A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back - America or bust... hmmmm, bust please

America or bust... hmmmm, bust please

A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back

Sam and Alex Fortescue

Thu 12 May 2011 02:27

25:04.54N

77:18.68W

You may be seeing us again sooner than you'd expected, dear reader; oh yes, but it's not all good news. The reasons for this are twofold.

First, the US embassy here in Nassau seems disinclined to introduce me to a consul, potentially putting an American visa out of my reach. And second, we were sternly interrogated by an officer of Her Majesty's Royal Bahamas Police after being seen loafing suspiciously near the US embassy in possession of a laptop. This may apparently mean that we're already on a 'most wanted' list - possibly sliding into the space vacated by Osama bin Laden after his recent demise - and could therefore soon be appearing on CNN.

The visa issue is a problem, because without it, we cannot go to the States. We're giving the embassy here until Friday to see sense and process my application, before we change our plans for a June return to Europe. In a reverse of the expected order of things, dotty Communist Cuba proved to be friendly and welcoming, while the leader of the free world is behaving like a tinpot dictatorship. The problem arises because the US embassy has decided that 'first time visa seekers' cannot be processed in Nassau. Unfortunately, this information is not made available until after the individual has spent at least a day filling in an application, then purchased a special $14 phone card to call an operator to make an appointment at the embassy. After taking your card details, they inform you that you are not eligible for a rendezvous.

Oddly enough, we're not that concerned. We've had a good run, and if we miss out on the states, we'll have more time for the Azores and even Ireland. We'll be really sad to miss Graham, and friends like Anna and Charles, but the prospect of going home is beginning to seem pretty attractive. Being perhaps too much of a 'give up, go home and put the kettle on' sort of a fellow, I'm becoming increasingly discouraged by the growing bureaucratic assault course between me and America. Maybe it's not supposed to happen...

In the meantime, and banishing any hint of a quivery upper lip, the Bahamas promise some stunning beaches, deserted islands, and mile after mile of shallow, turquoise water. On the way to Nassau we were able to anchor up in this shallow water on two separate nights, and spent a whole day chugging serenely through it. So clear and so shallow, in fact, that you can see the boat's shadow chasing us along the bottom. At times, the mirror-flat sea became invisible and it appeared as if Summer Song were being held off the bottom by nothing more than a cushion of air. Then we'd spot a barracuda flicking lazily away and the illusion would vanish. The skipper even spotted a largish nurse shark, accompanied by a retinue of small fish.

With nothing on the horizon but cloud, we spent a really magical night under a colossal starscape, and not a noise or a movement of the boat that wasn't produced by us. All we could hear was a gentle tinitis buzzing in our ears, like when you walk out of a noisy bar or club into the quiet night. Summer Song became a floating menagerie - a sort of Ark - for one day, as a succession of weary birds took a breather on the deck. Clearly fooled by the shallow water as well, they'd set off expecting to arrive shortly at a neighbouring island. We found one sad little beast curled up in rigor mortis on the foredeck, while a livelier cousin spent the day flitting between the cockpit and the cabin, before chirruping loudly for a minute and conking out for the night in a makeshift roost on the outboard motor. He woke us the following morning with a rusty solo, before flitting off ungratefully into the dawn.

Sunset over the Bimini Islands, on the edge of the bank