The front hit at 4AM. We are so bummed. A little bit of rain came with it but by 5AM the wind was really getting up. We still had the car from yesterday so we piled the luggage into the trunk and took the folks off to the airport. The airport is a good drive from Georgetown and is located more or less in the center of Great Exuma. We saw my folks off at the security check point and drove back to the coast. The wind was in the 20s at this point so I basically gave up on getting off of the dock. Hideko wanted to see the Emerald Bay Resort and Marina so we turned left at the roundabout and traveled up to the North end of Great Exuma.

The resort was very nice and we had a good breakfast at the café there. In typical Four Seasons style the service was good, they had nice shops, a selection of places to eat, lovely pools, beach access, golf course, spa and everything was rather expensive. The Marina was under construction and only some of the slips have power. The entrance is through a narrow cut well north of Elizabeth harbor and it was breaking by the time we got there (as in, you could surf the channel). Needless to say no one was coming or going for several days. Perhaps they plan to install a break water some day? Perhaps they like having captive clients? They were charging $3 a foot for full service and only $1 per foot for slips without power. A special rate of $0.75 per foot had been offered to cruisers in the Georgetown area.

The Emerald Bay is nice and they have a shopping center with a good grocery store, a pizza place and some other stuff in the area, but it is fairly isolated from everything else. It would be a good stop for a large motor yacht but probably not a budget cruiser.

It was nice to see the north side of the island but when we returned we had to face the reality of being pinned to the dock for as many as five days. A good three foot chop develops by the time it gets across the harbor to us, adding to the impact of the 20 plus wind. If I can get any sort of break I'll use it to spring off and move to the protected anchorage in the lee of Stocking island (with everyone else).