Izzy and Jeff's Most Excellent Adventure: Heading Back to the Good Ol’ USA

Hi all…Ben here reminiscing about the Abacos,

I sure had fun in the warm islands of the Abacos with the clear water and soft sand beaches. There are just some things there that you don’t see anywhere else.

Like these:

Conch salad stands on the main street

and the piles of conch shells on the beaches.

“Hamburger” Sea Bean that floated across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa on the sea currents that Izzy now wears on a leather necklace.

Potcake dogs – the common mix breed here. The girls are usually friendly to me, but not so much the guys. Izzy says the guys are just jealous of my good looks.

This one is a puppy.

Elaborate “Junkanoo” outfits for the annual parade celebrating freedom.

The Bahamian festival of Junkanoo is a colorful parade of brightly costumed people gyrating and dancing to the rhythm of cowbells, drums and whistles. The parade is held every year on Boxing Day (Dec 26^th) and New Year’s Day, lasting from 2 am until dawn. Too bad we weren’t here for that! I just saw the costumes at Mangoes Marina restaurant.

Tattoo on Izzy’s shoulder… ya don’t see that anywhere else! She must have had a good time at Grabbers one night!

I’ll miss the music of the “Rake and Scrape” band at the Jib Room. They use a combination of an accordion, a drum and a carpenter’s saw scraped with a screw driver. Doesn’t sound like much from the description, but I was gettin’ down to the beat!

Speaking of “gettin’ down”, there was a Limbo guy there who managed to dance under a burning limbo pole and light his cigarette on the flame! I kept my tail far away from that!

I’m gonna miss the golf cart rides to the beach with Hank and Ann, too.

I took pictures of Hank and Ann,

and Izzy and Jeff.

Jeff told me not to worry, that they’ll take me back again next year for more of Tahiti Beach and Nippers.

So we got back on the “Izzy R” and headed across the Gulf Stream for the USA. The trip across to Florida was warm and sunny, and the sea was calm, so we didn’t have much rocking and rolling. While we were still in the shallow Bahama Banks, we passed over a few of those big “fish muds” that I told you about once before, where the water looks like someone poured a whole bunch of milk into the water.

Then when we got to the deep water of the Gulf Stream, about 10 miles off the coast of the Bahamas, we were called on the VHF radio by the Coast Guard who was out doing routine safety checks and boarding boats that were traveling back to the US.

They told us to maintain our speed and course, but they were going to come on board our boat to inspect us while we traveled. The big Coast Guard cutter came within a half a mile of the “Izzy R” and slid an inflatable boat out of its stern into the water. I think you can see sliding out it in this picture.

The inflatable boat had a big gun mounted on its bow and four guys in life jackets sitting inside. It came up along side our boat, pushing its big rubber bumpers against us. We kept moving at our regular speed of about 10 miles an hour, and two of the guys jumped onboard our boat!

I couldn’t believe it! Looked pretty scary even with our slow boat! I wonder if they ever miss and land in the water…

Here they are inside our boat talking with Jeff and Izzy. I was standing guard in case they tried to take over. They didn’t, and I guess we were ok because they left the same way they came…just jumped out of our boat in the rocking seas while we were cruising, and back into their big rubber boat.

By the end of the afternoon we were back in Florida heading up the Intracoastal waterway again…just like old times. Up ahead I could see some people out in the shallow water at low tide.

As we got closer I could see that it was a group of dogs and their people out playing in the water.

It reminded me of Tahiti Beach…I bet those dogs would have liked it better there where the water is so clear, and the sand is so white and soft.

Here's a picture of Hank and Ann's boat anchored with us at sunset, while Hank blows the sun down with his conch - just like in the Bahamas. Tonight he's playing a special tune just for me...
"Who Let the Dogs Out"