Dear Subscriber,
Victoria and I arrived back on Cat island a little over a week ago and now that we’re mostly settled in and our family is getting ready to depart tomorrow, I finally had a few spare moments to send this newsletter to everyone. First, it’s been hot! The various weather forecasting services say the average daily temp is 86 degrees Fahrenheit, but it’s been more like 96 every day with overnight lows of only 78 to 80. Gratefully we’ve had some cooler days and patches of rain (summer squalls) a few times already since we arrived. The biggest issue has been electricity. It was out when we arrived and stayed off for a few hours. It went out everyday for the first five days we were here and it’s now been a little more stable the past few days. The power plant in The Cove just can’t keep up with demand. The Bahamian news reported the Minister of Works fired the entire BPL board earlier this month as the problems we have on Cat are occurring throughout the Bahamas. Ah, life in paradise is not without it’s challenges.
We also learned that many of the smaller stores, like Yardie’s and C&S to the north, are closed until early September. Gratefully Betty’s store, H&W, is open as are the larger stores (Cindy’s Mt. Alvernia Foods and Michael’s Neighborhood Grocery both in Smith’s Bay as well as Candy’s New Bight Market) to the south.
The water temperature has been wonderfully warm, but not too warm, so cooling off in the ocean is still a pleasant experience. The beach is virtually empty, we’ve only seen one couple outside of Drage’s Sundance house, and I’ve talked briefly with Ned (who rescued Victoria’s new Chihuahua, Maggie, that ran down to PCBC) and with Miriam Donaldson.
We did the Man o’ War hike at Shannas Cove a few days ago, Frank and Gabby are gone until October, but the trail is still accessible. We saw a lot of banana spiders, which are big, in their webs strung at head height across the trail, as well as lots of smallish land crabs on the trail. The spiders are harmless, but freaked out our granddaughter, so we only went as far as the first beach just past the blue hole. From the beach we walked through the water to the cave just around the rock point to the right where there were hundreds of rat bats roosting, along with lots of crabs crawling on the rocks, both of which were interesting to see. For our return hike we decided to follow the beach and walk through the water back to Shannas Cove beach, a first for us and it was faster and easier than the trail through the bush.
Regarding hikes, I am adding a number of Cat Island hikes and maps to our website and will send another newsletter when those are ready. Thank you Mani for getting this started.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and we look forward to seeing you or hearing back sometime. Take care and stay safe wherever your travels take you.
Warm Regards,
James and Victoria Honeycutt
Lot 28