Page 220 - WDT Magazine Egypt

first stop was Man of War Key where I wandered into a foundry. His son, Pete, also an artist, created this
Albury’s Canvas Shop also known as the sail shop. funky feet-in-the-sand pub where visitors eat, never
Here, three grandmother-aged women were sewing stop drinking, and play ring toss game till the wee
tote and toiletry bags from colorful sail canvas. The hours of the morning.
sewing machines, they told me, had been used 65 Once a week The Abaco Club offers a chick-
years ago by their own en/fish/ribs barbeque
grandmothers. Back with “Rake and Scrape”
on the street, I met an music, which is basical-
older man who told me ly “raking” a handsaw
he was seventh gen- with a knife to create
eration islander and percussion. I joined the
his relatives had come “raker” who played such
here in 1776. infectious Bahamian
Next stop was Elbow music that I began to
Key for lunch al fresco dance and continued
in a little restaurant until suddenly I heard
overlooking the harbor. very loud drums and
I dined on curried horns. “What’s that?” I
lobster and tuna tar- asked the man with the
tini, a delicious seared raker and scraper.
sashimi. Bahamian lobsters are only tails, there are “Junkanoo!” he grinned through gold capped teeth.
no claws, and while they’re good, nothing beats a Junkanoo is a Bahamian celebration similar to Mardi
real Maine lobster. We sailed around for a good hour Gras with huge dance troupes wearing elaborate and
or so after lunch and arrived back at the dock for sequined costumes moving down the streets.
drinks and dinner at Pete’s Pub, a funky bar covered Suddenly, parading around and around the res-
in T-shirts from around the world tacked to every taurant, were junkanoo dancers in glittery costumes
bare wall and ceiling space. and headdresses. There were horn blowers and
Pete’s father, Randolph Wardell Johnston, was drummers and a toddler dancing as she clung to her
once a sculptor and professor at Smith College who mother’s long skirt. For the next two hours, I jumped
up and left with his wife in a sailboat in 1952. They up and down and danced until the music finally
landed in Elbow Key where at the time there was stopped. And when my taxi pulled up to the airport
nothing except ocean and a lighthouse. They lived at Marsh Harbour the next morning, I danced my
on the boat while Randolph built a home, studio and way to the gate.

220 WDT MAGAZINE SUMMER 2018