Captain Plug picked us up at the Lodge dock to ferry us to Marsh Harbour. He’s the skipper of the Abaco Rage, the traditional Bahamian sloop that Rudi got to race on a few weeks ago. She’s in the harbour for a few months – although her next race is on Boxing Day. Yes, Rudi’s already signed on.

She was asleep, sails down, when I asked Stafford (Captain Plug) if we could cruise past her. She’s in the back – note that very tall mast.

She’s beautiful.

She is low to the water. And you notice the long wooden thing? That’s the pride. That was Rudi’s job.

In the boat is the skipper, who controls the tiller. Then there’s someone who manipulates the mainsail. And someone who works the foresail. One would be Stafford. One is Richard, who is Timou’s new dad for 9.5 more weeks. And the third is Bobby, who helps our builder and us.

Then there are from 6-12 people to man the pride. The pride is put out to the left or right in the race to balance the boat. The sail is huge, and the boat could lean so extremely that it would go over – if not for the pride.

So out onto the pride scramble the others on the boat – they crawl out or shimmy on their bum – depending on how agile they are. Rudi wore shorts the first day. Long pants the second. And he’s interested in the pants with the padded bum for the Boxing Day race – he’s actually asked for them for Christmas.

He’s fine with sitting on a piece of wood and dangling over the Sea of Abaco as the boat is racing. As long as he’s on the water and near a boat, he’s happy.

And the Rage is a piece of Bahamian history. A beautiful, fast design, she wins many races, besting those in fancy six-figure boats. Go Rage!!

And we were off to Marsh Harbour, then on to Nassau.

Here he is with Alexis, Monica’s 9-year-old daughter who wants to be a vet.

She is dressed in her finest bathing suit, with lovely purple eyeshadow. Timou is dressed in his beautiful grey feathers and, for the first time in a long time, his red red tail!

It was hard leaving him. And harder going home without him and then having dinner dinner and not making some for him. Drinking juice in the morning without him getting his sips… 1-2-3-4-5-6.

But after removing two grey feathers and one red one, he settled in to a dinner dinner of beef stew! He loves beef. And the following day he had four young ladies entertain him as they played dress-up.

He may be fine.
As for me…

See what you think!

This is a woman who sells her body, from the red light district.

I have never seen more graffiti anywhere on earth as I did in Amsterdam.
We were told it is done by the Muslim gangs.

The man selling cheese in the market. This is where we bought the fresh green herring, too. Yum!

And it wouldn’t be Holland if there weren’t bikes.

These are in Haarlem at the train station.

And in Amsterdam. Amazing. I think I’d be holding on if I were in the back!

Relaxing in relative comfort, watching a little television, using the internet, enjoying Tazo Earl Grey and popcorn…

But not for long. Not on Tuesday. We have six hours to blow around the airport in Nassau. And that will have to include some decent fuel for our bodies since we won’t eat until we get to Toronto or Ottawa. Not popcorn.

So we’ll probably head to Compass Point. They have a very nice restaurant and a great breakfast. I always think I want the coconut French toast, and I end up having eggs because they are good for me.

Compass Point is an interesting resort on the ocean where people race to grab a lounge chair on the concrete of the pool deck, overlooking a beautiful sugar sand beach.

And it is close to the airport (all of Cable Beach is), so we watch the planes landing.

And Rudi sits and contemplates… as usual. He wonders – WHY are we leaving paradise for Canada?

The water is pretty enough.

But Nassau is NOT the Bahamas, and it most certainly is nothing near paradise.

After we spend a few hours slowly forking food into our mouths, then ordering tea to drag it out a bit longer, we will head to the beautiful international airport.

Not.
You have to sit on the cold hard floor while you wait for the security doors to open to check you out before you go to the gate. Then you get a chair.

Well, I will let you know later this week if that’s how the day played out. I’d shoot Compass Point for you, but when I say it is ON the road, I mean it is ON THE ROAD. I’d be killed, run over in a heartbeat. But for you? I will try it.
And I will shoot the food. I don’t have any idea why I missed shooting the food, other than that it was before 10am.

PS – Guess what?
I must have shot Compass Point from the car when we were in Nassau in January checking out my heart!

See? ON the road! The kind of place where, when the taxi driver drops you off, he says “RUN!”

So inspired was I (at midnight) that I thought I would collect some photos and give the idea a try. I didn’t do yellow, though!

I did orange:

And blue:

The Hope Town Harbour Lodge’s (indoor) restaurant is our fru-fru one on this wee cay. It has the most upscale (and pricey) menu in these parts, so we had to wait until we’d collected a bunch of money before we could go and enjoy a meal there.

It is simple, clean, cool.

We ordered, in honour of Kelsey, a San Pellegrino water.

And someone grabbed my camera!

And I grabbed it back.

(Don’t tell anyone, but I was wearing my maternity sundress from 1989! I wore a bra to make it fancy.)

We opened with a great crusty whole-grain bread and butter.

Then a Caesar salad with shaved Parmesan.

And Pherrol seriously outdid himself on my Ahi Tuna!!

Man! I could eat it daily. It was delicious! Encrusted with sesame seeds, there was wakame and ginger and wasabi (and I love them all), the rice was cooked in coconut milk and had plantain and pineapple (yum!) and the veggies were amazing! Jicama (which tastes like daikon) and carrot sticks. The jicama was the surprise of the evening.

Rudi had the mahi-mahi cooked in a coconut crust. Also yum! I took his gingery-sweet dip and used some on the tuna. Yum again.

Dessert? Of course! I took half of my meal home so I could enjoy dessert. (And generally my dinner compartment is smaller than my dessert compartment anyway.)

Rudi had the mango passionfruit ice cream. I had his whipped cream!

I had the Rum Runner cake. And loved it!

Thank you Tom – you run an amazing place! Thank you Pherrol – we had a great meal!

Here is the original:

And with B/W Mink:

And Glam:

Pandora:

Ruby:

Starlet:

And Velvet!

Gayle is gorgeous in real life. I am not sure these do her justice! But overall I think I like the B/W Mink and the Ruby. Or Pandora. Or Starlet. I think. Ask me again tomorrow!

I wasn’t going to share it with you but friend Mary asked if I would so she could get the recipe when she’s home from the hospital. So thank you Susan, and here you are Mary!

Glad she asked because out of about 50 candies, we had four left!

Here’s the recipe:

PECAN CARAMEL TOFFEES
Makes about 40

300 g (1 cup) honey

240 g (1 cup) nut butter

2 TB butter

80 g (3/4 cup chopped pecans

Place the honey into a medium sized pot and bring to boil. The honey will froth up. Keep boiling for about 8 minutes. Turn off the pot from the heat, add the nut butter, butter and chopped pecans. Remove pot from the heat and let cool for about 10 minutes. Place about 1 tsp of the toffee into individual candy cups and refrigerate. Eat at room temperature.

We used the almond butter because we accidentally had two open jars. And we had about a five pound container of honey! The only difference I’d make to the recipe is to leave out the butter – real nut butters have enough grease I’ve found, so the butter was superfluous. And I’d add a full cup of pecans or any other nut.

Then it would be a cup of nut butter, a cup of honey and a cup of nuts! You can never have too many nuts, I think.

Rudi had put in the GPS. He programmed it for all the way-points so the boat would do all the work. But it was still work for Rudi, who must work better with his tongue OUT.

And off we went. Southish.

As we passed Lubbers we say some people taking out their Sunfish.

And as we ran alongside Tilloo we passed the house built with a castle’s turret.

And the GPS said the auto-pilot needed to change course a bit.

And the Captain relaxed.
(The Admiral took these photos.)

And the Captain consulted the charts.

A lovely enough day was had that I actually heard myself asking about staying overnight at a beautiful anchorage, hooking up the boat’s barbecue, swimming in the Sea and just enjoying the water. THE WATER. That’s not like me at all.
Hmmm…

And we’ve done beige beige beige forever. Variations of beige. On walls (Rudi wasn’t the most adventurous when it came to colour) and floors and the works. But after we’d looked at a nice, light beige-y granite we happened upon an amazing slab! It was gorgeous! And it wasn’t beige.

It has more colour than we realized at first.

And was a real surprise. Lime sorbet!

Isn’t that amazing?

And freckles in a lovely wine shade.

It blew us away.

And it is the granite that will live downstairs.

And we had Hector knock us off a piece. We took it to the furniture store to coordinate the fabrics on the upholstered pieces. They work beautifully together!

Also – this way we have a piece to guarantee we won’t get pink granite this time. And you’re all witnesses!