Sunday morning the AC units in the salon and the port hull were on the fritz... ( I know! All of you cruiser friends are thinking, “What has happened to Tofer? AC is a major concern for him now?) Ac is a big deal on this boat as a charter vessel It has big open, wrap around windows in the salon and the sun heats it up just like a solarium by midday. The guests come to have a good time and AC makes them happy too. AHHH ok, who am I really kidding with all this? Hell, I LOVE the AC!!!
At any rate we spent all morning working on it and when the owner, Wade, arrived, he and I spent more time messing around with it. Turned out the sicko Nassau water had clogged all of the lines so we had to blow them out... with our lungs. It’s up and running now.
The owner and guests all went to visit Atlantis last night and this morning we are off to the Exumas.
10:00am Nassau Harbor: We fueled the boat up, topped off the water and made our way out of the busiest port in the Bahamas. When sailing across the banks from Nassau to the Exumas I always follow a line from the waypoint at Porgee Rocks to Allen’s and you don’t really have to worry about near surface coral heads but this time we were actually planning on going to Norman’s and on that line there are quite a few coral heads on Yellow Bank. We put Dylan up on the bow and dodged coral heads. Steve and Debbie sat up on the bow and with the wind on the nose they were constantly being drenched by sheets of water. They were grinning ear to ear and at one point Steve looked at her and smiled while he said,
“This is sure better than sitting at my desk!”
After we passed the Yellow Bank we pulled out the sails and decided we could actually sail to Allen’s so we changed our course and sailed the rest of the way.
4:00pm Allen’s Cay, Bahamas: When we arrived at Allen’s I took advantage of the fact that we were on a cat and anchored us in the little shallow bay at SW Allen’s. This bay is a perfect little slice of paradise,with a crescent shaped white sand beach and aqua colored water. The water depth when we arrived was only 6 foot in the whole bay. we arrived at High tide so, although with our draft of 3.8 feet we could have stayed all night (tide range is around 2 feet) I decided in the end to move for a better nights sleep.
Just as soon as the anchor was down at SW Allen’s (actually even before the anchor was down in Pats case) everyone was swimming around the boat in the warm clear Bahamian water. Everyone swam ashore and looked at the species of iguanas that are only native to these 3 little islands.
Once they were all done swimming and snorkeling around the bay, we moved the boat over by Leaf Cay, just across the way. We threw the kayaks in the water and Steve and Debbie went exploring while Wade and Dylan paddled over to a local Conch fisherman’s boat and bartered for some fresh conch. They bought 3 HUGE cleaned conch for a couple bucks each and brought them back to me.
I made Captain Tofer’s Cracked Conch to munch on with Margaritas as sundowners. Later on Wade BBQed up some Ribs and chicken with Asparagus and rice for supper.
What a GREAT DAY!
RECIPE: Captain Tofer’s Cracked Conch
1. Take cleaned conch, cut off the claw and cut the rest in strips about 1/2 inch wide.
Rinse conch in fresh water and put it all in a large zip lock bag. Push all of the air out of the bag. Wrap the bag in a hand towel and beat it with a hammer until your arm hurts. Switch arms and repeat.
Crush ritz crackers into a powder and put in a small cake pan.
Crush a small bag of flavored potato chips. Mix with the crushed ritz crackers.
Crush and finely chop 2 cloves of garlic and add in a large frying pan to 1/4 inch of
Olive oil in the bottom of the pan. Heat the oil and garlic until the boat smells
AWESOME.
Rub olive oil on the cracked hammered conch liberally and roll it in the ritz cracker
mix.
Throw it all in the frying pan and cover, stirring occasionally until the conch is tender
and cooked through.
EAT WHILE IT”S HOT! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
Cracking Conch,
Captain Tofer, Dylan, Wade, Pat, Steve and Debbie
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