April 25-29
What an event. Traditional Bahamian sailing skiffs with huge masts and booms for enormous sails begin arriving by freighters and under tow for days before the event begins, from Islands from all over the Bahamas . Georgetown is a clammer of hammers as food and drink shacks are thrown up in every available space. The food shacks had things on the menu like sheep's tongue, and goat, We stuck to conch salad and jerk chicken. The racing takes place over a 3-4 day period and in between races and into the night, people drink. Goombay Smashes, rum punches, and more deadly sounding concoctions. By the evening people are beginning to be stumbling drunk. We didn't stick around to see how wild it got. And the women are decked out for trouble. The "live" music is called rake & scrape, (I kept seeing signs outside restaurants for rake and scrape night and I thought it was the name of a dish on the menue!) is really a dj playing music with a preformer talking, not rapping, over it all with a mike.
At the beginning of each race all boats are lined up, anchored on the starting line, with sails down. At the shot from a very loud cannon, anchors and sails come up, and off they go with a flotilla of dinghies and motorboats in tow; following the lead boats and clustered around the next turn. Some of the finishes were spectacular. I took over 500 pictures of the racing (the boats are absolutely beautiful, I couldn't stop adding more pictures) and the people scene as well. Below is a sampling of what all caught my eye. It was definitely an experience where we felt like the outsiders looking in.
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| The lubricant of choice for the whole regatta |
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| girls, girls and more girls |
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| Add caption |
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| Rake and scrape superstar |
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| police band in parade |
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| school band |
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| boats arriving from out islands |
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| hoisting sales |
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| the race begins |
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| the race is on |
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| human ballast |
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| very close finish |
At the beginning of each race all boats are lined up, anchored on the starting line, with sails down. At the shot from a very loud cannon, anchors and sails come up, and off they go with a flotilla of dinghies and motorboats in tow; following the lead boats and clustered around the next turn. Some of the finishes were spectacular. I took over 500 pictures of the racing (the boats are absolutely beautiful, I couldn't stop adding more pictures) and the people scene as well. Below is a sampling of what all caught my eye. It was definitely an experience where we felt like the outsiders looking in.
I so enjoyed this posting! When I lived in St Thomas, we would have called the party you experienced a "mash up". Keep having fun and dawdle back. Life is good out on the farm.
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