We started out this past week in Nassau and then made our way over to Highbourne Cay in the Exumas. The weather and the water in the Exumas was amazing especially compared to the rough travel from the previous week! The waters in the Exumas are what you usually picture when you think of the Bahamas. All different shades of blue and crystal clear. We spent our first night at Highbourne Cay which was vey quiet. We decided to give our kayak a try out (the first time with both of us in it at the same time) and I am quite pleased to report that it did not sink! We made our way over to the beach and enjoyed swimming all by ourselves. The next day, we headed to the Exuma Land and Sea park which is a national park area. The park has a mooring ball field for boats. For those of you not familiar with a mooring ball, it is simply a ball and chain that is anchored to the ocean floor. You are to simply grab the chain (much like jousting), tie your boat to it and you are set for the night…..ah, if only! I was in charge of grabbing the chain with our long deck pole. I grabbed it first try! However, grabbing the chain and having the strength to hoist the chain up 6 feet to grab it from the deck are two very different things! Bill tried to come help but he did not make it before we dropped the deck pole into the water. Bill then jumped overboard to grab the mooring ball and secure the boat. Just as he grabbed the ball, he yelled, “Oh #@%, there is something black in the water over there!” About that time, another boater came over in his dinghy to assist with the chaos and he said, “It’s just a nurse shark” as he casually rescued our boat pole. Much relief from us all! The park was very remote and very beautiful. We saw nurse sharks, barracuda, rays and lots of birds. From the park, we headed south to a town called Black Point. Black Point is evidently a happening place to be during non Covid times. We went ashore and had some delicious conch at one of the two restaurants. We were after their “Bahama’s best pizza” but alas, the supply boat had not come since the shut down so no pizza to be had. The people were great and very happy to see tourists arriving again. We ventured over to the “bread lady” who is this elderly woman who sits on her porch waiting for people to come buy her homemade coconut bread. Needless to say, we were all over that! Next stop to which we were directed was Ida’s Laundromat. We weren’t quite sure why we needed to see Ida’s since we did not have any laundry to do but that mystery was soon solved. Over the years, Ida had figured out anything and everything that boaters could possibly want or need. She had laundry service, golf cart rentals, a general store with everything from souvenir snow globes to boat epoxy, private dock and cabin rentals. It was an amazing exhibition of entrepreneurial spirit! The next day, we set sail….yes! Actual sailing since the wind finally decided to cooperate! We were quite pleased with our first attempt and no one ended up in the water so we called it a success! We are now in Georgetown trying to figure out our next course. We have several options, all with positives and negatives, so we are just debating which route will be best. This next leg of the trip will be the most remote so we want to plan carefully for weather, waves and wind. If you don’t hear from us for a couple of weeks, don’t worry! That just means we are in the boondocks of the Bahamas without any internet! The following is something you may choose or not choose to read. It is something that I have been thinking about for several weeks (I have way too much time to think these days). It is not a political statement. It is just my thoughts. I wrote it mostly for my kids who are struggling to understand the times in which we currently find ourselves. Times when one can be ruined simply from stating an opinion that may disagree with others. If you disagree with me, that is fine. It is just something I had to write.
I am white. I am Southern. Those are two basic facts in life for which I will not apologize. I am proud to be born and raised Southern. There is an abundance of focus on history right now all over the country. I believe that if one was not raised in the South, then one does not truly understand our unique situation. Never in my life have I ever heard anyone say that slavery was right or that we should go back to slavery. We all agree that slavery of any kind is a horrible institution and is a blight on American history that will always remain. We can not erase it. We can not ignore. We can not pretend it did not happen by ruling that things of the past are “banned” or “outlawed”. Slavery did happen. Jim Crow laws did happen. Discrimination does happen. When I was in high school, one of my classmates was the son of the Grand Wizard of the local KKK. I believe the local KKK consisted of around 10 uneducated men whose sole purpose was to pass out propaganda at the town’s one red light every Saturday. The history of the KKK in the South is an awful one and the fact that it was the 1980s and these guys still felt the need to spread their sick agenda was appalling to us. The great part of this story is that the son of the Grand Wizard had a best friend. They were together all the time and we never saw one without the other. His best friend was black. That is the South that I know. One that is ever changing and ever growing. One that embraces history yet hopes to never repeat it. My grandmother was born of a different time. During her life, “coloreds” were not equals. She used to say things and use words related to race that we would have gotten a spanking for using. My mother explained that my grandmother was simply raised in a different time when those terms were accepted in society and we could only hope that she would grow and change in her opinions over the years. My mother explained that we could not shame her for what she had been taught but we could continue to live our lives in the way that we would hope she would come to embrace. During my grandmother’s final year of life, she continued to live in her own house. My mother hired a caretaker to live with my grandmother to assist with her care when my mother was not available. She found Agnes. Agnes was black and only a bit younger than my grandmother. My grandmother was probably not pleased with the choice of caretaker but she did not argue with my mother. Over the months, we watched my grandmother and Agnes fight like dogs. Agnes would stand up directly to my grandmother and I never saw her buckle. The last time I saw my grandmother, we all went to eat at a local cafeteria. My grandmother had insisted that she get a piece of pie for dessert. Agnes told her that she would never be able to eat all of the food she had taken. At the end of the meal, Grandmama announced she was too full to eat all of her pie. Agnes snorted and stated, “I told you so! You never listen to me!”. My grandmother simply smiled and handed Agnes a spoon. My grandmother and Agnes then shared that pie together. I went home that day and sobbed. I could not believe my grandmother shared a piece of pie with a black woman. It was then that I realized that my grandmother did not share a piece of pie with a black woman. She shared a piece of pie with a friend. No federal law changed my grandmother. No desegregation policies changed my grandmother. The only change that will ever take place will be one on one change. We, as individuals, control that change. Lately, I have seen a few try to speak for the many. “They” want things banned, outlawed, destroyed. “They” want people like my grandmother persecuted for their past lives and things that were said instead of recognizing that people change and grow daily. Things that someone may have said years ago, they would never say today. But that fact does not matter to “They”. Netflix recently removed the movie, “Gone with the Wind” from their platform. Yes, the movie was about the old South during the Civil War. However, the most stunning performance of the movie was given by Hattie McDaniel who played Mammy. Anyone who has ever read the book or seen the movie realizes that while Mammy was a slave, she was the only person in the story with any real sense. Hattie McDaniel was the first black person to ever receive an Academy Award. The year was 1939. Hattie was not allowed to attend the premiere of Gone with the Wind in Atlanta because she was black and the Lowe’s Grand theatre did not have a “colored section” for seating. Today, we can not even imagine such a thing! Hattie broke down barriers with her award-winning performance and it saddens me that “They” refuse to embrace that history is history. We should not erase it. We should embrace it, learn from it and move forward. Disney has just announced that it will be changing the Splash Mountain ride from the Uncle Remus story-based theme to the Princess and the Frog. “They” has spoken for all of us once again. Joel Chandler Harris was an Irish born writer who based his Uncle Remus stories on stories told to him by slaves. He had apprenticed on a plantation and had preferred to spend his time in the slave quarters listening to their stories. He created some of the most iconic characters in American literature based on the stories he heard. For most of my life, the Uncle Remus stories and the Disney movie based on these characters have been “banned” because the stories were written in slave dialect. Yes, they were written by a white man in slave dialect but they are stories that were forever saved because he wrote them. These stories should be embraced. Not forgotten. On our boat, our GPS system is so old that the maps can not be updated. The maps are from the 1980s. One day, as we were moving through Georgia, I saw “Runaway Slave Creek” listed on the map. I thought to myself….surely they have changed the name of that creek by now! I looked online and saw it had been changed to “Freedom Creek” in the 1990s. At first, I was glad of the change but the more I pondered the name change, the sadder I became. The name, “Freedom Creek”, while politically correct, does not reflect the courage and determination and heritage of the slaves that escaped from slavery along that creek. Their memory has been erased…..all from a “simple” name change. As I watch the current happenings and listen to “They” in the news, I have decided that like my grandmother, change will only occur on a personal level. Marches and protests serve one purpose, but real change can only occur from within each one of us. I have decided that I am going to strive to change my descriptions I give of people. I have noticed that when I describe someone who is white, I never say, “She is the white woman standing on the corner”. I would say, “She is the blond woman wearing the red dress”. However, any other culture, I identify them by their race….”she is the black woman on the corner in the red dress” or “she is the Indian woman on the corner in the red dress.” I do not think my children ever describe someone by race. Once again, generational changes that will continue to move us all in the right direction. Not by the passing of laws or the banning of history but by making small changes daily. Toward a common goal. In order to achieve change, we must keep our history. All of it. Celebrate the good and embrace that which we most want to forget so that we never forget.
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For those of you who want the short synopsis, here it is: got COVID results but they were the wrong test, Bahamas took them anyway, made it across the Gulf Stream, checked into Bahamas, sailed south several days, now in Nassau.
For those who want more details: After making it to Lake Worth, FL, we not so patiently awaited our COVID results so we could complete our Bahamas application. On Sunday, the doctor called to say that the lab did the wrong COVID test.....seriously?! We had them send the results to us anyway and the results clearly stated "no evidence of COVID" so we decided to see if the Bahamas would even notice that it was not the "top strand" test that they required. I contacted Customs and Immigration directly and sent all of our results and paperwork. His response was, "I asked the medical director and never got a response so I say 'no news is good news'...come on over!" With that very Bahamian response, we figured as long as we had US dollars in our pocket, they would take us. We set out around 8pm on Monday night to make the crossing. Bill did a great job navigating and captaining and I did a great job of not throwing up. I would like to add that the only way I will ever cross the Gulf Stream again is in an airplane. Quite the bumpy ride to put it mildly. We made it to West End alive by the next morning and I knew we were safe once the dolphins came out to welcome us! After a much needed night of sleep, we went over to the Customs office to "check in". On the way in, we were greeted by at least 3 dozen locals fishing on the rocks (several of whom wanted to stowaway with us!). As we docked, Harry (as in Harry the Best Conch Salad in the Bahamas) greeted us with an offer of fresh conch salad. Then, his buddy said he would open up the bar soon to get us some beers. Needless to say, Bill has died and gone to heaven at this point! I was a bit nervous about Customs since I had never checked in on a boat before but my nerves were quickly calmed by the fact that there were only 2 workers....one immigration girl and one customs guy. If I wasn't sure of a response on the form, they would respond, "No worries....you just leave it". I finally asked if anyone actually ever looked at the forms. He laughed and pointed to a large 4X6 filing cabinet that had at least 3 feet of papers stacked on top of it. "You will go there...." At that time, he asked for my credit card and we were all checked in! With conch and beer in hand, we headed south to Freeport. For anyone who watches the weather daily, you can save that 10 minutes of your day from now on. We have quickly figured out that predicting wind/currents/rain/etc is all a complete and total guess. We have been here almost a week and I think the reports have been accurate 2 out of 6 days. It has been slow going as we have been into the wind and current every day and Galt goes super slow when we ask him to work that hard. However, he was quite happy when we checked into the marina at the Grand Bahamas Resort in Freeport. In the Bahamas, the marinas are currently open but the resorts are not open. As a result, we had the entire resort completely to ourselves! I felt just like Elizabeth Taylor as I went for a private swim in the resort pool. Let's face it, COVID has to have some sort of upside at this point. Our trip from Freeport to Stirrup Cay was supposed to be about 8 hours and took 10 hours. I introduced Bill to the Miller family games with the Letter Animal Game (you name an animal and the other person has to name an animal starting with the last letter of the first named animal....example, antelope, eagle, eel, leopard). He found out how heated the competition could get and I finally took the round when he ran out of /r/ animals! As we neared Stirrup Cay, we ran into a large squall. It was the most amazing sight I have ever seen. In the distance as the clouds start to darken, the horizon line turns a deep purple. Then, the purple begins to spread out over the ocean and it makes it appear as if it is stained glass. It was breathtaking. The first squall was just rain so no big deal. The second squall had quite the lightning show which had me counting seconds between flashes and thunder. It was a bit unnerving but we survived. We spent a night of rough seas anchored at the Royal Caribbean private island. I felt it was very rude of them not to share the island for the night! After all....it was empty and I am Elizabeth Taylor! But alas, we had to stare at it from afar. The next morning, we headed to Alder's Cay and then made out way across to Nassau. We decided to get into a marina in Nassau to get some good sleep since the last few nights had been such rough seas. Once we landed in Nassau, we walked over to the grocery store so that we could have a heart attack. It was a Fresh Market, which is bad enough in the states with prices, but this location was a whole new level! A bag of chips was $10.00, a bunch of grapes was around $7.00/pound and don't even ask about the Poptarts! The humorous part was that the lobster and scallops were dirt cheap compared to the states so that was good! Tomorrow we begin our journey further south down the Exuma Islands. While we know that our weather predictions are useless, our Poptarts are overpriced and our seas may be rough, we say, "No worries......just leave it" and head on! We are finally on the move again! We left Cocoa this morning and enjoyed a beautiful day of motoring on the Indian River. Bill's cousin, Julie, was able to get several shots of Gone Galt as we passed under a bridge near her house so we were very excited to get aerial photos of the boat. We are anchored near Winter Beach, FL tonight and we head to Fort Pierce, FL tomorrow. From there, we will be in Lake Worth on Saturday and if the weather cooperates, we will be on our way to Grand Bahama on Monday! We are still waiting on our COVID test results to come back from the lab but hopefully they'll be here in the next couple of days. By the way, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of a COVID test, it was better than a strep culture in my opinion. At least my nose doesn't have a gag reflex! We would like to thank everyone in Cocoa for taking us in and we will miss the friends we made during the lock down. If you ever happen to be in the area, I highly recommend the Cocoa Village Marina as they were wonderful to take us in during all of the uncertainty of the past three months. Stay well, stay safe and here's hoping that the next blog will be from the Bahamas!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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