George Town to Long Island and Back--Full of "Firsts":

We're back in George Town after a two week stay anchored in Thompson Bay, Long Island, which is pretty much east of here. We've experienced a few "firsts" since my last blog entry including our first visit to Long Island.

The first "first" to share about is hitch hiking. We've done quite a bit of it lately.



Our first experience hitch hiking was in George Town to the Napa store and back. Our second and third experiences were on Long Island where hitch hiking is very common. It's nice to be in an environment where that is a viable option for getting around. It's a great way to meet friendly locals. In fact, we met up with a couple of our rides at later times and places



including a mom and her two boys, Aiden and Aaron, at St. Andrews Anglican Church in Long Island on Palm Sunday.



They had given us a ride back from Guana Cay where we went on our first day on Long Island.



A young man gave us a ride out to the place where the dirt road crosses the island to the beautiful east side.



What a lovely view awaited us! We left Timmy with a bowl of water under a gazebo and swam out to the cay.



It was a beautiful spot!



The next Sunday in church when we Aiden and Aaron, they didn't remember us until we mentioned Timmy! Then their eyes lit up, and they had a lot of questions about what he was doing before the service began.

Another "first" we experienced was a windless night and day in George Town before we left. I woke up about 5:00 in the morning the day before we left George Town and went out on deck to look at the stars, and it was completely calm. The water was like glass reflecting the stars above. I have gotten so used to the sound of the wind in my ears that when it is calm it really gets my attention. I could hear the surf crashing in the distance all the way on the other side of Stocking Island even though there was no sound on our side of the island. Way off to the east, lightening flashed occasionally from a storm that never came our way. Another "first" for me that early morning was the endless time that I could spend stargazing without getting chilly since there was no breeze. A shooting star was even thrown into the bargain before the sun came up!

Later that day, we did our first snorkeling in Elizabeth Harbour taking advantage of the windless day.



The water was so calm that we could see the coral from the dinghy!



Just as we were arriving at our first snorkeling spot by Fowl Cay, a tour boat from George Town was preparing to leave. They got a kick out of Timmy in his life jacket! It's kind of fun to be a part of the tourist attraction! Before the wind came in, we dinghied to check out several other snorkeling spots and an anchorage we thought would be well protected for possible future use at Red Shanks Cays. The anchorage turned out to be beautiful, but it would be a little too shallow for us to navigate into with Nancy Lu. I swam all the way back to Nancy Lu from the last place I snorkeled out in the middle of the harbor. It was not the first time I've done that, but I think it is the longest distance I've swum. Mark dinghied along with me as I swam. Of interest to fellow snorkelers, I saw a Fairy Basslet (the little purple and yellow fish) or it might have been a Creole Wrasse that was about nine inches long and fat! I didn't know they got that big.

We got up early the next day and set sail for another "first"--our trip to Long Island! We said a goodbye over the VHF to George Town in general and Mezzaluna in particular who had just arrived the afternoon before, but we didn't get a chance to see them. That morning as we left, we didn't think we'd be back again this year.

We had a nice sail to Long Island; I read a lot from the third book of Bahamian history that I've read since we've started cruising down here.



With all my reading of books and cruising guides plus an interesting history lesson I went to under the Cassaurina trees on Volleyball Beach one afternoon




to which I paid much more attention than Timmy, I may know more Bahamian history than American! BTW, the book I'm reading is good--The Story of The Bahamas by Paul Albury.

We're so glad we chose to visit Long Island this year. It just might be the friendliest of all the Bahamas Islands!




The first morning that we awoke anchored in Thompson Bay, there was no wind at all.




What a beautiful sight! It reminded me of an afternoon I went up the mast in Maine. We could definitely see that our anchor was set good. We could look straight off the bow and see it! We met so many nice cruisers in Long Island! Many "firsts" took place here, as well. We had our first breakfast aboard a fellow cruisers boat with Jeff and Susan on s/v Meltemi. We met our first circumnavigators, Vera and Charles on s/v Amante'(from Austin Texas).



We met them on that first calm morning on our way to see Guana Cay. We shared a car rental with them and explored the south end of Long Island.



On this excursion, we had our first swim in the world's deepest blue hole, Dean's Blue Hole (over 600ft. deep). The first time we came ashore on Long Island on our way to Guana Cay, we met Ren and Ashley from s/v Nila Girl. She and Ren teach free diving at the blue hole among MANY other things they do to give back to the community of Salt Pond where they've been for the last 5 months on Long Island. To my knowledge, this is the first time I've met anyone that holds any kind of world record.



Ashley holds the women's world record for finless free diving--220 feet! Ashley just happened to be at the blue hole giving a lesson when we were there with John and Vera. Another "first" for me was weaving with palm fronds. Ren organized a couple of sessions of teaching how to weave bowls and hats from coconut palm leaves. The first session, Lance, another kind and interesting cruiser demonstrated his expertise and Ren taught. I was TOTALLY into it! I'm sorry to report that I haven't mastered the technique, but I'm still working on it! I am happy to say that I plan to bring back some palm leaves to make crosses with my children's church friends at CCBC when I get home. Ashley and others were making these Saturday night before Easter Sunday. This reminds me of another "first" that I'm not happy about. As far as I know this was the first Easter that I've not celebrated in church. We planned to go to a sunrise service on a beach a few miles from our anchorage. A nice Long Island winter-home owner organized the event and arranged to have a truck at our beach to pick up any cruisers that wanted to attend. That morning, the anchorage was very windy with choppy waves and it was pitch dark so we didn't feel good about the dinghy ride in these conditions.



The Anglican church where we attended Palm Sunday and experienced our first Palm Sunday Hosanna-singing-palm-carrying processional had their service at 7:00am so we didn't feel comfortable going to it either.




On Easter Sunday, I did do my regular bible reading up in the cock pit that morning and was able to witness the sun peek out from the clouds soon after sunrise--glorious! That evening, we donned our fowl weather gear, grabbed the brownies that I had made for the sunrise service, and went to the second beach get-together of our time at Thompson Bay. Other events during our time on Long Island that allowed us to have FUN and meet locals and other cruisers included: 1) Pizza night at Long Island Breeze, a resort which really caters to cruisers, even hosting a daily "net".



This was the scene of the first coconut palm weaving lesson on our first Friday night on the island and the second session which was on Good Friday.




the Good Friday Anglican Parish fundraiser fish fry. I was really impressed that Long Island Breeze Resort closes during community events like that in order to push the business their way!



The Mini-Regatta on Easter Monday where none of the boats showed up to race, but the music, food and visiting were great, anyway! Mark had a "first" associated with the mini regatta--




he volunteered his time one afternoon painting to get the regatta site cleaned up and ready for the Long Island Regatta in June. Hurricane Sandy did a lot of damage to it. 4) On Tuesday (our last full day on Long Island), we decided to rent a car again and drive up north, but there were none available. We heard the last one being rented out to Betty and Wayne on s/v Bright Ayes on the VHF just minutes before we made our call. We had not met them yet. They heard us on the VHF trying to arrange for the car and were nice enough to call us on the VHF and offer to let us go in with them on the car they had rented.







We really enjoyed spending the day with them visiting the site of the Columbus Monument with it's spectacular view and having a long visit over lunch. We also went south with them to Dean's Blue Hole again. Betty and I swam while the guys talked on the cliff over-looking it.




I had fun diving from the platform that Ren and Ashley use to do their free-diving training and classes. Later that evening, we went over for snacks on "Bright Ayes". On Wednesday, we set sail back to George Town along with "Bright Ayes" and "Montana Sky". We had met Charles and Carol from "Montana Sky" when they arrived at Thompson Bay on Monday evening and spent a nice time on their boat that night. They met our friends Peter and Beth back when they were still cruising the Caribbean!

We're back in George Town now waiting on a cold front and predicted strong squalls. This is certainly not a "first", but it has been fun to reconnect with "Mezzaluna" and "Cheers"! On our sail back here from Long Island, we were visited once again by dolphins! These playful visits never get old.



One pair was a mother and baby! We used our whisker pole for the first time with tuteledge from Wayne who was watching from ahead of us on "Bright Ayes" and talking to use via VHF.
Back here in George Town, we had another "first" last night.



We went to our first "Rake and Scrape" at the hotel, Peace and Plenty, with Jeff and Katie (Mezzaluna) and Ida and Keith (Cheers). A Rake and Scrape is a musical event with old make-shift instruments such as washboards. Those elements were not a part of the band last night, but it was a lot of fun. A "BIG first" I have to share is that Mark Stanley fast danced with me in public! I couldn't believe it; he was breaking out the moves that he only does in the privacy of our home! It was a blast for me! Too bad I don't have pictures of him. I think Ida took some so maybe I can get them from her.

Another "first" happened just this afternoon. I was sitting at Mark's navigation station typing this very blog entry when someone came over the VHF radio and said, "Hey George Town, look up and see the ring around the sun!"



I scrambled up the companion way and looked up and saw this!

Tomorrow we should be in the clear as far as the weather goes, and we plan to sail to Cat Island on Monday. We'll see what happens!

See the photo gallery for more pictures.