Rudder Cay and a Bahamian meal
We left Staniel Cay New Years Day. It was dead calm and we
ran the engine, a necessity anyway, as we needed to charge our batteries and
make water.
The weather report had a developing, strong low-pressure
system in the forecast and we decided to set our course for Pond at Rudder Cut
Cay, 20 miles south. The Pond offered great all round protection and turned out
to be the perfect place for us to hang out for a few days.
Like many Bahamian
islands Rudder Cay had and interesting history, involving tax evasion, a prison
sentence and an abandoned mansion. An
extensive system of partly overgrown roads crisscrossed the two and a half mile
long island, from the broken down boat landing by the Pond, to the airstrip in
the north to the former mansion at the highest point, to four beautiful beaches
on the western and southern shore.
It felt good to tie on our hiking shoes, take some long
walks and explore.
Having some free time on our hands we decided to create a
Bahamian meal from scratch. It turned in to a two-day process.
Here is Bills description of how it all went down:
“As with any good
meal, good ingredients are the key. So
started our preparations by walking across ‘our’ deserted island to a lovely
beach with coconut palms, in search in search of coconuts. We found them, but unfortunately these happened
to grow at the top of very tall trees.
It required attempting several techniques to acquire them (Note to self:
don’t climb up a coconut tree without figuring out how to climb down
first). Throwing rocks at them seemed
primitive at the time, but hey, it worked.
It turns out opening them is not as easy at it appears on TV; it
required a hatchet, saw and quite a bit of effort (second note to self;
coconuts are almost as hard as rocks).
Next, it
was time to go ‘conching’. This peculiar
Bahamian activity works best at low tide, and entailed getting 3 people in a
small dinghy, paddling around in the lagoon shallows and plucking these
beautiful, giant crustaceans from the bottom (preferably without falling in or
getting your shorts wet). Cleaning them
is quite a chore (they are also ‘hard as rocks’), and requires beating a hole
in the top with a hammer and screwdriver, cutting loose the foot, trimming away
the non essentials (skin and incredible outer space type slime), and slicing
the meat.
Next it was
time for snapper. Conch trimmings happen
to be super bait, and that night, after noticing a big fish come up to ‘sniff’
a piece of lettuce tossed overboard, we threw out 2 lines and caught 2 very
fine mutton snappers in a matter of minutes.
(Believe me, that got our fishing confidence up, but despite a lovely
full moon night, and a full bottle of rum, we were unable to repeat this
performance).
Next the coconut were grated and roasted, and the conch
tenderized, battered and fried. We made coleslaw, rice and rum drinks. “
Finally it was time to serve our Bahamian meal. The wind
started roaring out of the northwest, the
barometer sank outside as our spirits rose aboard. We listened to Reggie, set the table and Bill
fried up the fish. The feast was served: coconut rice, coleslaw, fried conch
and mutton snapper all washed down with Kalik, a local beer. By 9 o’ clock every last bit of food was gone
and the north wind punched 40 knots. It was a good days work, or rather two.
Each time I hear or say “hard and a rock”, I will smile, as I imagine you all with coving and conch 😉
ReplyDeleteI wouldnt mind reserving a table with seaview at Bills restaurant :)
ReplyDelete