Greetings from dry land, friends. I am currently serving as the First Mate AND Official Protector of a very important RV, a position I take extremely seriously and perform with great distinction. But important as my current duties are, we have unfinished business at sea. So settle in, grab a snack, and let’s get back to the Bahamas.
If you’ll recall, we were stuck on this beautiful, eerie, half abandoned island waiting for a weather window to cross The Whale, that treacherous stretch of water where the ocean basically dares you to try it. While we waited, Something Cay had more surprises in store for us.
The whole place had this haunted resort energy. Buildings rotting and sagging, slowly being swallowed back up by the island like it was reclaiming what was always hers. Tall grasses creeping up around old houses. Roofs caving in like they had given up on the whole enterprise. It was stunning and sad and strange all at once. I ran through all of it, coconut in mouth, completely magnificent. I could have repaired the buildings, obviously, but Dad said something about trespassing. Rules. Ugh.
We walked along the shore too, where you could see that other buildings had once stood but were long gone, wiped away with only a few stones left to mark their existence. On one side of the island, the water was calm and sheltered, the peaceful side, the Sea of Abaco side. On the other side? Total chaos. Massive Atlantic waves absolutely hammering the breakwall like they had a personal grudge. I stood at the shore with the wind in my face, sand between my paws, sunshine on my fur, and I thought: this is living. We arrived in winter, by the way. I highly recommend the Bahamas in winter. No snow, which is a genuine tragedy because snow is one of my greatest joys, but the swimming more than makes up for it.
Now. About the boat situation.
In addition to waiting on the weather, our house batteries had started failing. Not the engine battery, the ones that store power for all our living things: lights, stove, refrigerator. The fridge couldn’t make it through the night anymore. Every evening, Mom and Dad would unplug absolutely everything on the boat trying to coax those batteries into lasting until morning. Lights off. Everything off. It never worked. By morning, the fridge was warm and the batteries were dead anyway.
And when the batteries got too low, they let everyone know about it. Oh, did they let everyone know. There was an alarm. A loud, absolutely unhinged, no chill whatsoever alarm. WOWOWOWOWOWOW. Every single time, the whole family launched out of bed like the boat was going down. It was not going down. But I want to be clear: dead batteries are no joke. At the dock, it is a headache. On the ocean, it can be deadly. Your navigation, your radio, your safety systems, all of it runs on those batteries. We needed new ones, and we needed them badly.
Then came the generator situation. The island ran on one enormous generator, their whole power supply, and it broke down. The marina man knew Dad was handy and asked for help, promising us a discount on our marina stay in exchange. Dad said yes, because that is just who he is. If you can help, you should. He spent several days fixing it. I was not allowed to assist. Extremely rude decision on Dad’s part, but I supervised from a distance with great professionalism.
During that time, wind storms came and went. We were tied to an old rickety wooden dock, which was sort of fun for me but Mom looked annoyed. Being tied to a dock is not ideal when it is windy. When you are anchored out there is nothing to crash up against, but at the dock we would lean one way and then boom, lean the other way, the lines stretching as far as they would go each time. It was like a ride. Weeee! Mom did not share my enthusiasm.
Several boats came and went while we were stuck there, but they were all headed the opposite direction, passing through The Whale the easy way. We watched them go and waited some more.
Meanwhile, the marina lady made a supply run back to the U.S. and offered to bring things back for us. New batteries. A big bag of Shep food, because we had completely run out by this point, people. COMPLETELY. OUT. The kibble situation had reached a crisis level I do not wish to relive. Nom Nom and thank goodness.
We were feeling pretty good about things, honestly. New batteries. Full belly. Weather improving. Time to settle up and move on.
And then Mom saw the bill.
I will tell you that I have never seen her turn that particular color before. Eighteen days at a rickety, half-abandoned marina on a private island in the Bahamas: over five thousand dollars. The power cord we had to borrow because their dock wasn’t working? Thirty dollars a day. The discount Dad was promised for repairing their generator? Nowhere to be found. The marina lady informed us, very calmly, that her husband had no authority to make deals on marina pricing. The only break we got was not being charged customs on the batteries, a couple hundred dollars, maybe. The generator repair would have cost them thousands.
We are people, and two dogs, who stand by our word. We paid the bill, because that is who we are. And then we pointed the bow toward Green Turtle, an amazing place waiting just on the other side of all this nonsense.
Some people will take advantage of a good heart every single time. We choose to keep our good hearts anyway.
Karl out.