No we did not suffer an ecological disaster per se, but in my quest to refill the galley supplies for our impending trip stateside, I braved the foul weather yesterday to head into town and engage in hand to hand combat with the local populace for the remaining twelve cans of food in the Exuma market.
See, thanks to Christmas, New Years Day, Majority Rule Day (Bahamian Independence) and the generally shitty weather, we’ve only had one food freighter per week instead of the normal two for the last 24 days. This has resulted in a shortage of almost everything on the island. Restaurants are being forced to close as they have no food to serve their customers. It would almost be funny except for the restaurants that are attached to hotels. Those people are paying upwards of three grand a week to come to paradise and starve. Weak.
Anyway, I went in to town despite the weather conditions as I had heard a report on the VHF that a freighter had just reached and fresh produce was about to be put out at the market.
I arrived to find the typical locust style infestation/devastation already in progress, so I grabbed a hand trolley and joined the fray. It was a viscous, hard fought battle, but I scored almost everything on my list thanks to my Haitian connection and long time friend Nixon. A lot of Bahamians look down on the Haitians in a similar manner that some folks in the U.S. do to illegal Mexicans, but when fresh veggies are on the line, it pays to know the number one stock dude.
Anyway, getting back to the point, one of the items on my list was a gallon of cooking oil. No problem, they had about two hundred of them. I grabbed one, queued up, paid my bill and headed back to the dinghy. The weather was still mega rough and somehow on the ride back to the mother-ship, the cap came off my newly purchased oil. Unlike in the states where every liquid product has a foil safety seal, my ghetto style, out-island, no name, export only cooking oil did not. Instead I ended up with a dinghy full of one gallon of cooking oil. Shitty death indeed.
I managed to get back to Amy and the big boat and off loaded everything except the oil mess and a bottle of liquid dish soap. Once unloaded, I dinghied into shore and spent the next ninety minutes scrubbing the inside of my dinghy out. I drug the little boat up above the high tide line because I wasn’t certain about the legality of discharging cooking oil into the harbour. I suspect it’s a bad thing and as such I didn’t want to take the chance.
Anyhow, eventually I got the dinghy sort of clean and returned to the mother-ship still smelling slightly of French fries. I guess there are worse things. More to follow, end of line…