Another five days pass and there is little to report.

We are still hiding behind Fergusson Point and the winds have been west for the last 5 days. The cruising regretta, I mean regatta, has begun and so now we are taking extra steps to hide from the organized madness of activities that pretend to be some sort of Cruiser's Circus.

Fortunately, the regatta events are held almost exclusively on the Elizabeth Island side of the harbour and so by staying back here where we are on the town side, we can avoid most of the events. Rest assured though, dear reader, that we are actively continuing our boycott of all the regretta events until such time that the organizers realize how inappropriate it is to come down to a foreign country to have your regatta, but then exclude all of the native people from said event.

Just to show you how bad it is, we aren't even participating in the Texas Holdem poker tournament or the regulation volleyball event. Long time readers will know it's got to be pretty bad when I turn down cards and ball. Weak, totally weak.

Anyhow, yesterday Amy and I went in to town to attend a community meeting on the proposed pump out system. The entire island is up in arms over this. The Bahamians say we boaters are polluting their harbour, while the boaters say it's the land dwellers and not us.

I personally am in favor of a pump out system. I mean, hell, it's their country and if they say we need to use a pump out boat, then that is their right. I have my doubts as to how well the Bahamians will be able to implement and maintain said system, but that's not really my concern, so I say go for it. It would be hypocritical of us as boaters to say a pump out system is wrong when we have to use one in our country too don' t you think?

As a former scientist myself, I can say that the meeting presentation was both in focus and in color, but other than that lacked any real scientific merit. The entire presentation was devoid of any research that showed a shred of the scientific method. The presenters conclusions were speculation masking as fact that no respected researcher would append his name to.

My opinion and I freely admit I have no proof to back this up, is that the pump out issue is being viewed by the Elizabeth Harbour Steering Committee as an opportunity to make money off the boaters that can then be spent elsewhere, but as I said, it's their country and they should be free to police it as they see fit.

In any case, once the meeting's presentations were over, the question and answer session was opened up.I had hoped to ask for an explanation of the committee's rational on why it would be necessary to install mooring balls everywhere in the harbour just to implement a pump out operation, but within five minutes the entire thing had devolved into a shouting match and so we just left.

The only thing I really took away from the encounter was that it seems that the average Bahamian here on Exuma really hates the cruising community. In truth we probably bring a lot of that on ourselves by not including this island community more in our activities, but still I wonder that in a country that earns 85% of their GDP from tourism if the Bahamians aren't being a bit too harsh.

I'd love to have an idea of how many millions the cruisers are spending just here in G'town during the cruising season and what the effect would be if we suddenly all went somewhere else. I have asked at the tourism office here in town, but I am told there is no real data kept about the town's economy, so all we can do is make our best guess. In any case, I suspect the days of getting 300, 400 or 500 boats into G'Town are quickly coming to a close.

In truth as long as I can find another beach to play volleyball on, I won't miss it. More to follow, End of line.