Stranded Naked - Annual Cheeseburger In Paradise Party
By Alice Bain - The Abaconian - 15
July 2002

Robert "Bobb" Henderson on the houseboat Stranded Naked hosts a yearly party at Fiddle Cay to celebrate the beginning of Regatta Time in Abaco. On July 3 boaters and cruisers of all stripes descended on this unsuspecting and mostly deserted island to the north of Green Turtle Cay for burgers, hotdogs, fries, margaritas and Jimmy Buffett music all provided gratis by Bobb, definitely the most popular man of the hour.

By noon runabouts and dinghies packed the beach and the shallow water leading off it, and the party was in full swing. The rain stayed to the south, the food line wound sinuously through the casuarina thickets and merrymakers romped through sand and surf brandishing burgers and official yellow plastic Stranded Naked cups full of lethal lime-tequila concoction.

Stranded Naked herself is a large, boxy green houseboat with an official palm tree logo painted conspicuously on her side. Bobb ushered me aboard to give me a tour of the floating residence, a large part of the decor of which is dedicated to past Stranded Naked celebrations. The ceiling of the main salon is laminated with photographs of previous shindigs. An entire two foot by four foot section is devoted to "The Man" - Jimmy Buffett himself - the "most missed guest" at Stranded Naked parties, who has been invited every year but has yet to show up. Bobb is a parrothead par extraordinaire, and for this particular bash was sporting an extremely vibrant pair of jungle-and-parrot patterned shorts. In fact, Bobb has just launched a line of Stranded Naked brand tropical sportswear,

of which these fluorescently vivid shorts are presumably a representation. Later on in the afternoon four nubile, tan young women were trotted out of the houseboat to model examples of the new swim wear line, rendered in colors that made even Bobb's shorts look drab.

Bobb pressed into my hand a flyer containing answers to the "sixteen most asked questions about Stranded Naked and a couple of business cards, then romped back up the beach to finish preparations for proposing to his girlfriend Patricia, whom he met in Brazil.

The flyer (printed, of course, on hot pink paper) indicates that the houseboat was brought over from Florida, came across the Gulf Stream in complete calm and took about 15 hours to make it to West End, Grand Bahama. Up on the beach, Patricia found a diamond ring at the bottom of a cup of margarita and accepted Bobb's proposal of marriage with an impressive emotional display. The crowd roared its approval, and everyone went back to drinking.

Bobb claims that Stranded Naked is in her "lucky 13th" year of Fiddle Cay parties, although independent (but unverifiable) sources place the vintage at more like four or five years. Bobb himself is an airline pilot. He worked for Eastern and Pan Am before finally ending up flying a cargo 747 for a company named Polar Air Cargo.

Stranded Naked was beached in Hurricane Floyd, and Bobb proudly shows photos of the feats of engineering required to refloat her. Most of the year she resides at the Other Shore Club dock in Green Turtle Cay, but Bobb brings her out to promote the Regatta. "I love sailing, I love the water, and I like to see everyone having a good time," says Bobb. "There's nothing better than Jimmy Buffett music on the beach, and a cheeseburger party in paradise."