As all good sailors do, we had to go into Georgetown to kiss all the girls goodbye the night before we left for St. Croix.  Now it doesn’t take much to entertain an Island Wanderer so we took our funnel to town in hopes of finding new members for the FUNNEL ISLAND CLUB.

Yellow Bird, a local islander, placed the funnel neck in the front of his pants just as we showed him.  He then laid a quarter on his forehead to drop it in the funnel-best out of 5 tries wins-right?

When he closed his eyes and leaned his head back to aim and let the quarter fall into the funnel, all tried and true members of the funnel club, poured their drinks into the funnel.  Yellow bird immediately raced out of the Two Turtle Inn and disappeared down the street.  This was somewhat strange, but we continued trying to find new members of the Funnel Club.  After a short time, we saw Yellow Bird shyly peeking around the door.  I motioned him in, he said he was to embarrassed.  I asked him why-he said that when his quarter landed in the funnel, he was so excited he ‘wet his pants’.  He wanted to try again so, being the nice guys that we were, we let him.

We had a millionaire from Texas join the club that night.  Shelton joined on his 42’ trawler  “NoLease” along with his 27 guns and a 22’center console that he towed from Texas.  Shelton told his divorce attorney he would see him in 6 months to see how much money he had left.  Butlike any true Texan, he was making sure she wasn’t getting his gun collection, his boat or his wine collection.

We had anchored next to Shelton in the Bay along with about 25 other boats.  We we all got back aboard his boat around 2:30 am, we had to see his gun collection.  We also decided to test fire all of his 27 guns at bear cans floating in the water.  (I liked the WWII Thompson submachine gun the best but the automatic shotgun was a blast).  The next morning at daybreak, we were surprised to to find that we were the only boats left in the anchorage (go figure).

3 days later, south of Long Island, we dropped anchor in a harbor along with Shelton.  It didn’t take but a few minutes and we heard on the radio “there goes the neighborhood”.  We weren’t sure if they were talking about us until they said something about the ‘Apple Dumpling Gang” and a midnight shootout at Red Hook Bay. Yes, things do get a little crazy in the Islands, but one thing you will never see is a MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC.

Next stop  Mayaguana Island and wouldn’t you know it, we have a full freezer and we hook a 60lb wahoo. The cruising guide tells you two things about this island: 

1. Pirates still work the area so stand guard on board at night. 
2. A native named Reggie is the unofficial mayor of this abandoned WWII fuel dump (pop 75).

Now who would you rather give your fish to?  We got Reggie on the VHF and he sent out 2 guides to help us get through the sand bars and to get the fish.  Reggie had decided to cook us all diner along with the rest of the village locals.  He said a guide would come out to our boats around 5:00 that evening.

The guide led us in Shelton’s 22’ center console dinghy.  Reggie and all the other Pirates wanted the Dinghy and the radio.  We ignored them and stayed for the fresh fish, rice and peas for diner. Local bongo drums, Island surf, wine and beer and stars that go on forever-just another shitty day in paradise.

About the pirates and our two boats, still anchored out around the bend in the harbor.  Reggie said he would put in a good word with the local ‘bad guys’.  He said they listened to him sometimes.  We posted a guard and were very glad that Shelton brought his gun collection.