Dawn on Saturday, February 21

The anchorage had been fine with the last few days with both flopper stoppers out, but today the wind shifted back to its prevailing direction from the east, and the anchorage became super calm and very pleasant. In the early morning, we heard goats bleating from the shore. 

Every year, the cruisers and locals in Duncan Town (located on Ragged Island, the island directly south of Hog) worked together to put on a fundraiser for the community. We guess it was normally done near Valentine’s Day, but there had been a big event in Georgetown Valentine’s Day weekend that many cruisers attended, so they’d pushed the date back. A lot of boats had arrived in the anchorage over the last few days in anticipation of the fundraiser. This event was the reason that the locals had repaired the hut and the cruisers had created more shade.

Ever since we’d arrived, there’s been a daily announcement asking the cruisers to donate anything on our boats that we may not want. They emphasized that the locals have very limited access to goods, and that we’d be surprised at what they’d want. Things that we took for granted were valuable to them. One of the cruisers was in charge of the collection.

The event consisted of a buffet meal followed by an auction of the goods donated by the cruisers. The locals provided all the food for the meal, but they asked each cruiser to bring a side dish or dessert to help supplement the meal. The buffet was $25 per person, which was amazing value for the money in the Bahamas. You can’t even get an a la carte hamburger for $25! We were told that the food was abundant and really yummy.

Christi made cookies in the morning. We’d been told food service would start between 1200 and 1230. We went to shore a little after 1200 and they were already serving. Eric and Keith got in line.

The ladies serving up the food: goat curry, Bahamian mac and cheese, conch fritters, and chicken.

Here were a couple shots of people eating and socializing.

Then the auction began. Christi watched the auction. We’d been told earlier not bid against the locals. Since they had very limited access to goods, if they wanted it, let them have it. Some nice stuff was auctioned off and they raised quite a bit of money.

It did go on for a long time, though, and towards the end, they started bundling several items together to get through the auction faster. Eventually, when most people had lost interest, the auctioneer gave up and donated the remaining items to the Duncan Town community.

Eric and Keith didn’t watch the auction. Eric talked to lots of people, both cruisers and locals. Eric talked to one of the locals for a long time and got the scoop on the town. Currently, 55 people lived there; it used to be more like 75, but 20ish elderly people have died in the last 5 – 6 years and no one has moved in to replace them. There were five kids in the school. They did have an airport on the island, which had one regularly scheduled flight per week (though private charters could be booked).

Keith and the kids played from the minute they finished eating until sunset. They played volleyball for a little while.

But the vast majority of the time, they played on this floating platform.

After the auction, Christi went back to the boat to take a nap while the boys stayed onshore. She went back to shore around 1700 to get a little more socializing in before the sunset. Needless to say, after the long, very social day out in the sun, we were all pooped. We had a quiet evening aboard. The dusk was fiery!