A Barefoot Day to remember

      The sun shone from a cloudless sky, and the playful wavelets on the Sea of Abaco shimmered and glistened in the heat of the day. The crowd waiting at 'Froggies' ferry dock in Hope Town was in a festive mood.

     Our friends, Joan & Wayne, from Niagara-on-the-Lake, had arrived just the previous day, for their first trip to Hope Town. For them it was to be a baptism, not by fire, but by fun! Nothing fazed them - not even the non-arrival of their luggage!

     Our ferry to Guana Cay for the Barefoot Man concert was a little cramped, but what did we care! We were on our way to a red-letter day!  As we clambered off the boat at Guana, our young ferry captain made a brave attempt to record his passengers' names. His record keeping seemed a bit haphazard. He would pick us up at 5 p.m., or he would come and find us, he said.

     We headed to 'Grabbers Bar' for an early lunch beside Fishers Bay, which was packed with boats of all shapes and sizes. Dinghies were unloading boatloads of Barefoot Man fans, who headed towards the sandy path to 'Nippers Bar', home of the annual concerts.
 'Nippers Bar' is a technicolour artist's dream, perched high above a snow-white beach.  Each post, fence or wall is painted a different colour!

     Barefoot Man, whose real name is George Nowak, was in fine form, and audience participation was in full swing when we arrived. The most popular song of the afternoon was a re-worked version of an old song called 'Alice', using slightly different lyrics!  Barefoot Man sung it twice by popular demand.  Another old favourite, "It Don't Get Better Than This", was a perfect description of the day.

     Our boat-load actually made it back to the ferry dock on time and in fairly good shape!  The only glitch upon leaving the dock was a lipstick dropped in the water! It floated, the boat backtracked, circled and then, using perfect 'man overboard' tactics, the lipstick was retrieved!

The perfect day came to an end when we climbed, with Wayne and Joan, up the wooden stairs to their room at the Hope Town Harbour Lodge, and found that their luggage had arrived.