It is mid March and winter has begun to give way to spring. Gardeners are planning what crops to plant. Early crocus erupt bright purple or yellow against the drab coat of winter. Spring is on its way. Beach lovers long for the crash of surf, the spray of salt mist, and the bright rays of sun warming bare shoulders.
As a child, a trip to the beach meant 34th Street in Ocean City, N.J. It meant sand laced bologna and cheese sandwiches on a corner of a sandy blanket. After hours of riding waves on rented blue and yellow rafts, those gritty sandwiches were quite tasty. The day ended with one trying to find a comfortable position to sleep that didn't aggravate the sunburned face, back and shoulders.
Years later... many years later, I now spend most days heading for the beach. Living on a boat in the Bahamas gives new meaning to the phrase, hitting the beach. Leaving footprints in the sand, frolicking in the surf, and beach combing continue to a major role in beach usage. But that is only the beginning.
Fellow live a-boards have found many interesting ways to utilize the nearby beaches. Beaches offer nearby land based destinations where one can disembark and stretch the legs. At the height of the season, February through early March nearly 300 boats anchor along the beaches of Elizabeth Harbor in the Exumas. Every day there is another beach event.
Traditional fun volleyball begins at 2:00 p.m. each day. Early morning yoga draws nearly 30 boaters who spread out their towels, stretch, and breathe as water laps softly in the background. Overhead, soft needled casuarina trees sway ever so slightly in a light breeze.
On Thursdays, budding artists learn to watercolor, weave a basket with silver palm or tie decorative knots. The art on the each group brings amateur and professional artists together. Nearby, a group of cruisers play dominos. Others learn the game of bridge. Another day someone might offer a knitting seminar or a session about maximizing solar panel output. One can even learn how to make a conch shell horn.
One morning, a cruiser might announce an open invitation for sundowners on the beach. The rule is to bring a snack to share, boat cards, and a beverage of one's choice. It might not be as formal as a Chamber of Commerce mixer, but it offers boaters a way to meet fellow cruisers and to exchange information. On beaches everywhere, cruisers bring in books and compact discs for swapping. There are sand sculpture events and for the ultimate sand trap, one can even try their skill with beach golf.
At Hog Cay in the Jumentos, sundowners also include a green flash watch that begins as the sun dips into the sea. If visibility is clear and clouds are absent, cheers go up when the green flash blinks as the sun sets below the horizon. That is when conch horns begin to sound. Some evenings cruisers get together on the beach for a impromptu jam session. They bring guitars, banjos, harmonicas and cymbals. Some bring kazoos. Others have brought bagpipes, or violin. One boater played the saw.
When in the out islands, cruisers sometimes cook dinner communally on a fire pit fashioned out of rocks. Each brings food to grill and a covered dish to share. Following dinner the auxiliary fire pit is used for the trash burn. Since there is no place to dispose of garbage, all paper and plastic is burned on the beach. Cans and jars are retained until the boater heads back to civilization.
Boaters who venture to the far southern Bahamas are a creative group and hold events known as Beach Junk Wars and Beach Olympics. The Atlantic Ocean beaches are covered with junk; lumber, bamboo, plastic drums, medical waste, nylon rope, old shoes, bottles, and anything that floats can be found along the high tide line. Hard hats and welding helmets might become wild looking Junkanoo masks. Coconuts and string turn into to bras. Puppets have been made from doll parts washed ashore and wind chimes from bamboo and floating seed pods.
Beach Olympics include kayak racing, swimming, and hermit crab racing. Hermit crabs are scavengers and prove easy to gather with a some dinner scraps on the beach. The nocturnal critters, up to four inches in the shell, have no clue that they will become the next beach Olympic contestant. Numbered with red fingernail polish, the critters are placed in the center of a large circle. The winner is the first one out.
The cruisers at Hog Cay have made a bocce ball court on the san d. Rope tied to an old plastic bread tray found on the beach becomes a zamboni to smooth the sand. Small plastic floats washed ashore become the balls. A small raised molded strip around the diameter of the float allows for one way rolling. Those who forgo bocce ball can fanny dip in the clear shallow water along the shore. Boaters bring a drink and sit together in the cooling water at waist level.
On Valentines Day, the residents of nearby Ragged Island host a party on the beach for the cruisers at Hog Cay. During the event, the boaters hold an action of donated items to benefit the all age school on Ragged Island.
Cruisers walk, jog and hike along the Bahamian beaches. They collect sea glass, sea shells and sea beans. They haul wood from the beach for the fire pit. Sometimes they find neat artifacts. I've found a wooden mortar and pestle. For cruisers a large part of life centers around the beach. It serves as a community center, a classroom, a playing field, watering hole and library. We share stories and make new friends. We celebrate, we console, and we give back. Yes, life is a beach.
March 26, 2013
March 12, 2013
Bush medicine
Cuts, colds, an aching head or back often sends the sufferer scurrying to a nearby drugstore, physician, or in extreme cases to the emergency room of a local hospital. The availability of medical care is not something that most Americans think about in terms of availability. Americans might complain about the outrageous cost of that same care. Nonetheless, it is available.
Traveling in some of the more remote areas of the Bahamas this winter, I've learned that many of the sparsely populated islands don't have a full time doctor. On others, a doctor might fly in once a week or a nurse might be on call. Over time, Bahamians living on some of the more remote and underdeveloped islands acquired an important oral knowledge of herbal lore that would become referred to as bush medicine.
Some of this knowledge came from their African heritage. Many of the same remedies used during the slavery era in Bahamian history are used today. Mary Rolle, a grandmother of two and resident of Nassau, grew up in the settlement of Rolleville on Barratare. She explained that while growing up her parents treated their children's illness with native plants growing on the island.
As a child Rolle suffered from asthma which her mother treated with a plant called Life Leaf. "My mother would beat Life Leaf in a cloth and squeeze out the juice before mixing it with butter and some lemon or lime. She would heat the mixture and give it to me to drink," Rolle continued. "We didn't have doctors or drugstores."
Rolle now lives in Nassau and has forgotten much of the natural pharmacology routinely used by her mother so many years ago. She said that mothers gave their children catnip for worms and white sage for itching . "We used to remove the thorns from the prickly pear and use the meat to wash our hair," Rolle remembered.
Martha Hanna-Smith hails from the settlement of Delectable Bay on Acklins Island. She grew up drinking bush teas and had never heard of Lipton or Earl Gray.
As a young girl, Hanna-Smith took notice that some of the teas she consumed were also used to treat illness. The Fever Grass tea that she drank with breakfast could also be used to bring down a fever. Her fascination with bush medicine grew. She would ultimately author the book Bush Medicine in Bahamian Folk Tradition, published in 2005.
In the book Hanna-Smith tells how her father insisted that his children drink a bitter draught consisting of a half cup of warm water with a few drops of juice from the Aloe plant each morning.
Historically, Aloe has been used in the home for cuts and burns. The healing plant can also be found in many lotions and salves around the house. Traditional Bahamian bush medicine also uses the plant as a tea to increase appetite, move bowels, help with indigestion and to fight colds. According to bush medicine practices, heating and applying the gel like juice will help with infected cuts and the pain of sprains.
Hanna-Smith's book lists plants for backache, blisters, blood pressure control, colds, constipation, coughs, diabetes, fever, flu, headaches, and hangovers. Native Bahamian flora has been used to treat hiccups, heartburn, rashes as well as the childhood illness of measles, mumps and chicken pox. Thistle, Papaya, Scourge Needle and Mistletoe are offered as a cure for ringworm .
For increased male virility, Bahamians have relied on teas of Love Vine, Five Fingers, Gum Elemi, Striping Back, Sweet Margaret and Wild Pine. One formula instructs the practitioner to gather all the the above ingredients, boil together and strain, add sugar to taste, some brandy, and evaporated milk. The brew is then poured into a bottle and steeped for about three weeks. Once imbibed, it is said to build energy in a man.
Locals on Ragged Island say that the Love Vine lives up to its name. It is said to prevent sexual weakness. Bahamians beat the parasitic stringy yellow orange vine and boil it into a strong tea. A bus driver on Grand Bahama Island, who wished to remain nameless, swears by this remedy. It seems like a lot of work, but is probably cheaper that the famous purple pill. Perhaps the pharmaceutical companies are already researching this bush medicine remedy?
One drawback of bush medicine is that the names of plants can vary from island to island. Hanna-Smith explains in her book that Buttercup is known as Miss William in San Salvador and Three Days Bush on Acklins. Portions can also vary as a handful of leaves to one could be quite a bit different from one person to another.
For nearly 500 years, bush medicine from an Amerindian and African heritage, played an important role in Bahamian history. It is a tradition that is fading away as barriers to modern medicine on many of the remote family islands have been removed.
Nassau, on New Providence Island, offers a state of the art modern medical facility that serves the entire Bahamas. Soon a second hospital, now under construction, will open in Georgetown, Great Exuma. The new hospital will serve the southern Bahamas, making a shorter trip for those who need treatment for a full spectrum of illness. Currently, emergencies from the Out Islands are taken by plane or boat to Nassau to the modern medical facility there.
At one time the quality of life for Bahamians depended on bush medicine. Pharmaceutical companies around the globe now research some of that knowledge. Wouldn't it be a miracle if White Sailor's Cap or Snake Root could be synthesized to produce a cure for some types of cancer?
Traveling in some of the more remote areas of the Bahamas this winter, I've learned that many of the sparsely populated islands don't have a full time doctor. On others, a doctor might fly in once a week or a nurse might be on call. Over time, Bahamians living on some of the more remote and underdeveloped islands acquired an important oral knowledge of herbal lore that would become referred to as bush medicine.
Some of this knowledge came from their African heritage. Many of the same remedies used during the slavery era in Bahamian history are used today. Mary Rolle, a grandmother of two and resident of Nassau, grew up in the settlement of Rolleville on Barratare. She explained that while growing up her parents treated their children's illness with native plants growing on the island.
As a child Rolle suffered from asthma which her mother treated with a plant called Life Leaf. "My mother would beat Life Leaf in a cloth and squeeze out the juice before mixing it with butter and some lemon or lime. She would heat the mixture and give it to me to drink," Rolle continued. "We didn't have doctors or drugstores."
Rolle now lives in Nassau and has forgotten much of the natural pharmacology routinely used by her mother so many years ago. She said that mothers gave their children catnip for worms and white sage for itching . "We used to remove the thorns from the prickly pear and use the meat to wash our hair," Rolle remembered.
Martha Hanna-Smith hails from the settlement of Delectable Bay on Acklins Island. She grew up drinking bush teas and had never heard of Lipton or Earl Gray.
As a young girl, Hanna-Smith took notice that some of the teas she consumed were also used to treat illness. The Fever Grass tea that she drank with breakfast could also be used to bring down a fever. Her fascination with bush medicine grew. She would ultimately author the book Bush Medicine in Bahamian Folk Tradition, published in 2005.
In the book Hanna-Smith tells how her father insisted that his children drink a bitter draught consisting of a half cup of warm water with a few drops of juice from the Aloe plant each morning.
Historically, Aloe has been used in the home for cuts and burns. The healing plant can also be found in many lotions and salves around the house. Traditional Bahamian bush medicine also uses the plant as a tea to increase appetite, move bowels, help with indigestion and to fight colds. According to bush medicine practices, heating and applying the gel like juice will help with infected cuts and the pain of sprains.
Hanna-Smith's book lists plants for backache, blisters, blood pressure control, colds, constipation, coughs, diabetes, fever, flu, headaches, and hangovers. Native Bahamian flora has been used to treat hiccups, heartburn, rashes as well as the childhood illness of measles, mumps and chicken pox. Thistle, Papaya, Scourge Needle and Mistletoe are offered as a cure for ringworm .
For increased male virility, Bahamians have relied on teas of Love Vine, Five Fingers, Gum Elemi, Striping Back, Sweet Margaret and Wild Pine. One formula instructs the practitioner to gather all the the above ingredients, boil together and strain, add sugar to taste, some brandy, and evaporated milk. The brew is then poured into a bottle and steeped for about three weeks. Once imbibed, it is said to build energy in a man.
Locals on Ragged Island say that the Love Vine lives up to its name. It is said to prevent sexual weakness. Bahamians beat the parasitic stringy yellow orange vine and boil it into a strong tea. A bus driver on Grand Bahama Island, who wished to remain nameless, swears by this remedy. It seems like a lot of work, but is probably cheaper that the famous purple pill. Perhaps the pharmaceutical companies are already researching this bush medicine remedy?
One drawback of bush medicine is that the names of plants can vary from island to island. Hanna-Smith explains in her book that Buttercup is known as Miss William in San Salvador and Three Days Bush on Acklins. Portions can also vary as a handful of leaves to one could be quite a bit different from one person to another.
For nearly 500 years, bush medicine from an Amerindian and African heritage, played an important role in Bahamian history. It is a tradition that is fading away as barriers to modern medicine on many of the remote family islands have been removed.
Nassau, on New Providence Island, offers a state of the art modern medical facility that serves the entire Bahamas. Soon a second hospital, now under construction, will open in Georgetown, Great Exuma. The new hospital will serve the southern Bahamas, making a shorter trip for those who need treatment for a full spectrum of illness. Currently, emergencies from the Out Islands are taken by plane or boat to Nassau to the modern medical facility there.
At one time the quality of life for Bahamians depended on bush medicine. Pharmaceutical companies around the globe now research some of that knowledge. Wouldn't it be a miracle if White Sailor's Cap or Snake Root could be synthesized to produce a cure for some types of cancer?
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