Cat Island
Natural Mystic
After lunch, The Hobie Cat was sitting on the beach at the water's edge. The sail was raised and all I had to do was nudge it into the water. I had never sailed before but a Hobie Cat is a small Catamaran sailboat built for novice sailors like myself. It has a pontoon on either side, a canvas bed across the middle supporting the sail and a rudder in the rear for steering left and right. 
In the knee-deep water, Nicole and I climbed aboard and the gentle breeze pushed us off shore. Today we are going to have a lazy day and lounge around the beach and half moon bay. Yesterday we went inland and visited some old plantation ruins as well as Father Jerome's castle called "The Hermitage" which sits on the highest point in the Bahamas.
Once the Hobie Cat was about 100 yards from the shore I shifted on to my back and rested my legs on the rudder to steer the boat. We turned the rudder slightly with my legs and sailed parallel to the half moon beach. Nicole had already drifted in to a half sleep as the miniature waves clapped against the pontoons and the sail flickered in the breeze.
I couldn't help thinking about "The Hermitage" and the very articulate way that one man had built it by himself so many years ago. Judging by the size of the rooms he was clearly a shorter man. He may have heard the stories about the Obeah's influence on the island and decided to take up refuge on the highest point so his own spiritual diety could have watch over things. Obeah is a Shaman-like voodoo that is said to have originated in West Africa and was a celebrated religion in more remote times.
We neared the end of the beach so I did the one challenging thing on a Hobie Cat and shifted my legs to the left to turn around and head in the other direction. Nicole was asleep.
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