Spanish Wells

We are up at 5:00 AM and head out of Hatch Harbor at 6:15. Not an original idea, there are about 6 boats (Bright Ayes, Wind Lass, Tanda Tula, Lady Hawk, Slow Desire) heading out at the same time, trying to time Current Cut as close to possible to slack tide. Worst case, the current can run up to 8 knots, not bad if it and the wind is in your favor. We are trying to get through around low tide, 9:30 before the current will start running against us. Even then, the current is briefly 2 knots against us and almost 3 knots for boats 20 minutes behind going through the cut. We anchor on the southeast end of Russel Island close to Spanish Wells around 11:30AM.  

Interesting boatyard on the harbor road.  They put up detour signs for the cars when the road section is lifted out

Road cross over marine railway

Road section lifted out of the way of marine rail

I love the graphic on the building showing the two owners

 

After lunch we head ashore. Linda has a project. Cathy, who cuts our hair back in Vermont spent a lot of time here staying with friends of her parents when she was a child. She has lost contact and only remembers their first names. Skeptic that I am, I tell Linda there is no way you are going to find these people with just first names, why waste your time. We get to the dock and Linda walks up to the first person she sees, a fellow sitting in his golf cart (half the vehicles here are golf carts) by the docks and asks if he knows Ann & Herb. I roll my eyes, but he says of course, Herb died last year and Ann is doing well and is still working. Of course we now have a last name. He pulls out his cell phone and calls Ann and then hands his phone to Linda and drives off to park his golf cart and walks off saying just leave the phone on the front seat when we are done. Spanish Wells, a small fishing community of about 1600 people, where everybody knows everybody. Of the 1600 people here over half of them have the same last name, Pinder.

Linda and Ann

Anyways, Ann says she is done at work at 3:00 PM and to call her around then and she will come meet us. We call her at 3:00 and she finds us walking on Pinder Avenue. We have fun talking with her and getting her connected with Cathy via email.  

Jean, Linda and Tom

We tell her we are going to visit another couple from Rhode Island who have a cottage here, that we met two years ago, Tom & Jean. Ann says, I know them, hop on and I will drop you off at their cottage. Ann drives off and we visit with Tom & Jean.

We had planned on having dinner at The Shipyard restaurant on the water, with Wayne and Betty, but they are closed on Tuesdays. We decide to meet at 5:30 at Budda's, a unique eatery with a large open sided covered deck. The kitchen is an old school bus.

We get back to the boat after dark, again. When we leave the boat after noontime we turn on the mast light in case we don't get back before sunset, which happens frequently. I check our email and Cathy has emailed us a thank you, she and Ann have already been in touch. Come to think of it, I still don't know Ann's last name.