Tiefin'

Dave explains:

It is universally known that scavenging is one of my strong suits. Bahamian’s call it tiefin’, slang for thieving, which really doesn’t apply to what we do, as we are simply re-purposing hurricane debris.  As you might imagine, there is a lot of flotsam and jetsam about since Hurricane Sandy. The shorelines are littered with lumber and docks. I have many construction projects going for my various civic responsibilities, and this lumber is a gift from the sea. We even recycle the fasteners, straightening out those beautiful stainless steel ring nails that cost about a quarter apiece. I have projects going at the lighthouse which start with the construction of two sawhorses, and builds from there. The farther away from the settlements we go, the prime pickin’s get better and better in quality. There is one cove that has lumber heaped up in piles.  It sure is great to have all of my helpers and a roomy skiff to retrieve all of these treasures. Future blogs will showcase the finished products of these picking excursions. We can really relate to the past generations of ‘wrackers’, whose livelihoods depended on these good fortunes of gifts from the sea. Think about the irony of the fact that I am working with scavenged materials to preserve the very lighthouse that was meant  to prevent the misfortune of shipwrecks in the first place!  I certainly think I was born a hundred and fifty years too late!

 Muffin, Will, and Dave return after a morning's worth of 'tiefin'.