Wednesday – Peter's Island and Marina Cay

This morning we slept in a bit until our captain woke us with a light breakfast --- yogurt with granola, toasted bagels, cream cheese, lox, capers, slivered red onion slice, fresh fruit and the all important coffee. Shortly after breakfast, we boarded the dinghy and Captain Allan delivered us to Peter’s Island, accessible only by jumping from the dinghy into knee-deep water.

Perfect beach, palm trees, lounge chairs, sun, blue blue water and lots of sun. We swam for a few minutes, relaxed in the lounge chairs, walked the beach looking for shells, and explored the tide pools, then into the water again and back to the chairs. The water is SO blue and so many colors of blue. I can’t seem to get tired of looking at it.

After an hour or two, Captain Allan returned to take us back to the boat for lunch (shrimp salad, with kalamata olives, and sun-dried tomatoes with warm French bread). Soon after lunch we started off to our next mooring field: Marina Cay.

The trip ended up taking us a little longer than expected so rather than snorkel, we sunned some more, then headed out via dinghy to Marina Cay for the local show and dinner. The night’s show was a guy named Michael Bean. Michael has been a street performer for over 30 years, and in addition to performing at local spots in these islands still does some street performing during the off-season. He’s a folksy singer, playing guitar, harmonica, stomp board and squeezebox --- everything from pirate songs to Van Morrision. The "theme" of the show is pirate-y (arrgh is the phrase of the night) and very entertaining. Each table gets maracas and the audience is encouraged to participate, both by singing along and by contributing toasts during the break.

Each person who gets up and does a toast gets a shot of Pusser’s rum, and the person who is asked to deliver the rum to that participant also gets a shot of rum. At the end of the show, after the gratuity jar is passed around, there’s a conch-blowing contest.

Each table elects a conch-blower, each designated blower is asked to come to the stage and are asked one by one to blow the conch. In this contest, tone and volume are not important ---- the audience counts out how many seconds you can keep your tone going until you run out of breath. The winner is "knighted" and receives a bottle of Pusser’s rum.

I got elected from our table and went up with five other participants, young and old, for the "blow-off". I felt like I may have had an unfair advantage --- we used to call Jason home for dinner with a conch shell oh, so many years ago.

I was selected to go first and went for 34 seconds. The young 20-something girl went next. . . a mere 9 seconds. Nigel was next, but managed only 17 or so seconds. Another 20-something, this time male, managed only 4 or 5 seconds. The last contestant immediately conceded defeat, but did blow reveille.

So, I was knighted Queen Conch Blower by Michael Bean, the former street performer, was asked to do a victory dance and walked away with a bottle of Pusser’s.

I insisted that Scott get up and give the toast he had created (all about hockey and Sharks) which brought groans of agony from the Canadian table across the room, but Scott’s toast was awesome.
We left; laughing and congratulating each other, for dinner at the restaurant, which was next door. Several groups noticed the rum bottle on the table and asked who the champion conch blower was, and another table also heralded me on my way back from the restroom.

The dinner was outstanding --- conch fritters (we’re rating the best fritters on the islands) and fresh sea scallops. Too full for dessert, especially after the painkiller shot we had to drink in order to get the souvenir shotglass. Painkiller Shot --- very aptly named.

Back to the dinghy, back to the boat and off to another adventure and snorkeling tomorrow. Hoping to be able to make an internet connection somewhere.