Mike
02/28/2008, George Town

Feb. 21 Georgetown Exuma, Bahamas

As usual I was up at 6:30 for Chris Parker with the weather on the SSB. Then on the VHF at 8:00 there is the Georgetown Cruiser's Net which list the days events, items for sale, advertisements for local businesses and finally community happenings. At 8:30 on the SSB we listen to Cruiseheimers to keep track of where people are and where they are heading. We can also contact friends at this time and move to another channel for chit-chat.

Today , we learned, there was a volleyball tournament beginning at 10 am so we got ourselves organized and headed to shore at about 9:45. There were six team consisting of nine people each and the idea was to play each team twice before entering the finals.

Everyone seemed to be having a great time although the rules of the game were altered to suit the relative skill level of the contestants. As things progressed I was very happy that I had not signed up to participate. Spiking was illegal, as was most everything that I have ever attempted to teach kids to do on a court.

We went into the only establishment on this particular beach and had a burger and a beer before returning to the games.

One of our friends ended up in the finals and we were watching the game when I was asked to fill in at one of the bridge tables in the shade. I was able to hold my own during the course of the afternoon and before I excused myself, was asked to play in the upcoming duplicate tournament. Although I haven't played a hand of bridge in 15 years, it was fun.

We made arrangements with Doug and Helen of "Morning Glory" , (Michigan people whom we had met in St. Mary's at Thanksgiving) to run some checks on our HF radio after Cruiseheimers tomorrow morning.

Back at the boat we had to eat some fish that where in our freezer. They are call Grunts and are about the same shape as a good sized Rock Bass. The book says that they are tasty so I filleted them, tossed them in a little flour and salt and then pan fried them as I would a bluegill. Served with lemon, they wonderful... and happen to be really dumb; often swimming 6 inches in front of a spear.

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Mke
02/22/2008, George Town

Feb. 20

Our next hop... from Little Farmers to Georgetown, means leaving the safety of the banks and heading out into the Exuma Sound. The Sound is like the ocean except that the swells are usually much smaller so the weather is more critical. The forecast calls for wind on the nose for the foreseeable future. Today those winds will be relatively light so we decided to head south.

We slid through the cut with about a 3 knot current push at about 7:30 and got our fishing equipment organized.

We motored all day, without a fish, and arrived in Georgetown at 3:00. On our third try, we were anchored off Volleyball Beach in about 18 feet of water. Before dinner we took a dinghy ride...(it still is holding together) and scoped out the area. There was a beach party in progress on Hamburger Beach but we passed until another day.

I have no idea how many boats there are anchored here. We haven't even seen the other end of the harbour.

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Mike
02/22/2008, Little Farmer's Cay

During the weather learned that "Strathspey" was in Black Point with us. We had never actually met these folks but they are friends of friends and have spent quite a bit of time in Georgetown during the last couple of months. I have been looking forward to meeting them and to hopefully gain a little information about anchoring in Georgetown.

The big question was the dinghy. Was the floor going to stay in place or not? It actually looked solid but without a test we were never going to know. We hoisted it back into the water an inflated the tubes... no leaks. We lowered the motor in place and still no leaks. Finally, I took off for "Strathspey" and put it up on plane. Again no leaks.

I spent a few minutes with Blair and Mary before returning to the boat to run a bag of garbage ashore and to collect 12 gallons of water while we had easy access. After getting things organized, we hauled the anchor and headed for Little Farmer's Cay. It was an uneventful cruise down the bank until we arrived. The approach called for us to run just a few feet from the limestone outcropping. It was scary. Around the point and into the harbor it wasn't much better. There were channels of deep water but there were also shoals in the middle. As we motored through and got the lay of the land...or water in this case, it was not a problem.

We ended up on a mooring and wandered to into the settlement later in the afternoon. There wasn't much there but as always, the people were friendly and polite. We wanted to go to the Ocean Cabin, a restaurant that had been recommended, but it was closed until later and we didn't want to wait around.

Back at the boat, we had a nice meal and watched the first half of a movie that Jim and Beth had sent along with us.

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