Best laid plans, my ass! For indeed, on Friday Fifth day of August in this wreched year that is now over half over, a little bit after supper, I told Jim I was thinking of taking alot of beer and showing it some world by placing it aboard Jageritaville and going to Nassau tomorrow. Jim's reply, 'Giddy Up'. So, now our plan is try to find someone or sometwo to accompany us, he say's he thinks Larry (Carlton (not to be confused with Larry Carlton the Jazz/fusion guitarist (nor to be confused with Larry (Foghorn))), would like to go. Ok, where was I before that tangent? Ah, deciding on crew. Once Carlton is a go, Jamie and Pat bring in a quite intoxicated friend whom I can not give a blow job due to lack of sufficient essencials. After several snapshots and one near toppling over a barstool, I ask them if they would like to follow us on the Second Wind. Jamie agrees a hoot of a time would be had by all, and Patrick starts frothing at the mouth with hopes of golfing whilst in Nassau proper. Joel is on the 0730 tomorrow morning, and final say will lie with him.

Give myself a streeeetch, and a mornin' yawn. Home by 0230, up by 0730 checking weather. It looks gorgeous, no wind, but beautiful. I call Jim by 0930 telling him we meet at the store in 1/2 hour to ready our galley with beer, jager and other such cruising neccesities. 25 minutes later he calls saying 'I need another 1/2 hour to find my uterus'. In the interim of Jim's game of hide-n-seek with his uterus, I reach Jamie and Joel who are ago, then not ago, then ago, then defunct due to the blow job girl needing to be on the 1600 flight Sunday afternoon. So be it, we're goin' it alone. Post store run, ice run, morning after runs, and we have no other excuses not to go. Trust me at this point I'm looking for reasons not to go. My plan was to be on the water by 1000, now it's noon and there are two systems building over Andros, which is common this time of year and is why by noon my original plan had me 1/2 way to Nassau. Regardless, I pull Jageritaville up to the dock, load up and go.

...It's Five O'Clock Somewhere. Before we exit the harbor we realize we have forgotten the Jager Flag and Binoculars. So to celebrate my inadequecies as a captain, and my excellancy as an alcoholic, we all do a shot of, what we think, is ice cold Jager, turns out it's about 15 degrees warmer than optimum, causing everyone not to speak for a full 30 seconds, and not drink for another 2 1/2 hours. When someone finally could breathe, then talk, they said, 'that was rough'. One of the many understatements to be uttered this trip. Our next shot is 11.3 kts from Andros, effectively 1/2 way. It's not any better, but still fails to dampen the spirits of these ragged souls who've signed on for this trip regardless of pleasantries, or creature comforts. Jim, in an effort to feel better tries to lie below deck to nap abit in the slight 5 kt breeze which is coming in through the bow hatch.

If you get 7 years bad luck for breaking a mirror.... What happens when the ocean is the biggest mirror you've ever seen? The only waves on these waters are those created by these 3 men in this 22 foot boat sullying and destroying the placidity that are the offlying waters from New Providence Island. 2 hours out, and destruction be damned, whatever it takes to find our harbor is what must be done. Odd thoughts no doubt induced by the now 4 shots of Jagermeister and 3 beer. Once we are safely on our anchor, due in no small part to the excellant crewmanship of whom we are now calling 'captain hook'. Allow me to explain, partly becuase it has the potential to embarrass the crap out of him, but mostly because it's pretty flippin funny. We're pulling up to our anchorage which I'm planning on being 40 yards off shore from the south side of Simm's Point (most extreme western point of New Providence Island), I tell Carlton on the bow, hook in hand, 'wait for it, wait for it......(pause), THROW THE HOOK'. Which he does, just as casual and nonshalant as a puppy chewing a pair of $80 sunglasses. He throws and forgets about it....for about 1/3 of a second when the rode chain starts eating away at the side of my boat, whereupon he starts jumping and gesticulating about like a TV evangelist with a riding crop up his ass. Another second later he gathers his composure enough to get the scope line in it's bag before the whole assembly goes the way of the Titanic. His excuse, 'On boats I've been on when you throw a hook you hit a button!', to which I replied 'This is the same thing, I needed the hook thrown so I pushed your button'. A riotous giggle was shared at his expense.

We were somewhere around Barstow whe the drugs began to take hold*... After a quick dip (some quicker than others for reasons I will explain later), to set the hook and cool off. Carlton offers to stay on the boat whilst myself and Jim take the tender around to a marina to get a cab to Burger King and make a couple phone calls to check weather conditions for tomorrow morning for our return trip. My charts simply said 'marina', what my charts failed to mention is that there are no boats worth less than 7 figures parked theirin. Also failed to mention that Lyford Cay is one of the most exclusive spots in New Providence Island. So when we crawl off this 11 foot dinghy Looking less than human and smelling like something any human would beat a cat for not having the self-respecting shame to bury, a full nelson back to our boat was expected. Maybe it's the alcohol but we pull up right beside an 80' cabin cruiser called 'Little Paradise' out of Georgetown Exuma, like we own the place demanding a taxi to Burger King. The dock master took it in stride and was accomodating enough to call us said cab. One mister Phil Bain picked us up less than 15 minutes later and delivered us to Domino's Pizza 15 minutes thereafter (Burger Kind is a $50 cab ride, Domino's is only a $40 ride)

*Being that we had with us NAVY personel, and mine experience with all military has shown me there's no sense of humor to be had among the lot of them prompts me to put this footnote: We had no drugs, it's a quote from 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', get over it.

Pizzas, Blizzards, Kankles: not necessaritly in that order... While Phil practices his saintlike patience we order two pizzas and 4 Kalik golds for the 45 minute interim wait. Any and all who know me, also know that once a buzz is shared by my braincells, Kalik makes me mind blisteringly drunk, funny, but drunk. Whilst we're waiting for the pizzas we're standing around talking to/harrassing the Domino's security guard, which is a whole entry within intself (shouldn't you question which direction your society is heading (progressing or digressing), when security guards are needed for a pizza joint?), when from out of Dairy Queen (without a security guard, I might add) comes a couple consisting of an ex-mermaid, and a throwback from Miami Vice. (in my best Gameshow host voice) He's from Miami, he cheats on his taxes and runs a preschool prostitution ring on the side. She's from Alabama and used to have a tail, and due to botched plastic surgery, from her knees to her feet (5 toes on the right foot, 3 on the left), she now carries 3 pounds of scar tissue around each ankles! They were acutally very nice people, at least the didn't call security on us. And they should have, because 15 minutes into the conversation, the gentleman, we'll just call him 'Broccoli', is merrily eating his DQ Blizzard when Jim stands pretty close to him and says 'You're really not gonna share any of that are you?'. Which he indeed does not want to share, but especially with this 'Out-Island Drunk'.

Malibu and Coke for you, A TNT for me... Phil is politely turning the page on the paper he's pretending to read for the thrice time. Jim dissapears, claiming to get more beer. I begin to panic, what's wrong with him, he can't leave me alone in this snake pit, they'll pick my bones clean! I don't handle unknown variables with a head full of alcohol well. He's left me alone with these Blizzard-stingy yuppies and a security guard that rufuses to drink with us. Why doesn't he want to have a drink, what's he hiding? What's his agenda? I'm starting to feel the gold. I need to get back to the boat, the sun's setting, Carlton doesn't know how to turn on the lights, I need a phone, I need a shower. A beer and $100.00 pizzas will have to do. Phil takes us back to our dinghy, where we buy ice and make it back to the boat to find Carlton frothing at the mouth, developing a facial tick, and he's quickly but methodically scratching himself in the dark talking about how bad the bugs are, and we're running out of bug spray.

I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat a plant... Once we're back aboard the boat, everything starts to slow down. I begin to better cope with things going on around me. I turn on the lights and start the grill. Being that Sheldon isn't with us, and since she remembers everything once the sun is down it becomes obvious we've not brought flashlight number one with us. Not to worry, there's one on the CamCorder, we just have to record everything we want to see. We've almost eaten a whole pizza, but the steaks are thawed and looking delicious. Carlton and myself split the rib-eye, while Jim has pissed on the T-Bone in a show of possession. Once the two 'eyes are on plates I'm videotaping them for the light for an extended period of time when Jim says 'Geo's video tapin the shit out of those stakes', for which my response is, 'I can't find the forks, so I'm just gonna look at them instead'. Whcih quickly turns into a frenzied man against bovine which is destined to end with one injesting the other, forks be damned! I think opposable thumbs will tell the true tale.

Who needs sleep, you're never gonna get it... Once the steaks are gone, and the burned fingers are on their way to healing, myself and Carlton take turns chasing Jim off the XM antennae. Once that gets old, quick math tells me that it's been quite a day. Countless shots of Jager, more beer than imaginary mosquitos, and good food. All on about 4 1/2- 5 hours of sleep. That being said, I go to bed where the rest of the boat swears I snore for the next 9 hours. So what happened in that time I can't tell you, except that when I woke up between the hours of 2 and 4, there was indeed more than one snore coming from our floating tub. I also witnessed an amazing lightning storm which put me both in a state of awe and fear. Knowing that if it was indeed still lightning in the AM we were going to have to sail through it was almost as frightning as the sky was brilliantly beautiful. And after our earlier experience with watching the two systems over Andros morph into one huge system, I do have a slight gun-shy tendency. Regardless, on waking, the sky is beautiful, only one system in the sky, and it's to the SouthWest, which happens to be right where we have to go.

This has to be the nicest place I've ever taken a shit... Was indeed uttered by both myself and Jim, while Carlton stood on the boat shaking his head, and scratching every part of him that wasn't near bleeding from the 13 straight hours of the abuse. I do have to add, there were absolutly no mosquitos. Upon our first/only dip in the water, the same water into which myself and Jim jumped, Carlton found a plethera of sea lice, enough to make him vomit 'till tuesday, and be miserable until the next weekend. BASRA weather is predicting an area low causing unpredictable weather with winds upto 35 kts. BASRA's full of crap. There's absolutely no wind, and zero seas when we pull hook and reciprocate our course to deep water. Once underway I feel a slight, everso slight breeze on the back of my neck, so I go fore and raise the jib. It hangs like a curtain in a morgue. occasionally a ear of the foot/luff will fold over. 'Great', I was thinking, until I got back to the stern and the GPS read a full knot of speed was gained. It was just enough to take strain off the engine to allow it to work more efficiently. 4 hours later, and we're at home with a 12 pack to spare.

Lessons Learned... With that being said, I think I'll put this sad tale to rest. Carlton, don't swim.....EVER. Jim, get the hell off the XM antennae Geo, Always bring a Shelli, you're a lousy captain, without a first mate.