Wednesday, 1/28: The winds calmed down through the night and
after Kathi had made some modifications to our “Flopper stopper” we were not
rolling uncomfortably any longer. We
went for a snorkel to where the shallow reef meets the wall, dropping from
about 60 feet to over 1000 feet. The day
was cloudy so we decided against a dive.
Snorkeling we saw spotted eagle rays, turtle, barracuda, and a
shark. We’ve looked in both deep water
and shallow water around the reefs near Port Nelson on Rum Cay but have not
found any lobster to photograph or shoot.
Thursday, 1/29:
The wind and swells have decreased and we decided that it was time to head for
the Georgetown area on Great Exuma Island.
Kathi has a flight out of Georgetown on 2/14 to fly to Costa Rica for a
week where her mom and brothers will be vacationing. Friends that we met at Long Island, Matt and
Lindsay are there also and it will be good to visit with them again. The first stop though will be Long Island
which is about 26 miles away; Georgetown, another 24 miles after that which we
will do the next day. One wind/waves forecast calls for about 15
knots of wind, 2-3 foot swells with a 4 second period. We don’t like the short wave period but 2-3
foot swells would be nice. Another site
forecasts 20 knots of wind, 5-6 foot swells with an 8 second period. We’d like the longer wave period but could do
without the larger swells. The first
third of the sail was excellent. After
that, the wind picked up and I think we got the worst of both forecasts; 6 foot
swells with a 4 second period along with 25-30 knots of wind. Fortunately we had enough wind to keep the
boat on a fairly steady heel but it made for a very robust and somewhat bumpy sail.
We reached Long Island, settled in
without even putting the dinghy down.
Friday, 1/30: We left Long Island heading to Georgetown with
winds forecast to be very light, probably too light to be able to sail
efficiently. For once, stronger than
forecast winds worked in our favor, rather than having to motor all the way we
were able to put up all sails and have a beautiful trip with about 10 knots of
wind and sunny skies. About half-way there we got a call on the
radio from Matt and Lindsey on Kindred Spirit passing us about a half mile away
heading for Long Island, the place we’d just left. They’d had enough of the Georgetown
area. We had hoped to see them in
Georgetown but now we’ll have to wait to hopefully see them sometime in the
future. We had never been to Georgetown before but were aware that this is the
location that a lot of cruisers call their winter home; often, between 300-400
boats are in the area. We anchored off
of Elizabeth Cay which is just south of where most of the “permanent” boats
anchor. In the setting sun, the masts in
the distance looked like skyscrapers from the New York skyline.
Saturday, 1/31: We headed into town to see what sights were
there. The town surrounds a small pond,
Lake Victoria, which has one small water entrance from the rest of the harbor. To enter the pond, you pass under an arched
stone bridge with a vertical clearance of 8 feet and a horizontal clearance not
much more than that.
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| Entrance to Lake Victoria |
We walked around the town and were less than impressed. I think we thought that since Georgetown is the major settlement for this part of the Bahamas, and so many cruisers make this their winter home, the town must be bustling. It has everything that a town needs: two small grocery stores, gift shops, a few restaurants, gas station, liquor store, but not much more than that. It certainly has everything that we would want but I think we were expecting more. For us, having access to free fresh water, located at the dinghy dock, is an important asset. Since we are in the area to experience the sights and meet some fellow cruisers we moved the boat to one of the three main anchorage areas, this one the northern-most of the three.
Sunday, 2/1: Super-Bowl Sunday! Even though neither of us cares who wins the
game, we knew we had to find someplace to watch. Fortunately, right by the
anchorage, is a small resort showing the game and offering drink and food
specials; imagine that! In the morning,
we took a walk to the highest point on Stocking Island and got some good photos
of the boats in the harbor.
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| Georgetown Harbor |
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| Superbowl |
After the
nice walk it was time to find seats for the big game. We got there early, and had a table just in
front of the big-screen projector TV.
Shortly after we arrived, the place started filling up. Two guys came by and remarked to Kathi that
we had the best seats in the house, they went to the rear and sat down. Kathi went and invited them to join us since
the table had seats open. One, Paul was
a cruiser who is here with his wife, the other man, Rob, had just flown in from
Canada to visit them for a week. They
were great people to visit with and we all placed bets on who would win. Rob and I were for New England; Kathi and
Paul for Seattle. Needless to say, it
was a great game with lots of ups and downs for both sides. Of course, everyone knows, I picked the
winning side.
Monday, 2/2: Most of the Harbor area is a no-fishing
zone. We dinghied about 3 miles north to
get to some of the outlying cays so we could snorkel and spearfish. The swells at the cuts to get into Exuma
Sound were breaking all across the cuts so we opted to stay to the inside of
the cays. We saw some nice coral, but
nothing to catch for dinner.
Tuesday, 2/3: The ocean swells were still
pretty large but had decreased to where
four or five large swells would break in the cut, then about the same number
would be small enough to not break. We
timed them perfectly and took the dinghy into the Exuma Sound. We had been told that there were lots of
coral heads with lots of fish. Kathi
snorkeled while I stayed with the dinghy to keep its nose into the swells. She saw lots of beautiful coral heads with
the tops about 6 feet from the surface and the base about 30 feet down; a
little too deep for her to easily spearfish.
We travelled about 3 miles looking for an area where the coral might be
a little shallower, but many of the swells were breaking over the shallower
reefs closer in to shore and all of the reefs we found outside of the breaks were too deep.
Kathi got back in the dinghy to discuss what to do and a 5 foot shark
followed her and came within 3 feet of the dinghy. We thought it would hit the boat! Knowing that friends of ours in the Abacos
had their daughter seriously attacked by a shark, we are now much more leery of
them. We still enjoy seeing sharks, we
just don’t want it to be close up and personal.
We headed back to Makani, once again having to time the swells to enter
the cut without fighting a breaking wave.
One more day where we didn’t catch anything to eat; fortunately we still
have fish and lobster in the freezer. In the evening, on Tuesday and Thursday,
one of the local resorts has a Texas Hold-em poker game; $5 buy in. We joined the fun and although we didn’t end
in-the-money, we felt pretty good about how we played and enjoyed the company
of fellow cruisers.
Wednesday, 2/4: We chose a new area to snorkel but had little
more luck than the past few days. Kathi got one lobster but that’s all we
saw. We never had problems in the Abacos
finding lobster but have not had much luck so far in the Exumas. In our e-mail,
Lindsey from Kindred Spirit wrote that she had been attacked by a shark; it had
aggressively come towards her, she held out her spear and the shark grabbed it
and shook her like a rag doll (her words). Fortunately, she did not get bit.
The evening entertainment was a dance at the beach bar.
Thursday, 2/5: We decided to leave Georgetown for a few days
to explore some more of the southern Exuma Islands. We headed north, having a great sail and then
had to choose an anchorage for the next few days. I opted for Rat Cay, Kathi wanted to go to
Black Cay just a mile south. The weather
the next couple of days is supposed to be very windy, so we will be stuck in
the place we choose. I got my way, we
anchored at Rat Cay. The snorkel that
afternoon reminded us how strong the current can be going out some of the
cuts. There was no way we could get in
the water at the coral heads near the cuts and swim against the current. We found no lobster and went back to the boat
empty-handed, again.
Friday, 2/6: The winds blew over 30 knots, the anchorage
was choppy, and I had to admit that I might not have chosen the best anchorage
for the weather conditions. We managed
to take the dinghy to Black Cay, saw that the anchorage there was much more
tranquil than ours and also managed to find a couple of lobsters to get for
dinner. Moving to this anchorage from
where we are at, even though it’s only a mile away, would entail going out one
cut and into another with swells breaking across both of them. We hunkered down and John heard about his
poor choice of anchoring spots. Oh well,
live and learn and eat crow for a long time.
Saturday, 2/7: Winds have died down some, but the water is
still choppy. We decided to go to the beach
for a picnic and found a small beach very close to the boat. I decided that we should take Kiwi along to
give her some time off of the bouncy boat also.
We put her in her harness, attached the leash and a longer rope, and
headed for the beach. Kiwi, as soon as
we were at the beach, took off running into the brush. We got the picnic out knowing that Kiwi can’t
go far being on a leash. Wrong. As soon as she reached the end of the leash,
she did a Houdini-act to work her way out of the harness and off she went. We finished our picnic, calling for Kiwi
every now and again. Our picnic over, no
Kiwi in sight, I went back to the boat to get camping gear to set up on the
beach for the night, figuring that eventually Kiwi will find her way back to
our beach. About a half-hour into
setting up camp, Kiwi comes bouncing back to the beach, looks at me checking
that I’m still around, then runs back into the brush to chase another
bird. For an hour, I tried to coax her
out of the brush but the birds kept her entranced, and far enough into the
thick brush that I couldn't get to her.
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| Kiwi checking out our blog |
Kathi came back from the boat just before dusk to see how I was
doing. Between the two of us, we rounded-up
the reluctant cat and herded her back to the boat, both of us wanting to
strangle her. Another lesson learned: no
shore excursions for Kiwi except on very, very small, non-brushy islands where
she can’t disappear. We try to be mad at her but how can you stay mad at a cute kitten?
Sunday, 2/8: Clean-up day.
Kathi kicked me off the boat to do her cleaning; I took the dinghy to
the beach and cleaned it.
Monday, 2/9: Time to head back to Georgetown, tomorrow
they say it’s a gonna blow. We had a
decent sail and picked an anchorage with protection from the west and north
winds forecast for tomorrow.
Tuesday, 2/10: They forecast a blow, and blow it did. Fortunately we were in the best location for
the wind and waves. We had the radio on
and one of the first calls in the morning was someone warning about a 200 foot long
freighter, filled with sand that was dragging from the center of the harbor
towards the boats in one of the main cruising anchorages. People scrambled to get out of the way before
the freighter finally got engines going and away from the cruising boats. After that, call after call came about boats
dragging. One boat that had gotten towed
into the anchorage the day before with a broken shaft started to drag so
several “neighbors” came with their dinghies to help get the boat back into
position to re-anchor. As we’ve often
said, better to watch the show than to be the show. We went to town and got laundry done. The biggest disappointment of the day was the
cancellation of poker night due to the rough seas; cruisers would get wet
dinghying into the resort.
Wednesday, 2/11: We took a dinghy cruise to Crab Cay, about 5
miles south of where we were anchored.
The day was cold so we just toured the area, didn’t even get into the
water.
Thursday, 2/12: Kathi caught an octopus while
snorkeling. The evening’s entertainment
is poker night at the local resort.
