Customs and Duff

We’d established that Customs might not appear until the morrow. We’d also been informed that leaving the boat would be naughty until we had received Customs. So we stared wistfully down the pier toward The Poop Deck, where we hoped to dine.

Whit, as he had done from the moment of our arrival, continued to scrub the deck vigorously. Frisha was starting to look a little demented and kept muttering for him to stop. The ceaseless scrutch scrutch scrutch of the deck brush was becoming rather wearing, but I was in no rush to tell him to stop. By the time he was done, the deck was spotless.

A man came down the dock toward us. He was in a blue uniform with patches on the shoulders and a military-style cap. He seemed a promising Customs candidate. He stared at a paper, looked vaguely about, and started ambling off down another part of pier. Our captain hailed him. He turned around, smiled cheerily, and allowed as how he was Customs. We welcomed him aboard.

The sun had done its dive below the horizon, so he opted to come into the salon and enjoy the benefit of light. He opened a chaotic briefcase and found the fishing licence booklet. Then he extracted a wad of crumpled, abused, nearly naked carbon paper. WW and I stared. How long has it been since we’ve seen carbon paper? Then he dug out a pen, opened the booklet, stared at it, and said, with a self-depreciating laugh, “I’ve got to go back to the car, I’ve forgotten my glasses.” WW offered him a pair of non-prescription reading glasses. They did the trick.

For the next few minutes, we watched him wrestle with his various booklets and his crumpled reams of carbonless paper. It was a little like watching the Red King make a memorandum. I used the same strategy I had for Immigration, and Customs accepted a beer “for later”. Eventually, he completed his travails, crammed everything back into his bag, and made his departure. Only to return almost immediately, when he realized he had not given us a receipt. WW suggested we didn’t need one, but that wouldn’t do. Back he came, smiling his lovely smile. Out came the glasses, the receipt was duly issued. Then he set off cheerfully along the dock, WW’s glasses perched jauntily on his nose. I felt badly pointing this out to him, but he returned them happily, tut-tutting at his absent-mindedness.

Finally, we were headed to The Poop Deck. I had cracked conch with peas and rice, and plantain…fabulous. The others all had grouper, another taste treat. We shared a guava duff (house specialty—think figgy duff with guava instead of figs) for dessert. It was superb.

Then it was bedtime. We would make for the Exumas next morning. (Sorry, Madeleine, we never got to Eleuthera.)