Jess woke up at 8:00 am to a sunny room and a crowing rooster. (Actually, he'd been crowing since before dawn and waking us up periodically.) She awoke Jer, who dragged himself out of bed and set to making breakfast, while Jess wrote in this journal. After a feast of eggs, bacon, cinnamon raisin toast and tea, we got dressed and headed to Momzanne and Penny's.
Even though it was rather windy, with fairly rough surf, we decided to go in the water anyway. We put on our masks and snorkels and walked out into the water. If felt cold at first, but even Jess soon got used to it and realized it was quite warm. We splashed around a bit, but it was too rough to really practice snorkeling. Jess got swept over by a big wave and went under, only to discover that she was using her snorkel to breathe. She also got a big sand burn on her thigh from falling when a wave hit her, and decided to walk along the beach with Momzanne while she recovered.
Jer, on the other hand, could not resist the siren song of the sea, and headed out deeper. Fighting past the breakers was a challenge, but once out a bit it was calm and relaxing. Jess and Momzanne were less relaxed, though, as they could only see him from time to time. Seeing their distress, he headed back. The sea is a harsh mistress, though. He got caught in a particularly harsh breaker and tumbled a bit. He managed to hold on to his snorkle with his teeth and hand, but his mask was lost to the sea. He tried searching a bit, but it was impossible to see anything in the sandy water, and the search was fruitless.
Even so, Jer could still not resist the ocean, so he gave Jess his snorkle and ran back in. Fighting past the breakers was harder this time, and when he got out, the sea was still a little rough. He started to get a little tired and a little scared. Fighting his way back in was quite difficult, and he was quite tired by the time he staggered onto the beach. It was at that point that he realized that he had been surrounded on 3 sides by reef, and had been in a more precarious situation than he had realized. Also, he had a couple big handfuls of sand in his trunks.
We headed back up to Momzanne and Penny's cottage to rinse off; Jer made do with the outdoor shower, but Jess needed to use the indoor one to get rid of the sand that had worked its way into her suit. Once rinsed, we sat around and chatted with our hostesses a bit, before they kindly offered us the use of their rented golf cart. After a very quick lesson, we were off.
We headed back to our cottage, and our landlady stopped by to apologize for our last-minute change of accommodations (it turns out she accidentally double-booked the apartment). We assured her that it was fine, but she offered to return some of our rental fee (to which we readily agreed). Then we walked across the street to Ma Ruby's at Tingum Village for lunch. We both ordered the specialty of the house, Cheeseburgers in Paradise. They were juicy burgers served on thick white toast -- while not the best we'd ever had, they were very tasty. We talked about US politics with the Bahamian guy at the next table, who seemed to support Hillary over Obama.
After lunch, Jer drove us into the edge of town, where we parked and got out to wander. We stopped into the tourist office and got directions to the telecom office to see about getting a SIM card. Then we walked past a number of sights (St. Johns church; the government dock, where our water taxi had landed; Loyalist Cottage, the oldest house on the island, built in 1797; the fisherman's dock, etc.). Sadly, the famed conch salad stall, Queen Conch, was closed.
After determining that cell phone service was too pricey ($15 for the SIM card, plus $0.40/min. for local calls), we continued our walk. We stopped by Arthur's Bakery in hopes of collecting our refund, but the Arthurs weren't around (though we got to see a hen and four chicks in their yard). Next, we decided to drive out to Ocean Fox dive shop to ask about kayaking and snorkeling trips, and to see about buying Jer a new mask. The marina is outside of town, on a concrete road that used to be a landing strip. Given how rutted it is now, it's hard to imagine landing a plane on it safely! Still, it's fine for golf carts. At the dive shop we met Gersh, the diving instructor, who told us it had been too windy for scuba, snorkeling and kayaking lately, but we could call in the morning and find out if kayaking was a possibility (his boat was booked up for private parties of scuba divers and snorkelers).
We decided to explore the island a bit more, so we drove past town and out to a public access to the pink sand beach. We parked our cart, took off our shoes and started strolling down the beach. Before we'd gone too far, we spotted a familiar figure: Momzanne was walking toward us. We joined her and the three of us wandered along, looking at the large, expensive homes on the little bluff overlooking the beach. The tide started to come in, and a couple of particularly large waves came up and got us wet to the waists. (Momzanne was wearing a bathing suit, but we were wearing beach clothes.) We all laughed (even Jess, who hates wearing wet clothes). While Momzanne continued her walk, we returned to the cart.
Jer wanted to stop by the island's other dive shop, Valentine's. He put our names down for their Friday snorkeling trip (weather permitting) and determined that he'd buy his new mask at Ocean Fox, as Valentine's were more expensive. We then headed back to our cottage and hung our wet clothes to dry. After changing into dry clothes and relaxing a bit, we drove to Momzanne and Penny's. We all decided to head down to the marina and have a drink at the new Italian restaurant, Acqua Pazza. The wind had died down somewhat, and it was nice to sit outside, watching the boater's children play and sipping our drinks (Penny had a G&T, Momzanne had rum, Jer had a margarita and Jess had rum punch - as the power had gone out again, she couldn't get a frozen dacquiri).
When the restaurant started to fill for dinner, we headed back to Momzanne and Penny's cottage. Surprisingly, the power was still out, but we were lucky, in that their cottage had a gas stove. Momzanne made us African peanut stew over rice, which was tasty (even Jess finished hers, and she's not a huge fan of savory peanut dishes). The moon came out and was nearly full, casting a pale glow over the beach and the caps of the waves. It was lovely, and we stood outside admiring it for a bit. Then Momzanne announced that it was bedtime, so we said goodnight and strolled back to our cottage and crawled into bed.