On 5/25/2010 8:28 AM, Frogwatch wrote:
On May 25, 10:55 am, wrote:
On May 25, 8:50 am, wrote:



On May 24, 11:45 pm, wrote:

On May 24, 1:14 pm, wrote:

On May 24, 1:00 pm, wrote:

On May 24, 9:18 am, wrote:

My lack of a water pump belt at West End in the Bahamas required I
spend an entire day getting said belt from Freeport. Most boats at
West End are bizaaro expensive and they would be willinbg to pay
nearly anything to get their parts quickly.
So...someone start a part delivery business from Freeport to any
isolated marina in Grand Bahama Island..
At West End there is no store for fishermen although fishing is THE
major industry there. Someone needs to start a store next to the
marina at West End selling stuff just for fishermen.

Getting rid of conch shells is a problem on GBI. So, bring thousands
of them to the USA and sell them for $1 each. Use a band saw to cut
off the spiral portion at the end and mount them onto flat coconut
husk pieces as coasters.

Dude! I apreciate reading about your adventures, but why did the belt
blow off? if something out-of-the-blue happened, to it I can accept
that, but if it was crusty and shot tobegin with, then why didn't you
check it out before you left?

I'm not questioning your MO, but before I took a trip like that I'd
look some stuff over a bit better

Belt did NOT blow off or even fail. It probably would have continued
to work indefinitely but it did have a thinner spot so ti seemed best
to replace it. I also had an old used one aboard I could have used.
What caused the pump to loosen was the extreme choppiness in the Gulf
Stream.

Stateside, that belt would have cost you maybe 12 bucks? how much was
the new belt there?

$6.76 or if you count that bus fare too, $20.76- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

That's cheaper than I thought. minus bus fare, of course.

My bus fare gave me an very interesting tour of the island courtesy of
the driver who was proud to show me around when I was the last person
on the bus. I learned a lot from him that I have verified on the
internet. For example, they do not have income or sales tax. The
govt is financed via import duties that are an average of 35%. This
means that if one can make goods in the bahamas from components made
there then you can already be ahead 35%. Unfortunately, the market is
small. Grand Bahama Island has only 56,000 people and the whole
Bahamas has only 470,000 people.
The people of the bahamas are almost entirely black and they are much
darker than an American black person. They are also very religious
and seem to have more churches/ person than the American deep south.
At one point, I was asking what the owner of the boatyard looked like
and was told "He a Conchy Joe fella" and I later learned that meant a
white Bahamian although in fact he was darker than most American
blacks and has "black" hair, obviously mixed race.I never did find out
if "Conchy Joe" is a perjorative.
Many people seem poor but food is abundant because of the ocean and
because many interesting fruits grow wild. We constantly heard about
Sea Grapes and Coco plums and although we found a sea grape bush, it's
fruit was immature. We never found coco-plums. Coconuts were all
over. I did try a strange Tamarind sauce, it
was............interesting and so far no ill effects.
Being whiter than even the average American and my daughter being a
tall willowy redhead, she attracted attention and everybody was
amazingly friendly and I never felt threatened even by the most
extreme "Rasta" looking guys, they all wanted to talk.
We stopped in Freeport on a cruise one New Years. Amazingly friendly
people. Most of the passengers, seemed to be standoffish, or scared of
black people. I had a great time talking to the locals. Bought one of
favorite shirts there.