Position: N24 05.978 W076 24.137
On Saturday, March 1st, the wind was out of the northeast. We slipped our mooring at Cambridge Cay and had a great sail down to Black Point Settlement, Great Guana Cay with about 20 knots of wind on the beam.
For cruisers the four biggest draws to Black Point are: Lorraine’s Cafe, the local cruiser’s hangout; the launderette, reputed to be the nicest in the Bahamas; free trash drop off, donation requested (as much as $5 / bag elsewhere); and free water (often $0.50 / gallon elsewhere). The last two weren’t such a big deal to us since the warden had taken our trash daily while we were volunteering at the park, and Rachel has a water maker allowing us to extract all the wonderful fresh water we need from the sea. But we did need to finally have a meal ashore, check our email, and do some laundry.
We got in at about 3:30 pm, dropped anchor, waited to make sure it was well set, and dinghied ashore to check things out. There was a funeral taking place on Staniel Cay, a nearby island, and many of the locals had gone to attend.
Our introduction to Lorraine’s was “She’s at the funeral. Grab a beer from the cooler, add your boat name to the tally sheet, keep your own tab, and settle up when you’re ready to leave. She’ll be back around 6”. We had a couple of beers and, after Lorraine returned, a delicious red snapper dinner.
She has added an Internet lounge to the side of her restaurant and provides free WiFi to all comers. After dinner she told us “I don’t open until noon on Sunday (after church), but I unlock the side door at 8 am for the cruisers so they can use the Internet. Just let yourself in and, if you eat or drink anything, keep a tab and we’ll settle up later.”
Mark stopped in on Sunday morning to use the Internet while Julie attended a local church service. Later in the afternoon we stopped by again and had a nice chat with Lorraine about the restaurant, the town, how basically honest people can be when given half a chance, and how the fabric of society seems much stronger in a small town.
On Monday our first priority was the launderette which was everything we had heard. A dinghy dock so we didn’t have to haul our laundry very far, lots of shiny clean machines, and the place was spotless. EVERYONE we have met comes to Black Point to do laundry and now we know why. The owner makes a sheet of carrot cake every morning, brings it in, and invariably sells out at a dollar a piece. She also has a small chandlery / hardware store set up in the office, and she’ll even give you a haircut while you wait.
While the laundry was washing, we went to Adderly’s Friendly Grocery to pick up a few things. Our total came to $22.45 but we only had a $100 bill. Ms. Adderly couldn’t make change this early in the day, so she said “Go on, take the groceries and stop in and pay me when you can.” We had already been granted a dollar credit at the launderette as we were a dollar short without change there, too. We finally got change from the post office. The postmistress broke our $100 bill to pay for $2.50 in stamps, chatting and being very understanding all the while. We then backtracked to pay our debts.
Lorraine’s mom’s name is ‘Lorraine’s Mum’ - we know this is her name because we overheard one cruiser ask her name and she replied “Lorraine’s Mum”. She bakes bread daily. We’d been hearing about how good her bread is from other cruisers and now was our chance to find out for ourselves. We ordered coconut bread and wheat rolls on Sunday evening and Mark dinghied in just before lunch on Monday to pick them up. She bakes in her home. Loaves of coconut, whole wheat, white, and raisin bread and whole wheat rolls sit cooling on her kitchen table, waiting for pickup. Heavenly, mouth-watering smells emanate from this kitchen. After paying it was difficult for Mark to tear himself away, but, remembering that Julie was anxiously awaiting him on Rachel, coupled with the prospect of a sandwich made on that still warm bread were enough. True to its reputation, the bread was delicious! We’re definitely going to order more to take with us when we leave.
Yesterday Lorraine was having a problem with one of her computers. Mark volunteered to spend a few hours taking it apart, cleaning all the connections, and getting it all ship shape. When it was working again and we were ready to leave, she gave us a head of lettuce as thanks. Fresh vegetables are like gold down here – they only come in once a week on the mail boat and it had been nearly a week. Our fresh vegetable stores were pretty low, so the big salad we had that evening was quite a welcome treat!
As usual we’ve spent most of the rest of our time walking the island and chatting with anyone we see, two of our favourite pastimes.
