SAD DAYS ON PERSEPHONE

We are at Little Farmer's Cay on a mooring. This is a very remote island with 55 residents. This is too remote for any real tourism ..although there are a couple of rooms to rent over the restaurant; mostly for fishing enthusiasts. What the village (couple of buildings) lacks in size is more than made up by the beauty of the surrounding turquoise water and white, soft sandy beaches. This is the kind of place you would expect on a post card; and Persephone is set in the middle!!

We arrived just after noon yesterday, and put the outboard on the dinghy and set off for shore to buy some gas for the outboard; as we were down to about 1 gallon. (The pumps at Staniel were broken, and Black Point has no fuel of any kind) Well, we soon learned that a fuel barge crashed into the docks at the Farmer's Cay Yacht Club, and took out a BIG section of the docks, fuel pumps and associated pipes and wires. "Should be fixed in a couple of weeks, mon..." (Isand time, read months and months) So, no gas.....but as luck would have it, we ran into a local fisherman who said he would sell us a couple of gallons of gas ($5/gal)...I asked if he had any fresh grouper..."yes, mon....just caught, you want me to fillet it for ya". GREAT !! We sealed the deal for $20.00....our LAST bit of cash.

We went to shore to the restaurant (Ocean Cabins) who also runs the moorings. We wanted to get a cold one and pay the rental fee for the mooring. The owner bluntly stated he doesn't take plastic because "Cash is King". What do we do now....we have NO CASH, and the closest bank is 40 miles away....??

I have an idea !!! I bought a Tilly Hat (big, floppy brim thing...think Henry Fonda, On Golden Pond) to keep the sun off me....the instruction say, "put a $20 bill in the little pocket inside the hat so you always have $ available in an emergency". We raced back to the boat, tore open the screens, bounded down the stairs, grabbed THE HAT....Yes, there is CASH...two FIVE DOLLAR bills. ONLY TEN BUCKS !!! This cheap Irishman only put in $10 bucks instead of the suggested $20 ...How cheap can you get.....jerk (Alpha Hotel). T scrapes up a couple of dollars, we raid the laundry change and come up with about $20 bucks, which includes 2 of the gold dollar coins (they otta go over REAL big in the Bahamas !!) So, we may be bartering for the mooring, or borrowing some $ from our friends on Osprey. (The owner is still laughing when I suggested paying by check.)

Being otta cash raises the next MAJOR issue onboard: We are OUT OF BEER and WE CAN'T BUY BEER as we are otta cash...THE BOAT IS DRY !!!! Trudie can't stop weeping. May be the saddest day (week/month) in her adult life. This is worse than Haiti !! She just keeps shaking her head....with her tongue hanging out; mumbling about the good ole days, once being cute, having money and beer. She is in real rough shape, hope it's not terminal.

Due to the front rolling through this weekend, we can't leave until Monday; and it will be at least a couple of days after that until we get to George Town; where there are banks, ATMs, and BEER.

I'm sorry, I can't go on with this posting any further, I'm just too emotional over the state of affairs on Persephone, and frankly just too damn thirsty. Cough !!!