We had a fun three-night stay at the Stella Maris Marina (on the leeward side of Long Island), using the facilities at the Stella Maris Resort on the windward side of Long Island.

view from the seaward side of Long Island at Stella Maris Resort

Good thing, too, because the noseeums (tiny biting midges. Don't try screening your ports, they will just land on the screen and walk right through the mesh! Be Afraid) make keeping your ports and hatches closed mandatory. First time since Key West that we used the air conditioning, and what a blessing it was... as you probably can guess, with the sun shining and very little wind, it quickly gets well above 90F in a closed boat. With the A/C running on the differential between air and water temperature, we were able to keep it down to about 82 during the day, and as low as 78 at night.

The resort will shuttle marina guests over to their facilities and in return the marina guests often spend money at the resort's restaurant, snack bar, or wherever. They have a beautiful boardwalk along the seaward side:


leading from the "Moonshine" pool and palapa bar/grill to a natural saltwater wave pool that's a really clever design! The water comes in at the southern side at a slightly higher elevation of coral platform, driven by the waves,


and swirls through the pool from south to north, where it exits again at a lower elevation.


So it can actually be used as an "endless pool" if you get right into the deepest spot in front of the incoming current (as the woman in this picture started doing while we were there):

natural seawater wave pool at Stella Maris Resort

Derek and Grant discovered that a kind of golden seaweed was getting washed into the pool, and they started throwing balls of it at one another:

Action shot: Derek needs to work on his aim...

Retribution is swift...

Grant attacks!!!

Ah, the utter peace of a seaside vacation...

Grant in retreat after a seaweed strafing run

More people came along and started horsing around (see? it's contagious!), and we retired to the Moonshine to have some food. The drinks came quickly, and the mango daiquiri started out about the size of my head. I had to slurp it down as fast as possible to keep it from overflowing the sides, and I even had to enlist help from Derek (who was already enjoying his usual Kalik, but bravely pitched in):

monster mango daiquiri, half subdued

The resort's main building is at the top of the hill, with a view to the sea in both directions. It's low-key and nicely maintained:


and has many places to sit around enjoying the ambiance:


we walked around the neighborhood and noticed many German and Austrian names among the property owners; also many German-speaking guests at the resort itself. Here's the memorial to the founder, which may be in itself a bit of an explanation:


We also took a beach-snorkel trip, they are free each day:


We left the marina Monday morning, with the wind about 10 kts from ESE, we were even able to sail under main and jib for much of the way at about 4.1 kts, and Derek hopefully put out a line as we crossed from shallow to deep water. About halfway across the deep water, he discovered that he had something ON that line. Always in the past this has been more of that golden seaweed, but this time whatever was on there was swimming sideways:


Having read far too many cruising-sailor books, I was ready with the vodka. Derek's barracuda was big, but to keep the flopping and violence to a minimum, just apply copious amounts of vodka to the gill area:


The mighty hunter!


The barracuda was 36" long when we tape-measured him. The danger of ciguatera means Heather will be the canary and try a little bit first, cooked, to see if any symptoms develop. The reasoning is that since I'm usually the weakest stomach in the group, if I'm OK, they will be too.

Eventually the wind died and clouds got thicker on the western horizon, with rain obviously falling from individual clumps of cloud. We had to pull in the jib and start up the engines again, and with the engines both running, we made about 4.8 kts toward George Town for the last 2.5 hours of the trip (5 kts after the tide turned).

While Derek waited for a work-related phone call, we seemed to pass between two rain squalls on our approach to Elizabeth Harbour without actually being pounded by the wet stuff: