Great Harbour....In Retrospect.....

We are now in Bimini as our last stop-over before heading back to Islamorada. But, I want to tell of our experience at Great Harbor in the Berry Islands. After we left Little Harbor in the Abacos we fished our way and made the run over to Great Harbor on Monday, about 75 miles. We arrived there around 5:00 p.m. and it is truly in the middle of nowhere! We began calling the marina as soon as we thought they were within VHF range...no answer. We continued to call as we approached and even gave them a call on our Bahamas cell phone. NOBODY HOME!!!! To make a really long story short....we just pulled in and I yelled at a young fellow cleaning fish and he told us there wasn't anybody around and we could just pull in anywhere. Now, mind you this is Monday of Memorial and obviously they don't give a hoot about Memorial Day weekend cause it was Deadsville! After we got settled we managed to find the bar (surprise..surprise)! It turned out to be a great little place and we ate fresh cracked conch and had rum (surprise ..surprise AGAIN)! The next morning when someone did finally show up at the office we checked in and I asked about internet access. She told us to walk down about 100 yards past the bar and there is a chair sitting by the phone booth next to a vacant building.....you can get the internet there she thinks! I asked if we needed a password to get on and she just laughed and said, "No. We don't even know really where the signal is coming from but I've been told you can get on the internet there." Sure enough we made our way down there to check e-mail and IT WORKED!!!! We opted to bypass any posts to our blog while in Great Harbor since you kind of had to balance the laptop on your lap and hold your mouth just right in order to get a signal. I suggested we just wait until we get to Bimini and catch up on everything here. Well, surprise, surprise! When we got all hooked up at the marina and asked about internet access we were told it was down AND had been for a couple of days AND didn't know when it would be working again AND if we really needed to get on we could walk down about a mile to the Batelco office and could probably get on there!!!!! I about had a MELTDOWN!!!!
The internet is obviously working today and we had a good day.....much more later.....catch you on the flip flop!

ACJM