Bridge on the beach; dominoes at the dock; shuffleboard by the surf line; it all sounds ghastly. This is what we expected from Georgetown which is billed as a floating Floridian retirement home in the sunshine. Jacuzzis in the rocks; hiking through the scrubland; victories on Ruffian; that sounds like the Georgetown that we experienced.

As Ruffian was safely snugged up in the anchorage it was time for us to take our lives in our hands and subject Thug to the 2 mile jaunt into town. Donning full offshore kit, more suited to the southern ocean than the warm crystal clear waters of the Bahamas, Iain braved the conditions. Hours later he returned with stinging salt encrusted eyes, soaked through, Thug full to overflowing with water and full of himself as we now had gas to cook with and the wonders of mobile internet.

We now had the ability to heat things up but our ability to cool things down in our fridge was non existent. Our poor fridge had given up the ghost and we needed to chill beer to calm our nerves after sailing in these shallow waters. While in town Iain had scoped out the docks and been assured that even at low water we’d have at least 1 inch under our keel. The dock master had assured us that ‘just enough would be enough’, which seems to be the mantra in the Bahamas.

We woke at dawn to get Ruffian onto the dock for the appointment with the fridgeman at 8am. The fridgeman was clearly such a cool dude that he didn’t do mornings and so we eventually saw him just before low water at lunchtime. After squeezing his enormous frame into our tiny locker he got our fridge all up and working and now we just had to wait for the tide.

Just enough for us, was not nearly enough and we spent the next 2 hours getting really quite intimate with the seabed as the barnacles were scraped off the bottom of our keel. After what felt like days we were finally able to slip away, negotiate the shallows and get back to our safe little spot.

After being on a high getting the fridge fixed it was time to gain some victories on Ruffian and tick off some jobs the infamous jobs list. Since we entered the Canaries 15000 miles and 18 months ago we’ve had a really disconcerting issue with our engine. Every time we pop it into neutral it stalled, now this isn’t too much of a problem in deep water and open bays but now, in the Bahamas, a stalling engine could prove to be disastrous.

We’d polled many people about this problem and all the solutions seemed like science projects. We were told to change the fuel pipes, replace the governor or rebore the engine. Then one day we were told to just change the tickover. We liked the sound of that as it was very non science project. Half a turn of a screw, half a turn of a bolt and magically the problem disappeared. We felt like grade ‘A’ muppets having lived with such a painful problem for so long.

With everything getting fixed someone was smiling on us as and suddenly Ruffian was turned into the social centre of the floating Floridian retirement village. ‘Magnum’, who we’d last seen in Hampton, dropped their hook right next to us and as soon as they were set ‘Il Sogno’, complete with a shiny restepped mast, pulled in to say hi. There were also all our new friends on ‘Anju’ and ‘Elusive’ who were always polling by. We were so popular we left like we’d joined the celebrity ‘A’ list and would be appearing on the front cover of Hello magazine.

With so many new and old friends in Georgetown and our traumatic trip to the safe anchorage making the decision as to when to head out into open ocean again was not the easiest of tasks. Everyone we met has spoken of the crystal clear waters, great snorkelling and the legendary 360 degrees of turquoise that were just to the north of us and thanks to Magnum for their pilotage advice, we are once again searching out what is around the next headland.

Phew. Safe and sound in Georgetown.


The anchorage in Georgetown with its anchored boats goes on as far as the eye can see.


Thanks Nev.


The first of many sensational beaches in the Bahamas.


Poor Ruffian is all trussed up on a dock. That only means one thing. She’s broken.


Ahhh. We’ve found a stowaway, or is he just a friendly refrigeration engineer?


Changing the anti chafe on the bow again. We last did this in Scotland.


What an amazing Jacuzzi.


More sewing. Iain’s shorts this time.


We remembered Matt & Imogen's anniversary, but forget our own!


Massive victory. We fix a problem the engine has had for 12000 miles and 18 months.


Classic Bahamian.