Our two days at Rum Cay turn into two weeks.  We all had the best time!!  We couldn’t get a weather window to sail and by waiting longer, Hurricane Dean showed up, so we decided this was the best place to be.  The marina has a pretty good hurricane hole so we weren’t worried.  We just took a break and enjoyed the island.  Dan stayed busy fixing Kathy and Bill’s computer problems and fixing the wireless internet at the marina.  Cathi and Melanie took me and the kids to beautiful North Beach to swim.  The evenings were filled with more fish dinners, much laughter and 3 Texas Hold’em poker nights.  Dan won the second place pot on the last night. 

By the second week we got smart and rented a four wheel drive golf cart.  We had a blast exploring the island.  The island is big, but only sparsely settled.  The Montana Group bought the marina and is building a new marina and a huge resort complex.  It is a very ambitious project and it will be interesting to see how far it goes.  There are so many rocky trails to explore by golf cart and you are rewarded with the most diverse, beautiful beaches.  They even have surfing!!  Scattered throughout the island are remains of the Loyalist plantations.  It is amazing to see the rock walls still holding up after all these years.  We really feel at home here.  Our day consists of stopping at Strachans for Gatorade or water and ice cream, taking the golf cart on back trails, stopping at Ocean View for cold drinks and TV and back to the docks for the fresh catch of the day. Dan became known as the “Crab Man”  for catching the largest land crab on the island.  He did it while on the electric golf cart that Bill and Kathy let us use.  He saw this huge crab crossing in front of him and he wanted to bring it back to show the kids.  He found a stick and got the crab to latch onto it, and then he threw him in the basket in the back of the golf cart.  Unbeknown to him, as he was driving the crab was crawling out of the basket and climbing up the back of the seat where he was sitting.  Luckily Andrews, the local policeman, drove up behind him.  He pulled Dan over, saving him from a very nasty set of pinchers!!  Andrews told him that was the biggest land crab he had ever seen.  He joked that he should arrest him for catching the island’s patriarch.  Luckily Andrews had a bucket in his car and he gave that to Dan to put the crab in.  After the kids all got a good look, Dan let Andrews have the crab to eat.  He was very happy and promised to bring peas and rice with crab in it to the dock the next night.    

The island people are very friendly, and on our third stop at Ocean View, Miss Ruby brings out cookies for us.  We love it here.  Marcia and Adrian do a great job running the marina and I feel bad for the long hours they work.  They are never too busy to stop and visit with you though!  Our last night there, Brian, Cathi’s husband picked us up to take us to Ocean View for Miss Ruby’s buffet.  Since his truck was small, the kids and I rode on the golfcart with Marcia and Adrian.  The buffet was a treat.  Curried grouper, Turtle Parmesan, roast beef, turkey, ham, barbeque chicken, crab salad, potato salad, fruit and coconut cake for desert.  It was a great way to end our stay.

Melanie and Glen left first to head to Nassau then back to Florida, and there were lots of tears as Melanie and I said goodbye.  They were so generous to invite us into their “family” and share their fish with us everyday.  We had some good talks, and Tessa and Chance became really good friends. We were very lucky to meet them.    The next night was more tears as I said goodbye to Marcia and Cathi.  They both have funny stories of living on the island, and kept me laughing. Cathi, don’t ever lose your island spirit!  Bill and Kathy had left a day earlier to go to

Nassau.  They were great to invite us and our kids to their house.  Kathy some great pictures of all of us, and shared some of her precious shell collection with Tessa.  Our kids thought they were great.   So did we.  We had some great times on the island and we will always be thankful for the hospitality, laughter, friendship and great food shared by all of them.