Bound for Georgetown

Friday we sailed from Little Farmers Key to Lee Stocking Island. Yes, we actually got to sail and not motor. Amazing! We really needed a good sail after all the motoring we’ve done. We were beginning to think we should have bought a trawler or a powerboat. Great sail, beautiful day!

We arrived in Georgetown, Saturday, February 18th after a boisterous sail. We left Lee Stocking Island at 7:00 am after listening to our daily weather report. They were calling for 10 to 15 knots (nice!). As usual, we got out of the cut in a rushing current and the seas were 6 to 8 ft high. It blew 20 knots all day, which would have been great, if it was from the right direction. Of course it was blowing from the Southeast – our course. We managed to motor sail close hauled and maintained 5 knots into lumpy swells all the way to Georgetown. There was lots of ocean spray flying from the bow and the boat was again coated in a salt crusty rime.

Georgetown, is different than I expected, it has 330 sail boats anchored in the harbor. Really cool to see all the mast lights turned on at night. The beaches and the water are spectacular! Most excellent! I was hoping for a little more from the town. The Bahamas in general look rather poverty stricken but the people are really nice. It is a little strange because everything is sooooo expensive yet, the townships look more like they belong in a third world country. We have not eaten at really good restaurant since Key West. Oh yeah, except on Crossroads. On board we have eaten some fine meals. Georgetown doesn’t seem to have great restaurants. It is really a small town with a very big harbor.

Georgetown may be small, but the cruising community is large and strives to provide the social outlets that are missing. Last night we attended a happy hour dinghy draft. There were a couple hundred people on 85 dinghies drifting together across the harbor. Appetizers, stories and plans were swapped freely as the sunset behind Great Exuma island. It was rather like a lazy float down the Spring River in Arkansas.

We turned on the morning radio net for the harbor today. It is sort of a bulletin board, calendar, swap meet and talk show rolled together. There are meetings for ham radio folks (hamsters), yoga, concerts, and seminars on weather and conch shell blowing- something for everyone. All that, and we really need to do laundry, update the website with photos and jump on some boat projects. It is easy to see how people spend weeks here.

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