George Town, Great Exuma Is., Bahamas

4/17 Friday

Boy, it’s been a long time since good wifi access and the ability to upload pics and blogs. I'll do the blog first as pics will take a higher-speed connection. As always you can look at previous pics by clicking on the Flickr photo album link to the left. I’m writing now from Stocking Island across Elizabeth Harbor from George Town, Great Exuma Is. where life is good. More about it later. I’m not adding daily bits about the weather because every day has been sunny, 80-85 degrees with mild to moderate winds. Nights usually get down to 72-75 and are great for sleeping. Pretty ideal.

Thursday, April 9.

Aboard Rolestra, our friend Bob Bruce’s IP 40 we continue our adventure. Bob has been a gracious captain and good cook and I have enjoyed my voyage with him. He's a long-time friend who I originally met working at Holubar Mountaineering in Boulder in 1971. We have enjoyed many sailing adventures together, including a year ago to the Abacos.

Jan is still in Frisco skiing her heart out as Colorado gets snow day after snow day! Hard to imagine down here in da islands. After a lovely stay on the hook at Norman’s Is. with a nice meal ashore we headed the next day out the cut east into the Exuma Sound (deep water) and motor-sailed a short distance down to Shroud Cay which is uninhabited and the northern-most island in the Exuma Land and Sea Park which we wrote much about last fall. Shroud Cay has a wonderful lazy mangrove stream that winds its way from the banks side to the sound side which we dinghied through. The mangroves dry out at low tide but have 2.5’ water at high tide, and there’s always a current in the stream. At the eastern end of the stream we ‘climbed’ a 35’ hill from where you could see the whole island and far beyond. This hill used to be an outpost for the US FDA drug buster team as they were tracking a notorious Columbian drug runner using the air strip on Norman’s Is. They tracked all the flights in and out of Normans long enough to put the guy out of business with evidence. That was the ‘60’s, man!

That same day we weighed anchor and headed 15mi or so down to the Exuma park HQ on Warderick Wells cay. After a quick stop and trip ashore we continued on south out in the Sound past Hall’s Pond Cay (owned by Johnny Depp – but no Black Pearl) and many other islands which Jan and I visited last fall, to Staniel Cay. The Staniel Cay Yacht Club is a marina, small resort and primarily, an active bar. There are yacht club flags hanging on every inch of the ceiling from all over the world. I’m sure I looked like the goofy tourist, but it’s fun to walk around with your eyes up looking at all those flags and wondering about all the cruising trips like ours that got those flags there.

Friday, April 10

The next day Don finally got to get out his SCUBA gear and head out on the Staniel Cay Yacht Club dive boat. Don is a rancher and farmer from Bozeman and northern Montana and he was very surprised to learn that the dive boat owner and divemaster was formerly a cowboy in Wyoming! Boy, did they hit it off! At night the divemaster played in the band at the Thunderball Yacht Club which is an even more laid-back place than the SCYC if that is possible. Bob and I arranged to have laundry done and had a nice relaxing day ashore sipping Kalik beer “The Beer of the Bahamas” and doing some Skype phone calls. It was great to have a down day.

After Don’s dive trip we dropped our mooring about 3:00 and sailed 12 miles down to Black Point on Great Guana Cay which we had learned was having a celebration that night. The anchorage is wide open and had great protection. This night there was music blasting ashore, floodlights and a ceremony to begin the fishing tournament the next day with lots of speakers boasting about how they were going to win the big prize which was a giant trophy, and apparently major bragging rights. Also there were many small plywood booths selling all kinds of local fare (and beer or rum). We stopped and had some guava duff, a delicious rich smothered cake desert with strong nutmeg flavor. Oh, and some Kalik!

Saturday, April 11

We had thought about sailing all the 48 nautical miles (about 55 statute miles) to George Town this day, but it was blowing like skunk out of the southeast – right on the nose. The forecast was for light winds the next day, so we decided to head down to Cave Cay and found a beautiful protected anchorage from where we explored a private marina/resort (under construction, like everything in the Bahamas – not because the economy is booming but because projects seem to take decades to complete), saw several caves and went out about a mile west on the banks to a sand island which we walked around at low tide but it was so shallow that at high tide it completely disappeared! We spent another peaceful night aboard after the daily showers and simple but delicious meal.

Sunday, April 12, Easter

As predicted we awoke to mild winds and motor-sailed the 7 uneventful hours down to George Town. I have been getting more and more anxious to see Mystique and see what kind of shape she was in. I was delighted to find her looking good and floating!!! It had been four months that she had been alone in this beautiful little hurricane hole. Over the next two days prior to the arrival of the Admiral from Colorado on Tuesday evening I worked like a dog getting everything put back together. Dinghy launched off the aft deck, outboard attached and started (on the 2^nd pull!), bedding, books, foodstuffs and electronics all removed from plastic bags and put away, some cleaning done and a major trip to the local and very complete grocery store. A major project was to remove a broken engine cooling pump and replace it with a new one. After that, the diesel engine started right up. So Mystique was ready to roll!

Tuesday, April 14

Jan arrived on schedule at sunset and I met her (and Samantha) at the airport. The next day was anothe obligatory trip to the grocery store and giving the boat the Admiral’s touch. When we leave Mystique for months, we put Everything we can in plastic bags and so far, knock on wood, we have not had any mildew or mold.

The Family Island Regatta is beginning next week and preparations are furiously underway in Georgetown. Every island chain in the Bahamas sends their local winning boats to this super bowl of sailing. It is said to be bigger than the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup, World Cup, etc. The boats must be designed, built and mostly manned by Bahamians. They are traditional Bahamian working sailboats with HUGE mainsails. They must be made out of wood, with wooden masts that do not bend. They have hiking boards that slide from one side of the boat to the other as the boats tack, followed by enough bodies to keep the boats upright. Moveable lead ballast is also used in the boat, and if the boat capsizes the lead is so heavy that the boat sinks! It is recovered later by first removing the lead pieces, then raising the boat.

The boats alone are fun to watch, but the preparations are also entertaining. Everyone in town is madly building temporary booths out of plywood – some with decks overlooking the water! There is one booth that told us they would be selling beer and other alcoholic drinks. The name of this booth for the sailing races - ‘Liquor is quicker’. As a racer - - - hummm. We have secured crew spots on a photorapher’s boat for several days and are looking forward to that next Wednesday – Saturday.

More to follow, including pics, I promise, as soon as I find a faster connection across the harbor in George Town!