With all of the pictures of sandy white beaches, coconut trees swaying in the breeze, tropical fruit drinks, and water so blue and clear that boats seem to be floating on air, you might think we have been cruising the tropics on High ZZ’s since retirement.   But, not so fast, my pasty white, northern clime, friends.   The truth is that we really only ventured far enough, just this winter, to actually claim reaching a tropical paradise.

You see, the true tropics are only those latitudes between the Tropic of Cancer, in the north, and the tropic of Capricorn, in the south.  Being as I sport no earring, we have never ventured across the equator with High ZZ’s, so our latitude of record is 23 degrees, 26.223 minutes – North: the Tropic of Cancer.   As you can see in the accompanying photo of High ZZ’s chart plotter, we reached that latitude, sailing south, from Georgetown, Exumas, to Thompson Bay, Long Island on March 9, at 10:20 off Pinkston Cove.  An accomplishment worthy of a cigar, and a tropical fruit drink (had I not been driving High ZZ’s at the time).  Long Island was a long-awaited destination for High ZZ’s, having twice before left Georgetown to go north instead of south; Admiral Deb was anxious to return stateside in 2016 and 2017, forcing an about face.

Long Island is, is…well, aptly named, really long; over 80 miles, so we did not get to see it all.  But what we did see:  Thompson Bay/Salt Pond and Calabash Bay by boat and from Cape Santa Maria to Clarence Town by car, impressed us as most Bahamian!   Unlike the Exumas, Abacos, and New Providence, Long Island is not overrun by US and Canadian cruising boats.   You feel more like guests in a foreign country, rather than being in some Florida east coast port.  Locals seem more friendly, life laid back a bit more, just, well, more Bahamian.  As a way of saying thank you, the crew of High ZZ’s helped paint St. Josephs Anglican church with a group of cruisers on a volunteer-work detail.

The island was originally called by the Arawak name “Yuma”, but it did not look anything like Arizona!  For one thing, it is surrounded by beautiful blue water.   There are cacti, but they are the minority plant on Long Island.  Christopher Columbus  must have liked the green lush island.  He named it “Fernandina”, after the Spanish King who sponsored his first voyage in 1492, but that name only stuck until the island was resettled by Loyalists in the 1700’s.  The only things seemingly left from the Loyalists occupation were ruins of cotton plantations, and “sheep”.  Long Island sports a Mutton Festival each March.  But, touring the island for four days, we saw not a single sheep; but we saw many, many goats.

And, much to Shep’s chagrin and Deb’s delight, we had to leave Salt Pond before the “mutton” (or whatever mystery meat) was served.  Although we did not get to sample the goat…er, I mean sheep, we can report that Long Island had the best conch salad we have had to date!

          Can’t help it…won’t even try.   Saltwater fishing has been in my blood since I was knee high to a grasshopper.  Isn’t blood mostly salt water anyway?   I don’t know exactly when my first saltwater fishing experience was, but the memory of that wonderful experience has left me wanting more and more.  I guess I was really just a tadpole when my dad took me on a fishing trip on a head boat out of San Diego.   It is indelibly etched somewhere deep inside, not just for the fishing part, but because growing up, I had so few “alone” times with my dad.  The second of six kids, I was only five when the third arrived, and four, five and six followed at regular two-year intervals.  Dad passed a few years back, but yesterday, St. Patrick’s Day was his birthday.  And, I caught a beautiful Mahi-Mahi on his birthday.  So, I remembered that I was the only real kid on this boat, and the deckhand and captain, in a move likely to insure their future job security, made sure I caught plenty of fish.  While I was off watching my pole with dad, they would hook a fish, slacken the line, and then ask me if I could hold their pole for a minute, while they got a drink, had a smoke… Wow, fish on!   It must have taken me three or four fish before I caught on to their “hook and hold”, but mostly, “hook Shep” on salt water fishing, antics!   This has been our best season yet, fishing and cruising on High ZZ’s in the Bahamas.  Mahi, big-eye tuna, snapper…have all jumped on our poles, until Deb says “no more fishing until we eat up what we already have in the fridge!”  Having returned to life on the salt water since retirement, I now know why something about my 32 years in the mountains of Virginia left me unfulfilled…the absence of saltwater fishing.

Weeds, damn, blank-a-ty, blank, s—ty weeds!   We may have boated many more fish, if it weren’t for all the seaweed catching on our lures.   There is so much seaweed, the small floating bladder encrusted type, in the Bahamas, that we have to keep reeling in, and clearing the weeds from our hooks so frequently, that the lures seem out of the water as much as they are in.  This is probably why all the lures you see for sale here in the Bahamas have single hooks.   Many of my lures are so old, dating back from my teen and 20-something years fishing off the coast of California, that they still have the original double hooks on them.  Double hooks catch and hold mush more weed than single hooks.  Must get rid of the doubled hooks…must get rid of the weeds!

Weeds!  Weeds choke off the things that we like, the positive things.  Weeds choke off our garden vegetables; weeds block the sunlight and choke out our flower beds; weeds choke out our lures from catching fish.  Weeds are like negative thoughts.  They choke off our positive vibe, they block out good memories.  We can’t go to that island, there are too few places to hide from storms.   We must not enter the banks thru that channel, it is so narrow and shallow that it seems daunting.   How will we ever see a sunset there?  It is just too far to go against the prevailing winds and swell.  Just weeds!  Block them out, remove them from your hooks, think positive thoughts, have your best Bahamas cruise ever!