The Sand Bar

Django at Sumner Point Marina, Rum Cay
(she's the catamaran, duh; to the left as you look at her is
Taurus II, Jeff and Peggy's motor cruiser)

We headed back from the amazing two-storey beach at about noon. We all agreed it was beer o’clock, so our driver (Jeff at that point) headed back to Port Nelson and Kaye’s Bar and Restaurant, about five miles away.

We arrived and went into Kaye’s. The Sand Bar is well named…the floor is sand. We ordered beer and lunches. The charming woman who served us said her daughter could make us hamburgers. Later, as WW and I were sitting outside chatting with some other people, Peggy called out to say the daughter was too busy to cook but the nice woman would make us something.

Jeff at the Sand Bar

About half an hour later, we were called in. What a spread! There were two fish dishes, one baked, one fried. There was fried plantain, peas and rice, roast potatoes, and a mixed salad. We loaded our platters and ate one super good lunch. I went to the kitchen door and asked Delores (as I learned her name to be) how she made the fish and what kind it was. She laughed and said, “That was wahoo.” I’ve heard about the joys of wahoo but this exceeded my wildest dreams. I pointed at the fried fish, the deliciousness of which is beyond my powers to describe. She said, “I just fried it.” I admonished her. I said, “You put something on it first.” At that, I was taken into the kitchen and shown a huge jar with a bit of residue at the bottom. “It’s just my spice mix,” she said. I had to know how she made it. She told me, but I have found that the telling and the doing are often quite different, so I was delighted when she called me back to the kitchen to see her make a new batch. Eight dried hot red peppers, five habanero peppers, a tumbler of coarse salt, dried parsley, paprika and thyme all went into the blender jar. For the baked fish, she used the same stuff, threw on some sliced onions and green peppers, then covered it all with tomatoes she had blended. She gave me a bottle of her tomatoes and then said, “And you have to have some salt. It’s special salt.”

Indeed it is. In the summers she and, presumably, other islanders go to the salt pans and rake it up. “By the bushel,” she said. I was given about a cup of this amazing salt, wrapped in twisted paper. Then she mentioned in passing that she had written a book. Well, of course, we bought one and I had her autograph it right by the peas and rice recipe.

Delightful Delores Wilson signing
a copy of her book Rum Cay, My Home

We are expecting to leave here some time tomorrow, as of the last weather forecast it looked like during the afternoon would be good. We will be out of contact for about three days but will be back in touch as soon as we can.

The photos in this post are kindness of Peggy. Our camera is capable of small groans, but shows few other signs of life, alas.

The Rum Cay kitty prowls the marina dock
in search of love or milk