Life in George Town
25 January 2015 | Bahamas, George Town, Exuma Yacht Club
Elizabeth (Photo by Ed)
Life here in George Town is both typical of cruising life and somewhat atypical. It's a lovely area, lots of room to anchor without feeling like your personal space is being invaded and many anchorages to choose from. We are nestled close to town again and will probably stay put until our kids show up on Thursday of this week. We've been back and forth, anchored in front of Monument beach, Stocking Island and in Kidd's Cove near town. Yesterday we took the dinghy for a long ride to another anchorage in Red Shanks where we'll go with either this set of guests or the next one. It's all beautiful. This photo was taken on our way to check out Red Shanks.
What's typical of the cruising scene is the number of get togethers with other cruisers. Every day there's something on the beach or in town or on someone's boat. If we were so inclined, we could become social butterflies. But that's a big if and we find ourselves doing very little socializing with anyone or taking part in the group gatherings. I suppose there are many reasons for this but sometimes we wish we'd make more of an effort. Other times it feels like too much effort. The atypical part about the Bahamas is the number of part time cruisers who come here. The question "Where are you from" is often the first clue that we are speaking to a part timer. "What boat are you on" or "Where are you heading?" is often coming from a full time cruiser. Of course there are exceptions but it's something we've noticed lately. It makes no difference to us whether someone is part or full time (some of our best friends are part timers--you know who you are...) but traveling to and from the US or Canada to the Bahamas and back again year after year doesn't appeal to us personally. We like how our good friends on s/v Tivoli do it--they brought their yacht to Denmark, hauled it out and flew back to CA where they'll work until it's time to return to sailing. That seems more exciting but I think for us, it's a lot of adjusting being on land, then the boat, then on land, etc. We've just about been part-timers by default with the two weddings of our kids and then repowering this past summer. But now we're back in the swing of things and that feels great. We'll be entertaining company through February and then most likely will be on our way. Where are we heading? We don't really know. But one of these days we will figure it out and that will be the next adventure. In the meantime, we can't imagine a better place to sit for the next month.