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Stories From Abaco

A Bahamian Bedtime Story (From the Abaco Message Board
Happy Hour
Junior Roberts' VW Bus
RB and the Lobsterman
Mr. Key and the Sales Tax
Six Stranded Sailors

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When "Nick" still ran the Jib Room Marina and restaurant we stopped by, attracted by a sign that said "HAPPY HOUR - ONE DOLLAR".  Thirsty, and seeking a bargain, we bellied up to the bar.  There, Charlie, the bar tender and man of all trades greeted us. "Happy hour, a dollar?" We asked..."You mean a dollar a drink?" "Heck, no," replied Charlie ..." It's happy HOUR, that means a dollar an HOUR!"

I'd been on vacation at my usual hangout, a spot in the Abacos, in the northeast part of the Bahamas.

Pete's Pub is a beachfront thatched hut, decorated with flotsam and jetsam, old fishing lures, items salvaged from wrecks, and bent bronze propellers. He spent nothing on all this atmosphere, it just washed up on the beach in the forty years he's lived there. While sipping my Goombay Smash, I surveyed the relics. New this year was a rusted VW emblem from the front of an ancient split window VW bus, nailed to a support post made from a casuarina tree. I asked Pete about the provinance. "It came from Junior Roberts' old bus, the one he used as a taxi. After Junior died, Kenniston bought it as a storage shed, parked it near his house in the scrub, and gave me the emblem. A little different, but it fits right in, don't you think?"

I'm always on the lookout for interesting VW buses. I drove a split window VW Microbus in college, and today drive a highly evolved descendant, a VW Vanagon . My thoughts shifted. A stripped splittie, abandoned after years of abuse in the tropics, sitting a hundred feet downwind from the Atlantic. No doubt a salty, rusty mess. I salivated at the prospects of a major coup: a significant contribution to the Hall of Shame, a web page featuring VW buses that have suffered the worst of fates: rust, neglect and even more rust.

Kenniston was off the island, and I did not realize how involved the search would be. The next morning I walked down to his place, a stone and driftwood cottage built with a lot of imagination, little money, and breathtaking views of the ocean breaking over the Boilers, a huge coral reef. The splittie was not obvious. I marched through the palmetto and poisonwood scrub, systematically looking for the hulk. There were orchids, bromeliads, and hermit crabs. But no bus.

About then Ken walked by. I asked if he had seen the splittie. "Yeah, it was right by the path. Such an eyesore! We shamed him into hauling it off; try talking to Bobby."

More detective work, and I already had my suspicions. Bobby had the only boat in the harbor big enough to carry a car, the Michael John. "Yup, " he confirmed, "we took it into the Bight. Its in about twelve feet of water, just east of Goolie Cay."

Now, Goolie Cay is really just a rock, I thought, and the bus should be easy to find. But underwater photography was not a possibility; there would be no entrada to the Hall of Shame. Still, I felt committed to continue. In the next morning's calm, I took my dinghy back into the Bight of Old Robinson, a large, shallow bay surrounded with mangrove and bonefish flats. Even before I got to the rock, I saw a pale rectangular shape below. I anchored, put on mask and flippers, and dove.

It was the splittie, and I remembered seeing it at the airport many years ago. A late hardtop deluxe, painted a vaquely fleshy pink, Junior's tropical inclination. Now it was lying on its side, and on the front door I could still read "Taxi 18". It was sad. Like its old owner, this bus had passed on.

I swam over to look at the undercarriage, wondering if Kenniston had bothered to remove the engine. It was still there. Then some movement caught my eye. In the dark of wheelwells, against the sand, I saw antennae. Longusta, spiny lobster, whatever, in the Bahamas we call them crayfish, and they were everywhere. I went back up to the dinghy, and got my gloves and diving bag. I took the six biggest.

It was March 31, the last day of the lobster season. We ate well that night, and toasted Junior.

• The Syncro Westfalia Page
• Tom Forhan's Home Page
• By permission,Thomas F. Forhan (tforhan@usa.pipeline.com)

When you see the lobster prices here you'll know this didn't happen yesterday.

We were anchored out one evening when a lobster fisherman pulled alongside with the bottom of his skiff covered in fresh lobsters.

My buddy RB McPhail asked "How much per lobster?"

Reply "Dolla apiece"

"You pick them or I pick them?"

"I pick 'em"

RB thought a minute, "I'll give you a dollar and a half if you'll let me pick them"

Long pause while the lobsterman thought that over.

"OK, you pick 'em"

RB grabbed a bucket and jumped down in the skiff and went to work.

The lobsterman watched RB for a moment, then - Slap! - he hit RB on the arm

"Mon, you jus pickin the big ones!"

When Treasure Cay started there were no stores and especially there was no bakery. The road to Marsh Harbour was absolutely dreadful, so when you went that way you would try to shop for as many friends as possible.

Key's Bakery was the nearest thing to a commercial bakery as there was in Marsh Harbour. Wonderful bread, but as you may know, any of the bread baked on Abaco is wonderful. The main thing is that you could buy a dozen loaves or more at Key's where the home bakers could usually supply only two or three at a time.

But there was a little problem at Mr. Key's, he didn't want anyone reselling his bread. So to get a dozen loves you had to say "two for the Durrells, two for the Hornbeaks, two for the Fraziers, two for the Montegues, and two for us". Then he'd wrap a dozen loaves.

This time I had my friend Tommy Sheehan from Savannah with me and Tom had noted a story in the Nassau newspaper about the government's considering a national Sales Tax as a means of raising revenue. While Mr. Key was wrapping the bread Tom asked him what he thought about the idea of a sales tax.

Mr Key turned to us. He was a small man, but he swelled up, his face turned red, and he simply exploded:

"A Sales Tax! ...A Sales Tax!... A Man Would Have To Keep a Proper Set of Books!!"

A couple of February's ago we had a spell of miserable weather that finally ended with an absolutely gorgeous day, calm and sunny, more like summer even than spring.

We had taken the skiff to Green Turtle for lunch and were coming home to Treasure Cay late in the afternoon.

There is a little cay off the end of the beach at Treasure Cay we call Sunrise Cay. As we came by I glanced over and there on the cay were six people, three men, three women, absolutely naked, with one of the girls waving a beach towel.

To make a long story shorter, there was a newspaper story about the event that quoted me as saying "there was something about that group that caught my eye, I hoped I might be of service".

Turns out the couples had been weathered in at the TC marina on a chartered yacht. With the break in the weather they rented one of Mark Carroll's Hobie Cats off the beach. On the Hobie they decided to enjoy the sun to the fullest extent possible. Then they stopped at Sunrise Cay to do some beachcombing.

After they had walked around the cay they discovered that the tide was rising and they hadn't pulled the Hobie up far enough - it was a mile away sailing toward Don't Rock with all their clothes.

Anyway we took one couple aboard the skiff, chased down the Hobie, and all ended happily.

We are a little short of news out here, so when word got around, the local newspaper featured the event in a story entitled "Vigilant Captain Saves Stranded Sailors".

I ran into the captain of the chartered yacht up in Marsh Harbour after the paper came out and asked him if he'd seen the article and if he'd mailed it up to New Berne to his charter party.

He laughed and said that he hadn't mailed the article, he'd faxed it - to their doctors, lawyers, and preachers. He said that in five minutes the phone on the dock at Mango's was ringing off the hook.