March 1, 2018 – Black Point – Great Guana Cay

It was a two hour motor sail to Black Point, with the jib mostly hanging uselessly, very little wind.

Unhappy jib

There are quite a few other boats here, we anchored at the north side of the large harbour, as close to land as possible in anticipation of two days of high winds from the north. The idea is that there will be a short distance for waves to build from the north to our boat so any waves should be small – that’s the theory.

We went ashore for about an hour to check out possible grocery stores, mostly we were hoping to get some fresh vegetables but we’re not holding our breath. One store had bins for veg but they were empty. The big challenge of going ashore is getting on and off the dinghy at the high government dock while waves are pushing the dinghy against the ladder. The best part of excursion was buying a loaf of coconut bread. You find it in a private home, the loaves of bread sitting on the kitchen counter. The bread is delicious.

Yum!

Feb 28, 2018, Little Farmer’s Cay – Exumas

All the boats except one that were  anchored near the town dock left this morning so we moved there after breakfast, makes for a shorter dinghy ride to the beach. The remaining sailboat also left this morning so we had the anchorage to ourselves except for a big fishing boat, we think, that is probably permanently anchored here.

View from the boat and looking back at Finnish Line from the dinghy.

We had to phone in our dinner order, this seems to be quite a common practice in smaller places. Getting the motor onto the dinghy was easy, helps when you don’t have 20+ knot winds. We left the boat around 3:30 to give us time to walk around the island a bit, our dinner reservation was for 4:45, timing suggested by the restaurant.

The convenience store was pretty bare, I picked up a large bottle of lime juice, good for marinades, salad dressing, G&Ts, no fresh veg or fruit. We hope we can get some at Black Point tomorrow. We saw a couple turtles while motoring to the beach and I was disappointed that I couldn’t get a picture. However, walking over to the village dock more than made up for that. There were small sharks, many rays, turtles and lots of colourful fish at the dock.

We walked over to the Ty’s Sunset Grill, past  a few houses that were in mostly in good repair. The restaurant is very close to the airport but no planes coming or going except for the one we saw yesterday. We chatted with a couple whose son had attended a school at Cape Eleuthera, we passed it on our walk there. The school specializes on developing sustainable eco friendly living in the Bahamas.

Ty’s Sunset Grill

Sitting at the restaurant was very pleasant but we decided not to wait for sunset. It was about a 15 minute walk to the dinghy beach and although we had left lights on we decided to make the trip in daylight. The tide had come in so we had to slosh our way to the dinghy which was tied to a boat on the beach. Oh, oh, the pull chord on the motor would not come out. After trying for awhile we decided to row back, good decision to come back in daylight. Also good that there was very little wind so rowing back was fairly easy, says I who didn’t do the rowing, I did offer. Turns out the reason  the chord would come out was because the motor was in gear!

Manta ray & turtle at the dock.

Feb 27, 2018, Little Farmer’s Cay

Left the Marina just before 9am along with many other boats, again heading both north and south.

Beautiful day for a sail – deep water Atlantic side.

We covered 30 nm today and were able to sail about 60% of the time, motor sailed the rest. It was a beautiful sunny day And coming through the cut into the west side of the Exumas was pretty easy. There were several boats at the anchorage closest to the village dock so we went a bit further up the channel. I know I keep saying this but the colours here are just amazing.

Our anchorage

 

There is a bit of vegetation on the bottom where we’re anchored, it looks like marble to me. We are close to the end of the island runway but only one plane took off after we got there. There are several other boats anchored around the corner on the west side of the island. We may check that out tomorrow, there is a restaurant on that side, we’re going to have dinner there tomorrow.

Feb 26, 2018 – Emerald Bay Marina, Great Exuma Island

I got to the laundry room around 6:45 am and was lucky to get a machine. It had just stopped and a staff person came in, tossed the clothes into a dryer, they weren’t hers, and my first load was in. It was a bit of a dance after that. A couple from Drummondville QC, Louise and Sylvain, arrived followed by a fellow desperate to get bedding and towels done before noon. They were catching a flight home and had only this morning to get the laundry done for people arriving to the boat this afternoon. I let him do his first load after mine finished, it was ok with Louise who really was next in line. Of course when my first load was done neither dryer was free. So on it went until 11:30. There is a nice patio with chairs and tables outside the laundry so Louise and I chatted while waiting along with yet another group from a large catamaran trying to get their towels done before flights home tomorrow.

Meanwhile, since we had shore power, Bob vacuumed the boat and bilge and cleaned the head while I was on laundry duty – I think he got the short end of the stick. Afternoon chores included a visit to the liquor store, they had very good prices for wine, and lunch again at the Grand Isle. We typically end up not having dinner when we eat out for lunch.

The Marina hosted  a Happy Hour from 5:30 – 6:30 with punch and some finger food so that was dinner. Good thing we weren’t very hungry as there wasn’t much food left by the time we hit the serving area, we should have got into line sooner.

 

Feb 25, 2018 – Emerald Bay Marina

Lifted anchor around 10:30 am and had a very pleasant sail to Emerald Bay Marina. It’s only 12 nm so we got there around 1pm. After a week+ of high winds a lot of people were on the move today, going both north and south.

Wee Finnish Line beside Montreal yacht.

We got fuel before we went to our slip and saw that TSALTA, a large yacht we were near at Annapolis back in October, was moored on the other side of the fuel dock – small world and all that.

Our slip is beside a power boat from Montreal

We’re staying for two nights so we can get laundry done. It’s free but there are only two working machines and dryers so I’m planning to go early tomorrow in the hope of getting  a machine without waiting. I had a shower – great to be able to wash my hair without being paranoid about how much water I was using. On the boat I wash it in seawater and do a quick rinse in fresh water. It’s now long enough I can easily clip it up, helps when you can’t wash it too often. We were pleasantly surprised that after seven days at anchor we still had not used up all the water in the largest tank (there are two other tanks plus the hot water tank) – so I could have washed, not just rinsed, in fresh water?. We were careful with our water use when doing dishes etc. but it’s good to know we don’t have to be quite so worried. It’s all a bit of trial and error.

It was a short walk to the Grand Isle Resort & Spa for a poolside patio lunch. The pool overlooked another spectacular turquoise bay. We both over indulged, including dessert but the food was really good. There are a lot of Canadian boats here, both sail and motor, many from Quebec.

View from our lunch table

Feb 24, 2018 – Stocking Island.

Not much to report today. We were going to dinghy to shore as originally the winds were forecast to start deminishing today but they didn’t, they picked up from yesterday.  So another day of reading, web surfing, having the odd drink. And of course after dinner, a couple more of episodes of Frankie & Grace.

Feb 22/23 – Stocking Island

Yesterday, after a few unsuccessful tries we got a hold of the water taxi and got dropped off at the George Town dock shortly after 1pm.  The dock area was full of cars and people. A freighter/ferry we’ve seen go by a couple of times was at dock along with a smaller freighter. Both were being unloaded/loaded and people were waiting to get on. I’m pretty sure the larger ship was also a car ferry. I’m kicking myself now for not taking any pictures.

We picked up a copy of Out Island Doctor from the shop across from Peace & Plenty and then went there for lunch.

Lunch at Peace & Plenty

We got a patio table in the shade facing the amazing view of the water. It really is a lovely spot and the food is not expensive.

Next stop was the grocery store and then the liquor store, we cleverly brought our back packs making it easy to carry our shopping. Both freighters had left by the time we got back to the dock.

‘Typical afternoon & evening back on the boat. More reading, just a snack for dinner as we were still pretty full from lunch and we watched two episodes of Grace & Frankie. I don’t think there are many episodes left.

Sometime after breakfast this morning we could  hear a loud engine that seemed to be very close. We looked out and there was a small inter island freighter VERY close to us. We could see the trail of sand it had churned up so we figured it had to be low tide and the water was deepest at the edge of the channel where we were. The crew waved to us so that was somewhat reassuring, they knew we were there!

Freighter on edge of channel

We watched the freighter as it slowly made its way down the channel, keeping close to the boats at our anchorage – yikes.

 

 

 

And as I’m typing this, the freighter just went by heading back, still fairly close to our side of the channel but not as close as this morning.

 

Feb 19/20, 2018 – Stocking Island

Here we sit, rolling,  mostly not horribly, in the wind and waves. The beach and island are tantalizingly close. Stocking Island provides protection from big waves being built up by the east wind but the winds themselves are high. There are actually some whitecaps on the water today but the waves are maximum a foot, the winds last night we’re pretty high. The shore is not as far away as it appears in the picture.

Whitecaps at the anchorage

Bob didn’t have the nav instruments on last night as he was not concerned about the anchor dragging. If the instruments had been on he’d be able to see what the winds were last night, he figures the gusts hit into the 30s.

We had hoped to go to shore yesterday as there are walking trails and at least two restaurants/bars on the island. The issue for us is getting the dinghy motor down from the motor mount on the stern rail. The motor weighs 48 pounds and has a lifting strap which is used with the dinghy davit to get it to the back of the dinghy. The challenge is getting it from its solid mount to a bouncing dinghy. We did try yesterday but decided against it when we saw how much the dinghy was bouncing.  By the way, rowing is not an option in these conditions. The current plan is to visit the island either on Friday or more likely Saturday when the forecasts have even the gusts below 20 knots. Bob said he’s glad we didn’t put the jib back up when he got here on Sunday afternoon, it reduces the windage a bit.

We are going to take a water taxi to George Town tomorrow to do a bit of grocery shopping and enjoy a drink and lunch on solid ground.

Meanwhile, we’ve been doing lots of reading and not nearly enough boat organizing/tidying – maybe today ?.

 

Feb 18, 2018 – Stocking Island.

Another water taxi ride this time with Peter & Wilma’s luggage and the jib going in for repairs. Bob and Peter dropped it off before breakfast and the tailor said he’d have it done by 11am. Breakfast was good and too soon the taxi arrived to take Wilma & Peter to the airport. The sail repair was finished when we got to the tailor’s shop and the water taxi was just about to leave when we got to the harbour so good timing all around. It took us only about 30 minutes to lift the anchor and drop it again on the west side of Stocking Island. The forecast is for high winds until Sunday so we’ll be staying put. It’s still windy here but the island does break the east winds somewhat and of course being close to shore on the west side means the waves don’t have much room to build. We hope we’ll be able to take the dinghy to shore. There is a resort and a few restaurants on the island.  Barring that, we’ll spring for the water taxi and take it to George Town for the day.

Stocking Island

Feb 17, 2018 – George Town, Bahamas

Started the day with “omelette by Pierre” – delicious. We decided to take a water taxi into town.

Omelette time.

Our dinghy is quite small and the water was choppy this morning, evidenced by larger dinghys go bouncing by us. We didn’t want to get wet, had three bags of garbage to dispose of and we’re going to bring back groceries, wine and beer.

All govt buildings in the Bahamas are pink

We walked around town and dropped into Peace & Plenty, the little hotel where we plan to have brunch tomorrow morning before Peter & Wilma head for the airport. It is a lovely hotel with fabulous views to the channelfrom their back patio. Wilma and I visited a couple of shops while Bob and Peter went in search of someone who could repair the jib. Tape from the leech unravelled for about six feet when we were sailing to George Town.

We dropped into the yacht club and could see they had made a lot of repairs to the docks and hoped to be able to sell fuel again in about a month. We had a very good lunch at the club and when I asked about the damage to the docks, the waiter said it was from the most recent hurricane. The grocery store was a pleasant surprise, very well stocked although we did get the last two tubs of yoghurt. We also verified it was a good decision to take the water taxi. To get to the dinghy dock by the grocery store you have to go into a narrow channel that runs under a bridge. The combination of current against waves creates a least a two foot wave in the channel, that would have been lots of fun in our dinghy! Bob & Peter found a tailor who said he could repair the sail so they’ll take it in tomorrow morning.

Return journey on the water taxi