Posted 14 years ago
bahamaboy
(224 items)
Well Toyman, this is a tag I took off a wrecked car in a junk yard on the island of Eleuthera Bahamas. This very "outer most island" of the Bahama chain is 90 miles long, two miles wide at its widest point and as narrow as a two lane road at its narrowest. There are probably less than a thousand men, women & children on the entire island and maybe 150 cars that run. Very poor, very rural. No hotels, or casinos or tourist attractions. Was a pirate hangout back in the day (still kinda is today) Rooms at "rat haven" were $2 bucks a night and hardly anything any better in Gregory Town. No hot water etc. I chose to live in a cave in the cliffs near the beach (two miles from town & drink) and had a tire rim for a grill and my trusty "Wok". (never leave home without it) To get a shower in other than salt water, one had to get back to town before dark and use the hose hooked up to a spigot that was strung up through a pigeon plum tree at rat haven and stand on the wood pallet provided.(by the owner of rat haven) Anyway the waves are always good in the winter and my lucky day for leaving the states was Jan 5th. Each time I left on that date we had great waves the entire time. I've hitchhiked to Miami and taken the "mail boat" over, I've flown in a private plane belonging to a friend, and I've taken "Bahamascare" (actually Bahamasair but the way those engines smoked & spewed fire, when they cranked up that "Tarzan plane" DC-3, you were lying if you weren't scared) I've stayed as little as a weekend and as long as nine months but most trips down were for 6-8 weeks. (11 years/winters in a row) This tag caught my eye in 1979 because this is my birth year (1954) and I had to have it. I checked. It was alright... After all it was on a part of a junk rusted car. Kinda neat when an island is so sparsely populated that you see tags just barely into 3-digits. They do have a Club Med near the very south end of the island at Governors Harbor but that was outta the league of a few surf bums. We did go down there a couple times in search of, but never stayed there. Had a "blast" while there, met some very nice ladies, but had to get back to the break. I guess this is my rambling, round about way, of saying this is how my "handle" came to be. So that's my story and I'm stickin to it.
