Well, the racing has come to a close. Red Stripe, from Black Point came out on top after a really lack-luster performance by the two Staniel Cay boats, Lady Muriel and Tida Wave. Personally I was glad to see someone other than the Staniel Cay boats win, but that opinion isn’t widely shared among the locals of Great Exuma.
There was a pretty dark incident reported yesterday. Vernon, a local Bahamian who drives one of the water taxis here in G’Town, apparently drove home drunk last night and hit and killed two Canadians that bought a villa up at Palm Bay about three months ago. I had only met them in passing, but by all reports they seemed like nice people.
The story circulating now is that Vernon hit them on the Queen’s highway around 9:30 last night. Unfortunately, instead of stopping to render assistance, he chose to run from the scene and later, the next day, while reconstructing what had happened, the police concluded that while the man died on impact, the woman lived for quite some time and only succumbed to her injuries 5 hours later once she had been found and transported to the local clinic.
Tensions are very high right now as both the ex-pat community and the local Bahamians wait to find out what is going to happen.
As it stands right now, Vernon is currently in jail awaiting arraignment, but it isn't entirely clear what the procedure is going forward and several people have reported that he will be released later today until his day in court comes.
In any case, it was a very sad ending to an otherwise wonderful event.
Find attached several photos from the 4 days of racing. More to follow, end of line …