Our last weekend in Georgetown we entered the Coconut Challenge with our friends Steve and June. The 4 events included paddling your dinghy around the anchorage, using one swim fin each, collecting coconuts tossed in the bay, ring toss, bowling, and hoop throw. We did not even come close to winning but it was a lot of fun anyway. About 30 teams entered, several in costumes or decorated boats.

As much fun as Georgetown and the Cruisers Regatta activities were it was time to leave. There were over 300 boats in the bay and it was getting too crowded. Some boaters don’t know how to anchor properly and some boats dragged into those behind them, usually in the middle of the night. Others chose to run noisy generators during sunset hours until late in the evening, ruining your quite time. A 35 mile sail took us SW to Thompson Bay on Long Island. A crowded day in Thompson Bay is 40 boats, the day we came there were only 8, more our style. Long Island is 80 long by 2~4 miles wide with a population of 2500-3000. We rented a car for 3 days and explored as much of the island as we could. Hamilton’s Cave has been in Mr. Leonard Cartwright’s family since 1849 and is the largest cave in the Bahamas. Dean’s Blue Hole is the deepest in the world and annual competitions are held there to see who can free dive ( no scuba ) the deepest. The current record we were told is 120 meters, almost 400 feet on one lung full of air!!

Long Island, like most of the Bahamas has “settlements” instead of towns or villages. These generally consist of a few to many buildings, which may includes homes, shops, restaurant/bars, etc, scattered over a wide area. If there was not a sign saying you were passing thru a settlement you might not even know it. The Post Office here is also a small general store, and the resident doctor has a big sign pointing to his home.

Thompson Bay Inn, a small restaurant/car rental/cottage rental business is a short walk from the beach and proprietor Traphena has a freshly cooked home style buffet a few evenings a week. For $18 you get all you can eat potato salad, cole slaw, plantains, rice, grouper, conch, lobster, curry chicken, and bbq ribs, plus happy hour drinks. We have eaten there twice and expect to do it again before we leave the island.

We were hoping to leave this week but the weather is not cooperating and we will probably be here until next Monday if not longer. Weather dictates not only when we can go but where we can go comfortably and safely. Over the next 2-3 weeks, as we head further S, our passages will be longer. Generally between 100 and 700 miles, versus 10-20 miles here in the Bahamas. So we also have to plan on what the weather will probably be like when we reach our destination 1 to 5 days after we start out. Our original plans were to sail from the Southern Bahamas to Columbia, then up to Guatemala for hurricane season. After talking to Chris Parker, our weather guru and forecaster for the Bahamas and Caribbean, we changed our plans. When we leave here we will be sailing to Port Antonio, Jamaica via Great Inagua, Bahamas and the Windward Passage, which lays. between Haiti and Cuba. From there it will be @ a 700 mile passage W to Belize where we will spend the rest of the Spring as we work our way S to Guatemala. In the fall, after hurricane season we will sail to Columbia, then Panama. This change in routes actually saves us about 1000 miles of sailing and should provide more comfortable conditions underway.

Once we leave the Bahamas I don’t expect to have a decent internet connection until we reach Guatemala so this may be the last update for a while.

Hope you enjoy the new photo’s we have added.