Category Archives: Bahamas

Hope Town to Marsh Harbour

4/19/16
Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas
Position: 26 32.798N, 077 03.179W
Posted by Bill

We waited out the last 3 days at Hope Town to let the latest “winter” front pass through. By this time of year, these fronts are usually history, but NOOOO, not this year. We had winds to 30 knots out of the north…once again. Hope Town is a good place to weather these out. It is very protected and there is lots of stuff to do on shore. We did some wallowing at one of the pools, and also much drinking and eating about town. Our 2 favorite places to eat were Wine Down Sip Sip, and Hope Town Lodge. Great food, and Sip Sip has the best happy hour on the island. The best prices to buy liquor were at Captain Jacks. We also did the usual climb to the top of the lighthouse:

We also took several walks on the beach:

After the front passed, today, we moved over to Marsh Harbour. There are great places to provision here, including Maxwells grocery and several liquor stores. We decided to take a slip here. It has been since Bimini that we have been at a dock, spending most nights at anchor or a mooring buoy, and this was a special treat. In addition, one of our best friends Kurt and Sharon on Byrd Ketcher were arriving at the same time…reunion!!! We had fun doing a mini pub crawl and hanging out at the marina. Too bad we missed good friends Hayden and Radeen on Island Spirit, and Maris and Linda on Amekaya. We are missing them by a day. Tomorrow we will do some provisioning, and then head to the Jib Room for the Wednesday rib dinner and limbo. We had great fun there last year and are looking forward to doing it again!!!

Tahiti Beach and Hopetown

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4/15/16
Hopetown Harbour, Elbow Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
Position 26 32.279N, 076 57.617W
Posted by Bill

We spent a very relaxing couple of days at Little Harbour, and frequented Pete’s Pub daily. This was a great place to weather the front that came through as it is very protected. On the 12th we slipped our mooring and motored about 2 ½ hours up to Elbow Cay, anchoring at Tahiti Beach, position 26 30.226N, 076 59.119W.

Other than getting our asses kicked in the open cuts, the trip was easy and comfortable. This is one of our favorite spots in the Abacos. It has a great beach, clear water, a good anchorage for prevailing winds, and across the way is a great bar, Cracker Ps. We spent the afternoon wallowing on the beach with some friends we made in Little Harbour. In addition to Mark and Jan on Island Bound, there was Curt and Cindy on Classic Cyn, and Rockey and Ann on Corrina, and two other couples that were friends of Curt and Cindy…but I can’t remember names and boat names…perhaps the rum punch. We actually have almost a week of settled weather! Haven’t seen that in forever. The 13th was a work day. Mark made water and we were down about 90 gallons of water, so I jugged water back and forth in the dinghy for several hours. Then I borrowed Curt’s hooka, which is an air pump with a scuba regulator, so I could dive and clean the bottom of the boat. Later in the afternoon we headed to Cracker Ps. We remember this being a great bar with good food, but they scaled back the menu and the drinks weren’t as good as we remembered, so we were disappointed.

There is yet another coming in Saturday through Monday (when are these winter fronts going to stop!!!!), so yesterday we upped anchor and went to Hope Town and grabbed a mooring to wait out the weather.

We really enjoyed Hopetown last year LINK, and it is well protected for heavy weather. After a walk about town, and a long walk along the beach, we had drinks and dinner at Wine Down & Sip Sip. They had a great rum selection, good happy hour, and homemade flatbread pizzas that were outstanding! Highly recommend it. Today we are going to climb to the top of the lighthouse and maybe sit by the pool. Looks like we may be here for almost a week.

We are starting to look at how we are going to travel to make the crossing back to the States. Our intent is to cross in early May and make it back to Southport NC by the end of May, where we will spend the summer again.

Little Harbour in the Abacos

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4/9/16
Little Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas
Position: 26 19.613N, 076 59.894W
Posted by Bill

The last day in Spanish Wells, we rented a golf cart for a day and drove around the island. One of the places we stopped was a grocery store that was further up the island, one which we hadn’t gone to since it was so far on foot. This store was the size of a small grocery store in the US and was stocked really well by Bahamas standards. Having wheels, we loaded up with heavy stuff and some fresh produce (very hard to get in the Bahamas). Afterwards, we rode across a small one lane bridge to the adjacent island, Russell Island. There was a restaurant called Sandbar that was right on the water that we checked out. It was really nice, but expensive. We had lunch there and found out that they had a happy hour later, so we came back for happy hour.

They had a specialty drink called a Mexican Hipster that we all really liked, that had jalapeño infused tequila, simple syrup, lime juice and muddled cucumbers. As Borat would say…”Great success!”. On the way back to the dinghys we stopped at Budda’s for dinner. We sat at the bar next to some locals, one which had what I diagnosed as a version of Turret’s Syndrome. He let out a signature “woooo” at the top of his lungs at random, and was one of those people that latch on to you in conversation, and makes it impossible to politely exit. On top of that he was drunk. From our boats, every day we would hear someone on shore yelling “wooooo”, and we couldn’t quite figure it out. Now, we know.

By the forecast, we had a 1 ½ day window on the 8th and 9th to make it to the Abacos, so we left Spanish Wells on the 7th and staged in an anchorage called Royal Island Harbour on nearby Royal Island. Staying here would cut an hour off of our trip to Abaco, giving us a padding of day light in case we had to go slower than planned. The harbor is protected from weather from all directions and was totally quiet. There are a couple of homes on the far west end of the island and an abandoned, under construction, resort, and nothing else. It was calm and quiet, and a beautiful day, and we enjoyed just chilling and looking at the view.

The next morning we got up and took off about 6:45 AM. Sunrise over the harbor entrance:

When we traveled outside of the protection of the reefs, the seas were rolling about 3-5 feet with a dominant wave period of 9 seconds…typical ocean swells. The further north we traveled, the larger the swells were, and the last 2/3rds of the trip was in 5-7 foot swells hitting us on the beam. Without any wind, they rolled the boat from side to side, and made for an uncomfortable ride. We ended up getting some wind and picked up the prevailing currents (in our favor) about 3/4ths of the way there, and made good time overall, making landfall at about 4:30 PM. We wanted to get into Little Harbour (360 degree protection) and grab a mooring ball, in anticipation of the next weather front moving in on the 10th, but we needed at least a foot of tide to get through the harbor entrance, which wasn’t going to be there until around 7 PM. So, we anchored off Lynyard Cay and waited. At 6:30 we upped anchor, slipped through the entrance and grabbed a mooring. If you read the blog last year, you may remember that Little Harbour was one of our favorite places in the Bahamas. It is quiet, picturesque, and the home of Pete’s Pub. Pete’s is the quintessential beach bar; no floor – just sand; picnic tables; old, signed T-shirts that people have left, are hanging everywhere. The view is great, food is great, and they have a killer rum punch!

The caves in the background are ones that the family lived in when they first came to the harbor. They eventually built houses, the bar, and an art gallery.
Pete’s Pub:

We have seen lots of turtles, lots of dolphins (rare in the Bahamas) and this manatee in the harbor:

The beach behind Pete’s is beautiful, but unfortunately, like most beaches that face the Atlantic Ocean, trash (mostly shoes and plastic) litters the high tide line…sad, sad, sad, what we are doing to our environment:

We will wait out the next weather front here at Little Harbour and then start moving up the Abacos. The week after the front is showing settled weather for the forecast period…finally!!!

Hangin’ out in Spanish Wells

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4/4/16
Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Posted by Bill

A lot of people ask “what do you do all day?” A typical day involves managing the batteries, charging. Just like a house, you have to do dishes, clean and tidy the place. Then there is the boat projects. Just the other day, while charging the batteries with the generator, the charging voltage stopped. The generator was chugging along fine, but there was no current going in to the batteries all of the sudden. Troubleshooting let me to find that the main battery cable that goes to the charger/inverter had a bad crimp on one end, resulting in a bad connection. The connection had gotten so hot due to the bad connection, that it was melting the cover of the fuse block it was connected to! Not good…and a sure fire hazard. I had a spare and swapped it out. It was an unplanned project that took 4 hours or so from start to finish. That is the kind of stuff that happens. Mark has also been making water with his water maker the last couple of days, and when he does, I usually spend a few hours shuttling jugs of water with the dinghy. Just another day in the life.

Like most places in the Bahamas, there are great beaches here, so we did some wallowing yesterday. I worked on perfecting my rum punch recipe and we headed over to the beach with the other Island Bound and the people on the boat next to them, Bob and Margaret, on trawler – Beyond the Sea. They are from Buffalo NY, and we all went to dinner at Budda’s after the wallowing session. We always see lots of sea life and today was no different. Turtles, lots of star fish and sea stars like this one:

The beach:

A trip to Harbour Island

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4/2/16
Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Posted by Bill

Happy April! We have been enjoying Spanish Wells. The town is well kept, no trash, buildings well maintained, and the people are really nice. The day after we arrived, we went ashore to do laundry. If you stay at the marina in town, you can use their new laundry facilities, but since we are on a mooring ball, we had to use the only other option…the laundry mat here…one washer, one dryer in a shed behind one of the small grocery stores (CW Grocery). We paid $6/token, which does a load of wash or a dryer load. For $24 we completed 2 loads. We hauled our cloths from the dinghy about 3 blocks to the machines and then back again.

We have been checking out the local dining options, most of which are very pricey. We seem to keep going back to Buddah’s, as it is the most reasonable and the food is very good. Buddah also has a liquor store, and we restocked some vodka as our supply was dwindling dangerously low. Mrs. Buddah gave us a ride back to our dinghy so we didn’t have to carry the bottles…very nice. Here are some more pictures of what the houses look like:

One of our goals at this stop was to go over to Harbour Island. It is on the Atlantic Ocean side of Eleuthera, and is known for it’s pink sand beaches and luxurious resorts. We hired a guy from Pinders Grocery store to take us via boat to the west side of North Eluethera, then via land taxi to the dock where the other water taxis go over to Harbour Island. Then we took one of those water taxis and spent the day. It was really nice there. The beach was beautiful!! We did a mini pub crawl across the island, stopping at a restaurant on the beach called Sip Sip (the locals slang for gossip). It was expensive, but the food and view were outstanding. This is certainly the land of the rich and famous. All of the places to eat or drink were very expensive, and the rooms at the resorts are in the $400+ range per night. We enjoyed the day very much and would absolutely recommend going there. Our favorite bar was at the Remora Bay resort and marina. They have a frozen custom version of Goombay Smash that was the bomb!! Bring lots of cash though!
The princesses at another Princess St:

Random street shots:

A not so good picture of us at the “Lone Tree”, a local tourist photo spot:

Beach pics and an example of the resorts: 2205 6 12

Since most of the traffic was golf carts, we weren’t surprised to see this:

Sip Sip:

We were planning to leave today to stage at Egg Island, then sailing to the Abacos on Sunday, but our weather window slammed shut. 6-8 foot seas today and winds cracking up from the north (where we are heading) tomorrow. It looks like we will not be able to get out of here for a week or so, but we like it here a lot and we have good protection from the weather. This certainly has been a bad winter to try and travel around the islands. The winds and seas are very uncomfortable more than 80% of the time. We seem to have a couple of days between these bad periods, where we try to get to the next place and prepare to get slammed again. Except for here, it has made it hard to check out and explore the places we are staying.

Working our way to Spanish Wells

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3/29/16
Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Position: 25 32.536N, 076 44.729W
Posted by Bill

The day after we arrived at the Glass Window anchorage we went ashore to see the Glass Window, which is a natural gap in the island of Eleuthera that was caused by the constant pounding of the waves and years of hurricanes that eventually wore a gap in the land. The Bahamians built a bridge over it and you can hike to it and see the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the aqua waters of the sound on the other. The winds have been relentless and we had a very wet dinghy ride to shore. The views were breathtaking, and worth the effort to go ashore and hike to the bridge.
The sound side:

The ocean side:

Our boats anchored by the Glass Window:

Then we pulled anchor and motored directly into the wind and seas for 3 hours to Hatchet Bay. The winds were between 12 and 25 knots and the seas were 5 to 6 feet with a 2 second period…not fun. The boat would bash into a wave and then pound down into the trough, one right after another every 2 seconds. It was miserable. Fortunately, the trip was only a few hours, and Hatchet Bay Pond is protected 360 degrees by hills, so we were going to a calm place to anchor. You have to go through a narrow cut in the cliffs to enter that is only about 2 boat widths wide. We got pushed around by the current as we entered but it looks more intimidating than it really is. You could not let the boat get away from you, and had to feel the movement and react immediately.

Once inside, the water was calm and flat, and this is the first place we have anchored in flat water since Georgetown, a welcome relief. We anchored at position 25 21.046N, 076 29.520W, and went ashore to the small village of Alicetown and grabbed dinner at Twin Brothers. It was a pretty good dinner. The town is really depressed. Most of the houses and businesses are very small run down buildings, and you would see a decent house followed by ruins, followed by a house that has been under construction for probably 10 years. The people are poverty stricken by US standards. You see this throughout the Bahamas, but it was really bad here. The next day we tried to find a place to do laundry, to no avail, and walked around town. The grocery store was really nice and had pretty decent prices. Hatchet Bay has had so many great reviews and write ups. We didn’t get it. The harbor was ok, but we have seen much nicer places. The people in town were mixed…some very friendly, and others downright bitchy. Usually the Bahamians are all very friendly. We bought some groceries and dumped our trash.
The Princesses, Tricia and Jan, at Princess street…lol:

Trash is a big deal cruising the Bahamas. Through most of the Exumas you have to carry your trash with you as there is no place to dump it. It is amazing how much trash we generate as humans. On our boat we are very conscious of minimizing trash, but it is very hard to do. Some places in the Exumas will take trash for a fee, like $6/bag. Trash management is a major issue for these small cays, and most have a trash heap that is burned regularly. We had been carrying trash for about 10 days, and were glad that Eleuthera doesn’t charge to dispose of it.
In the anchorage we saw a turtle and several rays. It is a good place to hide from winds and seas, but we wouldn’t go back unless we needed that protection.
A turtle in the bay:

Views of the bay:

Today we had calm winds and relatively calm seas, so we upped anchor and motored to Spanish Wells on the north end of Eleuthera. Another front is moving in tomorrow, and we grabbed a mooring ball in a sheltered spot to weather it. There have been reports that the moorings aren’t well maintained and that they have broken loose recently, sending boats adrift, but ours looks ok, and there are no good places to anchor here. There aren’t any good places to land a dinghy in town either, and we had to tie up to a concrete wall about 4 feet above the dinghy. We threw out a stern anchor to keep the dinghy from hitting the wall while we were ashore. Spanish Wells is a quaint Bahamian town, much like some of the towns in the Abacos, with well kept colonial style homes painted bright colors. We found a great place to eat and drink called Buddha’s. Buddha greeted us as we walked up and promised us great food and a happy hour. We hitched a ride on a golf cart to get there and the driver told us that the conch fritters and cracked conch was the best around…boy was he right…both of them fantastic. We retreated home to an infestation of no-see-ums…major bummer.

We will wait out the weather and enjoy this town. Looks like we have a good weather window to cross to the Abacos on Sunday, and that is our current plan.

Good-bye Exumas….hello Eleuthera

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3/26/16
Glass Window Anchorage, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Position: 25 25.160N, 076 35.559W
Posted by Bill

Well, we weathered the frontal system that kicked our ass for 5 days in Big Majors Spot, and we only got off the boat to go to a Full Moon Happy Hour on Cruisers Beach the day before we left. The 5 days included a lot of rocking and rolling, and not the music kind, and it was damned uncomfortable for the most part, but no one had their anchor drag in the our anchorage, so we deemed it a successful weathering of the winds. Our good friends Hayden and Radeen on Island Spirit rolled in for the Full Moon event, so we got to spend some time with them as well. It was interesting listening to everyone on the marine radio, trying to make last minute arrangements for a mooring ball or a slip in a marina. There aren’t many to be had in the Exumas, and there are very few places to hide from winds that clock through all four directions in a few days time. We stayed tucked up in the NE corner of the anchorage at Big Majors as it was only exposed to the SW and a little to the W, and the worst winds were going to be from the NW, then move N, then move E. It worked well. The following week was supposed to have 10 – 25 knot winds from the E or SE, so we decided to pick up and leave.

On 3/24 we upped anchor and sailed up to Hawksbill Cay, and spent an afternoon on another totally deserted, beautiful beach. We anchored at position 24 28.915N, 076 46.691W. The next day we sailed up to Ship Channel Cay, which has the northern most anchorage in the Exuma, anchoring at position 24 48.645N, 076 49.763W. We basically just lounged around and read. The views were beautiful. Both of those anchorages had a nasty swell that rocked us all night. In fact, we have found very few places in the Exumas where we had a comfortable anchorage, due mostly to the winds, and swells that come from a different direction than the wind. In spite of that, the Exumas were absolutely beautiful and mostly remote. When we emerged from the boat the day we left Hawksbill, we saw that mega-yacht Firefall had anchored next to us in the night.

We also saw dozens…not kidding…dozens of mega-yachts gathering at the cays around Highborne Cay, just north of Hawksbill. We were figuring maybe a spring break thing? We wanted to dinghy up and knock on the hull of one…”Pardon me, but do you have any Gray Poupon?”
Today we left at dawn and sailed to Eluethera. The first half of the 45 mile trip was with winds and seas behind us on our quarter, which was good. Then we had to turn and deal with them on our beam (side)…not good. Waves were 3-4 feet with a 2 second period and we were getting rolled around AGAIN! I had to hand steer the entire trip to minimize the unpleasant motion of the boat. Good thing was…we had strong winds and made great time, arriving in just under 5 hours. We were expecting 7 or 8 hours.
Eleuthera so far is beautiful! We expect to cruise around here for a week or so, and then head north to the Abacos for April. Our anchorage:

Tricia makes it to Pig Beach

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3/21/16
Big Majors Spot, Exumas, Bahamas
Position: 24 11.302N, 076 27.492W
Posted by Bill

Our window of really nice weather was coming to a close, so we left Georgetown on the 18th, early in the morning. We wanted to make the ocean leg of the trip in settled weather, and get somewhere by Sunday that would protect us from an impending front. This one is looking nasty again, another week of high winds, this time with winds from all directions over a 3-4 day period. There are not many places that you can hide in the Exumas from north or west winds, so we tried to pick the best spot based on the forecast. As we made our way up Elizabeth Harbor, approaching the cut to the ocean, we started to see huge swells pounding on the reefs just south of the cut. This action created 7-8 foot waves in the harbor at the entrance to the cut, something that we did not expect. We had a really rough time for about 20 minutes until we made it through the cut, where we found large ocean swells with a long wave period. We took the swells on the beam (side), which made a very uncomfortable passage, until further north the wind kicked in and we could get a sail up. Sails smooth the motion, but it was a long day of rolling back and forth. We came back into the Exuma Banks through Galliot Cut, and the current was ripping through the cut, fortunately in the direction we were traveling. We made almost 10 knots of speed through the cut, and as soon as we turned the corner inside, Mark announced on the radio that he blew the water pump on his engine. Fortunately, there was a known anchoring spot right next to us, and he had a spare, so we anchored. He replaced the pump in record time and we were on our way. Thank goodness he didn’t lose that pump in the cut!!!
The wind was very light on the banks and once again you could see everything on the bottom. This water was 15-20 feet deep:

We pulled into Big Majors Spot around 6 PM. Big Majors is the home of Pig Beach and the swimming pigs. Those of you who know Tricia, know that she loves pigs, and has been wanting to come here since we decided to take off and go cruising. The pigs roam the beach and adjacent area and everyone feeds them. They will even swim out to your dinghy sometimes as you come in to the beach. The other major attraction here is Thunderball Groto, the place where they filmed the underwater scenes for the James Bond movie Thunderball. You can snorkel the caves. There is a great bar on the adjacent Staniel Cay, called the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. There is fuel here, and lots of big mega-yachts come here and anchor to check out the attractions. There is also an airport where the mega-yachts fly their guests in and out.

The day after we arrived we went to Staniel Cay, had lunch and rum drinks at the yacht club, and walked around town.
Dinghy landing on Staniel Cay:

Staniel Cay Yacht Club:

Couple of grocery stores:

Beach of conch shells:

Then yesterday we started with a trip to Pig Beach. If you read the blog, you may remember us visiting a cay in the Abacos in the Bahamas called No Name Cay. They had pigs on a beach there, but it was not a pleasant experience as the pigs were nasty and bite, so we were a bit on guard as we approached this one. The pigs at Pig Beach were very tame. Tricia fed them table scraps and pieces of carrot. There were little baby pigs too. It was fun, and Tricia got to finally go to Pig Beach and feed the pigs!

Afterwards, we mixed some rum drinks and headed for Cruisers Beach to wallow. Cruisers beach is a small beach where cruisers over the years have built and/or left things to make the beach more like “home”. There are picnic tables, beach chairs, a fire pit, umbrellas, corn hole…you get the idea. We met some other couples that were partying there as well and a friend that we made at Shroud Cay, Rob on S/V Celebrian.

Then it was back to the boat for dinner. Last night the winds shifted and caused the boat to roll badly again. It made for a sleepless night.
Today, Mark ran his water maker, so I jugged water back and forth to our boat and prepped for the big winds that were forecasted to hit us early afternoon. The many weather models conflicted, some forecasting 40 knot winds and others winds in the low to mid 20s. It hit around 2:30 and made it rough to dinghy water, so we just hunkered down on the boat. So far we have good wave protection and the anchor is holding well. Tricia is making homemade gnocchi…yum! If the forecast pans out, we will likely be here until at least Thursday.
Our anchorage:

One of the mega-yachts. Check out the water slide:

A few days in Georgetown

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3/17/16
Georgetown, Exumas, Bahamas
Position: 23 31.095N, 075 45.550W
Posted by Bill

We departed Black Point on 3/14/16, just before dawn, sailed the Exuma Sound (ocean passage), and arrived at Elizabeth Harbor between Stocking Island and Great Exuma Island at around 4:30. The passage was a bit rolly with easterly swells on the beam, but the winds were light and it was a nice day. We anchored off of what is known as Volleyball Beach. It is on the Stocking Island side of the sound, and there is a well known bar there called the Chat and Chill. This Georgetown area is a cruisers haven. There are over 100 boats anchored somewhere around the sound within a mile of Georgetown, on Great Exuma. Some people stay here all winter, some from November to May, so there is a bit of organized event planning for all of the cruisers that need something to do. There is yoga every day in the morning, volleyball every day at 2 PM, and all kinds of get-togethers like poker, etc… This is way too much of a schedule for us, and we really only wanted to come here to check it out, and to get some provisions and fuel. After we arrived, we hit the Chat and Chill. Classic dump dive bar on a beach with good, but overpriced, rum drinks. The next day, we made a run across the harbor to Georgetown, about a mile or a little more from our anchorage. The water was pretty calm, and we cranked up the engine to get us on plane. About half the way there, I noticed that the dinghy was leaking pretty badly. We pulled into the harbor area at Georgetown and told our friends Mark and Jan that we needed to go back immediately, and figure out how to patch it up. We headed out, bailing out water as we went, made it back to the boat, grabbed repair supplies and tools, and headed for Volleyball Beach at the Chat and Chill. We beached the dinghy, devised a repair strategy, and went to work. Applying a strategic patch, we headed to the bar while the glue dried. Mark and Jan caught up with us and we enjoyed a few Goombay Smashes. We tested the patch, which was successful, only a minor drip of a leak again, and because the service was so bad at Chat and Chill, headed across the way to another bar to have dinner and more drinks.

Coming into the Georgetown area:

Volleyball beach and Chat and Chill:

Buddy boat, Island Bound, during sunset:

Our anchorage:

Chat and Chill:

The next day we headed back to Georgetown, buying groceries and liquor, and checking out the BTC store (cell service company). We got some basic questions answered about our phones, one of which is how to keep the prepaid phone number active after we get back home. The customer service rep gave us bad information, but we found out that if we create an online account while we are here in the Bahamas, we can top up our accounts every 90 days via their web site and keep our phone numbers active. In the past we used Mr Simcard to top up and we paid a hefty premium for the service. Now we can pay direct. Georgetown has good provisioning, a decent hardware and marine supply store, some restaurants and bars, and basic needs like laundry and hair cuts. It is larger than most Bahamian towns we come across, but, like all Bahamian towns, still suffers from lack of maintenance and reliable basic infrastructure. The people are very nice and also, for the most part, poor. We babied the dinghy, and she survived the trip. When we got back from shopping, we took Island Bound back over to Georgetown to fuel up.
Typical Bahamian store:

Georgetown waterfront:

Today was awesome. We started with a hike to the ocean side of Stocking Island…beautiful…and then up Monument Hill for some fantastic views.

Afterwards, we took the dinghys a couple of miles south in Elizabeth Harbor and did some really great snorkeling on some shallow reefs, followed by some wallowing at a really pretty ocean cut…totally secluded. Wallowing with the kickboards our former neighbors gave us as a parting gift:

We showered up and headed back to Georgetown to have dinner at a Rake-and-scrape, which is basically a Bahamian barbecue. We had ribs, rice and peas (beans), cole slaw, and mac-and-cheese. It was pretty good! We have enjoyed a week of fantastic weather for a change, but time is running out and the next front is approaching in a few days. We will leave Georgetown tomorrow and head back north to weather the front.

Arriving at Black Point

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3/12/16
Great Guana Cay, Black Point Settlement, Exumas, Bahamas
Position: 24 05.931N, 076 24.223W
Posted by Bill

The winds have just not wanted to die down. The forecast extended the high winds another couple of days, but we were tired of waiting and were wanting to get moving south. We decided to slip our mooring yesterday and brave the weather and seas, moving to Great Guana Cay. There is a small town there called Black Point that has several restaurants, a great laundry facility, offers a place to take our trash that has been rapidly accumulating, and offers great protection from the forecasted winds. Unfortunately, we were bashing into the wind and waves the whole 4 ½ hours it took to get there. The entire boat was covered in salt from the spray. We were glad to get there…it was not a comfortable trip. We went ashore for happy hour at a bar called Scorpios. They only have happy hour 3 days a week and we were lucky to arrive on one of the days. We drank their version of Rum Punch, and it was really good. We drank a lot of them and ordered some happy hour food. A good time was had by all!! Every bar has their own version of Rum Punch throughout the Bahamas, and it is fun to try them. This was one of the better ones we have had in our travels, and they even gave us the recipe, something that most places won’t do.

Today we walked over to the ocean side and checked out a blow hole, pretty much if you‘ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. Then we walked through town, checked out the grocery store (pretty good one too for these small cays), walked to a garden of driftwood and shells that we read about, then stopped by Deshamonds restaurant to make a reservation for dinner. You have to tell them what you want to eat ahead of time so they can make sure they have the stuff, and prepare it to time your arrival. Right now we are on the boat, running the generator to charge the batteries, preparing for happy hour (as soon as I get this blog post done), and will enjoy our amazing views until dinner is ready at 6.

The forecast for the next week looks really good, so we will explore Great Guana Cay for another day and then make our way south to Georgetown by way of Farmers Cay. Finally we have good internet access via our cell phones and some WiFi in the restaurants here.
Our anchorage here:

Sting rays cruising the town dock for some scraps:

Local kids play in the water:

Scorpios: