BAHAMIAN POTCAKE

As snowbirds make their way back north, the Town Dock in Oriental has been seeing more boats than it has in months. One such boat that came in the Saturday before Easter, was Fair N' Sea, a Nauticat motorsailer.



One of the crew was Brynne who was returning to her hometown of Wairton, Ontario after a winter sailing with her parents in the Exumas and Abacos. She was going home with a three-month old puppy named Syndee -- a short-haired dog with mainly black coloring, white front paws and a whippy tail. The dog was energetically greeting passersby and other dogs at the TownDock.

We asked what kind of dog she was.

"It's a Bahamian Potcake."

The name had a certain ring to it. Unfamiliar ... yet familiar at the same time. TownDock.net staffers have not been above assigning a breed (Nova Scotia Marsh Hound) to their own canine of uncertain lineage and we wondered if a similar approach had been taken here.

We asked a bit more about the Bahamian Potcake. Brynne had apparently fielded these inquiries at other stops between the Bahamas and Oriental. She spoke with authority.

"In the Bahamas, they made a dish where everything went in to the pot, and at the bottom there was a cake that went to the dogs." Brynne said. " Basically, the potcake is that muck that ends up on the bottom."

But, the dog, we asked, is it really a breed? "It's starting to be recognized as one. They think they've been around the Bahamas since Columbus' time." Brynne said. But then she added, "All Potcakes look different."



She provided a website. A search revealed that the Potcake "blend" does indeed make for no two Bahamian Potcakes looking alike. There are also, on line, variations in the explanation for the name; though all seemed to center on that cooking pot, one had the derivation coming from the pot cake that was given to stray dogs, while another noted that since the potcake itself was often made of this and that, it paralleled the dogs' lineage.

One description on line also said they ran loose in the streets and liked to greet incoming passengers off the ferry boats. Which may explain why Syndee seemed at home in Oriental.

We had one follow-up question -- whether Brynne has to make potcakes for the dog - but didn't get a chance to ask. Brynne and the rest of the crew of Fair N Sea had cast off from the TownDocks Easter morning and would soon likely be sailing by the land of the Maryland seabiscuit, with Syndee, that good blend, on board.

CANDOR

We met the cat first, slinking out on the deck of "Candor" as the Willard trawler was tied to the Town Dock Sunday morning. A few hours later we saw the cat again, on a leash this time, sauntering along the top of the TownDock rail. Boat and cat owner Michael Zimmers, says the cat is named Mozart -- for liking classical music -- and is one of the two Maine Coon cats on board "Candor". The other, says Michael, is named Tuggar and is reluctant about venturing out of the cabin.



Michael is from Bainbridge Island, WA which he says you can see from Seattle. He had been a pilot with Northwest Airlines and sailed for years on a Robert Perry designed pilothouse sloop, the only one of its kind made. When he set out to live on and travel by boat, he made what he calls a tough decision, sold the sailboat and bought the trawler.

It's a Willard, made by a company that usually makes military vessels. There are about 40 Willard trawlers.

For the past year Michael’s been plying the waters south from Milwaukee and then up around the Gulf. He and the cats are on their way up the Hudson, the St. Lawrence and the Canadian Maritimes. He says he planned to be away for a year, but is thinking now of notifying the people renting his house that they can stay there longer.



He says he is taken by Oriental – "I’ve met thirty people" in his first day here.

Getting ready for the water

On a Sunday afternoon in March, there was some boat action a few blocks away from the water.



In a Broad Street building whose tall doors are usually kept shut, Jim Jackson and John Fauld were preparing John’s Harker’s Island boat with a new coat of paint for the season.



The 25-foot boat is about 38 years old and may be one of the few remaining in the area. John says she has no name.