Happy 4th of July!! Today was the first day of the Abaco Regatta. We watched Fine Line race for awhile before we headed to anchor off of Green Turtle. The Stranded Naked boat was there. The Dads and kids had a great time diving for starfish and seabiscuits. It is amazing to see how far the kids can dive down!! We ate lunch at the Wrecking Tree. My fried chicken was delicious. After that we walked around Green Turtle showing Karon and Alan the town. We made a stop at Miss Emily’s Blue Bee Bar and had a Goombay Smash. They are so good!! Later that night we headed into town for the post regatta party. Each race is held at different islands in the Abacos. After the race, there is a post race party with food and free alcohol. We met up with Makai, Sanddollar and Fine Line. Fine Line won 3rd place in the cruising class!! In that same race, 2 cruising boats collided, a catamaran and a big monohull. We saw the catamaran later and it suffered a lot of damage! We never saw the other boat but the owner of the catamaran said the monohull barely had a scratch. I felt so bad for the guy. He had to sail it back to Florida to get it fixed. It didn’t look that safe. I hope he made it ok.
The party on Green Turtle was fun. We had some great barbeque, free Corona, and this wicked drink in a bucket called Pirate Punch. Of course it was free too. I could really get used to free alcohol! Actually I couldn’t as that Pirate Punch was really too much! We made it back to the boat later and enjoyed some great laughs with our friends.
It is the start of the Abaco Regatta. The official kickoff party is the Stranded Naked Cheeseburger in Paradise party on Fiddle Cay. During the rest of the year, this very small Cay is deserted. But on July 3, people come from all over to enjoy free cheeseburgers and hot dogs, free fries, free margaritas and free rum drinks. As much as you can stand! Jimmy Buffet music blares from the speakers. Our kids sailed the small sailboat in the harbor. It was great fun! Bobb Henderson is the host. He has been throwing this party for several years for no particular reason except that he is a big Jimmy Buffet fan. Kathy and Fred from Makai were there as were Steve and Anne with their daughter Dana on Fine Line, Clint and Diane and their boys Noah and Cody on Sanddollar. I had organized a cocktail hour on the beach at Coco Bay the night before, and Karon and Alan got to meet everyone we had been talking about.
The party lasted from 11:00 until about 7:00. We had some rain at the beginning, but by the afternoon, the clouds lifted and the weather was beautiful, if not hot. By the end they ran out of mixers for the tequila and rum and started giving bottles of alcohol away!! Fred went up to get a drink and instead came back with 2 bottles of rum. Later as I was walking back to the dinghy I found a full bottle of rum near our boat. Apparently Fred had put one in his pocket and lost it. Kathy gave the kids, Karon and I a ride back to our boat in her dinghy. That night back on Alegria, MOST of us enjoyed the spaghetti supper I made.
We decided to dinghy over and check out how the set up was going for the stranded naked party the next day. The kids did a little snorkeling. The water near the beach is very shallow, about a foot deep. As we were walking, Karon spotted something in the water she thought was a rope. When she looked closer she saw the spots on it and realized it was some kind of eel or snake. We were able to get pretty close to it and I took some pictures. Soon it disappeared in a hole in the sand. The sand here had a lot of these holes so I am sure there were many more where this one came from. It had the body of a snake but the head of an eel. I am not sure what it was.
