by noon, so we really did miss out on the freshly baked bread when we scooted out with our garden goodies.
With the produce dry and stowed, we loaded back into the wet dinghies, and returned to New Bight for lunch and ice cream…rain be darned! In the end, the rain won though.
Rain be darned you say? We made it back to the boat soaked, put the dinghy up top, and it then rained for the next two days! By far the most rain we have experienced in the islands.
A couple days later, we received visitors from Finish Grade! We think they were going stir-crazy. (Or are they just crazy?)
If you think the shots of our visitors look grey, you’d be right. We sat for a bit in the cockpit discussing charts, weather, and next steps, then they swam back home, arriving just as the skies opened up again!
The rainy days and our need to head north for Susie to make a trip to Virginia, made it hard to get back over to the beach for a real send off with/from our friends. Heck the morning we left, we dropped the dinghy and rushed over to bid Duke farewell, but alas, he had gone “fishing” (conching) eeeaaarrrllllyyy, so we missed him. Pompey wasn’t around, and Cordell was busy in the back of the shop. Even Duke’s spider, Nancy, was nowhere to be found.
Not to worry. We will see you all again in a few months!
Our Travels 