Georgetown
Sunday, March 8, 2020
We arrived in Galliott Bay from Shroud Cay on February 19th. We dropped the dinghy and went to shore where we met Pam & Steve from SV Morning Dew and Carol and Rudy also from a sailboat, I forget the name. We were all anchored in Galliott Bay intending to depart in the morning for Georgetown. Before heading back to our boat we went searching for a cave but quickly decided the waves in the cut were too big for Zoom. It was beautiful though. Spent the night rocking and rolling in the anchorage!
Searching for the cave.
At first light we had the engines fired up and the anchor lifted for our cruise on the outside to Georgetown. We hobby horsed up and down in 4-6’ seas for the next 6 hours. It really wasn’t too bad. Hung out in the pilot house and counted down the hours as we watched a few sail boats and the occasional cruiser.
They say no schedules when cruising but our friends were flying to Georgetown on Sunday and they were predicting high winds for Friday and Saturday so we needed to be sure we were in town when they arrived, thus, a bit of a rush to get to Georgetown.
Entering the anchorage we saw Busy Bee off the Kahari Resort and anchored nearby. That gave them access to our wifi and if weather had been less rough we prob would have hung out with Dan, Lori and Jake!
We had been forewarned that with the Abacos ‘closed’, Georgetown would be super crowded. Well, it’s a HUGE harbor, bigger than I remembered and while there were a ton of boats, there was also plenty of room. As a point, of reference when we left Georgetown almost two weeks later the boat count was 343!
At anchor, surrounded by sailboats! Eddie said that he heard for every 7 sailboats there is 1 power boat.
Instead of sparkling stars at night it looks like a city scape with all the anchor lights!
Friday morning we took the dinghy into shore to go to the Market. First we checked out the Farmer’s Market, then we checked out the Exuma Market. Restocked on freshies and cookies for Cookie Monster!
Check out this dinghy dock! The people standing on the right side of the dock are sailors waiting in line to fill their water jugs with water. Exuma Market supplies, free reverse osmosis water. We have a RO water maker so thankfully, we don’t haul water!
A little bit about Georgetown. When there are 300+ boats around there is community. There are planned activities and such. People have referred to Georgetown as a sticky anchorage. Meaning people get there and don’t want to leave. I can understand how that happens for some. Every morning there is a Cruiser’s Net at 8am on the VHF radio. It can last anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. Here’s how it goes.
They first ask for any emergencies in the Harbor. Then announce the weather and the tides followed by local business announcements. This could be a restaurant offering a special or another cruiser singing the praises of a business. Then community announcements where you hear if there is or isn’t beach yoga or water aerobics or a seminar at the Chat and Chill. As it was the Georgetown Regatta when we were there, they made regatta announcements every day followed by Boaters General. Then taxi shares for anyone going to the airport in the next 48 hours followed by Help, Parts, Expertise. This is when boaters would call in with whatever kind of support they needed. Idea is you say your boat name, what you may need followed by your boat name. After the net, you are standing by on another channel and anyone who may be able to help you calls you over the VHF. I think that part is cool. The boating community is such a caring and helpful group. Then came Trade and Give Away. If you have something you no longer need or want on your boat you can trade it - same thing, announce what you have and stand by on another channel after the Net. Then came Kids Corner, including fort building and birthday parties! Winding up with new arrivals, where you announce who is on board your boat, maybe how long you are in the anchorage for or which way you are headed after Georgetown. Then other business and Thought for the Day. The Cruiser’s Net really gave me a sense of community. Some people have been coming to Georgetown for years. Their goal is to winter in the harbor while many others, ourselves included, come and go.
Winds kicked up just as predicted. We laid low on Saturday and were treated to a beautiful sight Saturday morning.
On Sunday Amy & Wayne arrived. I wish I had taken a picture of their faces when they got to Seaquel. I stayed on the boat and Eddie took Zoom into the market to pick them up. We pride ourselves on Zoom being a dry ride. Ha! The harbor was super rough and all three of them looked like they had just gotten out of the shower when they arrived. Drowned rats!!!!
Man plans and God laughs. We had this dream of cruising the Out Islands with our friends and showing them a little bit of the serenity we have been experiencing. Alas, it was too windy and the seas were too high. Instead we explored locally. On Monday we rented a car and headed South to Little Exuma. First stop was coffee in Georgetown. A really cute little coffee shop.
We drove to the Tropic of Cancer Beach on Little Exuma. It was gorgeous!
My mermaid friend and I went swimming in that gorgeous water. We were marveling at all the shades of blue between the sea and the sky. After some sun time at the beach we had a delicious lunch overlooking the water at Santanas.
How to get rid of trash in George Town. Bring bagged trash to the truck and slide your $2 in the window slot!
We took the water taxi to shore to watch the Regatta Softball game - Bahamian police department versus the cruisers. It was a lot of laughs, silliness and day drinking!!! We got to town early and had lunch at Choppy Waters.
We had heard that the Tennessee River Houseboats were still around even though Bahamashouseboats.com had shut down and we went searching for them. They were easy to find, in the Fruit Bowl Hole behind Chat & Chill. We stayed on Guava which we did not see but we did see many others. Word has it that they are all owned by French Canadians now.
We arrived in Galliott Bay from Shroud Cay on February 19th. We dropped the dinghy and went to shore where we met Pam & Steve from SV Morning Dew and Carol and Rudy also from a sailboat, I forget the name. We were all anchored in Galliott Bay intending to depart in the morning for Georgetown. Before heading back to our boat we went searching for a cave but quickly decided the waves in the cut were too big for Zoom. It was beautiful though. Spent the night rocking and rolling in the anchorage!
At first light we had the engines fired up and the anchor lifted for our cruise on the outside to Georgetown. We hobby horsed up and down in 4-6’ seas for the next 6 hours. It really wasn’t too bad. Hung out in the pilot house and counted down the hours as we watched a few sail boats and the occasional cruiser.
They say no schedules when cruising but our friends were flying to Georgetown on Sunday and they were predicting high winds for Friday and Saturday so we needed to be sure we were in town when they arrived, thus, a bit of a rush to get to Georgetown.
Entering the anchorage we saw Busy Bee off the Kahari Resort and anchored nearby. That gave them access to our wifi and if weather had been less rough we prob would have hung out with Dan, Lori and Jake!
We had been forewarned that with the Abacos ‘closed’, Georgetown would be super crowded. Well, it’s a HUGE harbor, bigger than I remembered and while there were a ton of boats, there was also plenty of room. As a point, of reference when we left Georgetown almost two weeks later the boat count was 343!
Friday morning we took the dinghy into shore to go to the Market. First we checked out the Farmer’s Market, then we checked out the Exuma Market. Restocked on freshies and cookies for Cookie Monster!
Check out this dinghy dock! The people standing on the right side of the dock are sailors waiting in line to fill their water jugs with water. Exuma Market supplies, free reverse osmosis water. We have a RO water maker so thankfully, we don’t haul water!
A little bit about Georgetown. When there are 300+ boats around there is community. There are planned activities and such. People have referred to Georgetown as a sticky anchorage. Meaning people get there and don’t want to leave. I can understand how that happens for some. Every morning there is a Cruiser’s Net at 8am on the VHF radio. It can last anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. Here’s how it goes.
They first ask for any emergencies in the Harbor. Then announce the weather and the tides followed by local business announcements. This could be a restaurant offering a special or another cruiser singing the praises of a business. Then community announcements where you hear if there is or isn’t beach yoga or water aerobics or a seminar at the Chat and Chill. As it was the Georgetown Regatta when we were there, they made regatta announcements every day followed by Boaters General. Then taxi shares for anyone going to the airport in the next 48 hours followed by Help, Parts, Expertise. This is when boaters would call in with whatever kind of support they needed. Idea is you say your boat name, what you may need followed by your boat name. After the net, you are standing by on another channel and anyone who may be able to help you calls you over the VHF. I think that part is cool. The boating community is such a caring and helpful group. Then came Trade and Give Away. If you have something you no longer need or want on your boat you can trade it - same thing, announce what you have and stand by on another channel after the Net. Then came Kids Corner, including fort building and birthday parties! Winding up with new arrivals, where you announce who is on board your boat, maybe how long you are in the anchorage for or which way you are headed after Georgetown. Then other business and Thought for the Day. The Cruiser’s Net really gave me a sense of community. Some people have been coming to Georgetown for years. Their goal is to winter in the harbor while many others, ourselves included, come and go.
Winds kicked up just as predicted. We laid low on Saturday and were treated to a beautiful sight Saturday morning.
On Sunday Amy & Wayne arrived. I wish I had taken a picture of their faces when they got to Seaquel. I stayed on the boat and Eddie took Zoom into the market to pick them up. We pride ourselves on Zoom being a dry ride. Ha! The harbor was super rough and all three of them looked like they had just gotten out of the shower when they arrived. Drowned rats!!!!
Man plans and God laughs. We had this dream of cruising the Out Islands with our friends and showing them a little bit of the serenity we have been experiencing. Alas, it was too windy and the seas were too high. Instead we explored locally. On Monday we rented a car and headed South to Little Exuma. First stop was coffee in Georgetown. A really cute little coffee shop.
We drove to the Tropic of Cancer Beach on Little Exuma. It was gorgeous!
Our view at lunch.
Some sites from the neighborhood.
After lunch we continues on our journey and were headed to the North Side fo the island, about a one hour drive when boom! We blew out the front left tire. The roads are pretty bad in the islands and there are pot holes or in this case entire pieces of the road gone. It would have been a quick tire change by my super hero except the jack was missing a piece. We flagged down a passing driver and then another one stopped as well. They lent us a screw driver which enabled us to crank the jack and get the donut tire on. Island fun fact number 1, we left the screw driver near the utility pole and the driver was going to stop back to pick it back up on his way back down the island! Island fun fact number 2, we rented the car from the sister of the second driver that stopped! He called the car rental place, let them know we blew the tire out and they would be expecting us! #smallislandlife
Back on the road in about 30 minutes but lets just say the front passenger tensions were high. There was some attempting to control the driver’s speed, lots of heavy sighing and some hand signals! Plus, by the time we drove to the other side of the island we wouldn’t have much time there before we had to head back in order to get back aboard Seaquel before dark. Instead we dropped our guests back at the coffee shop, fueled up and returned the rental car, incurring a $50 extra charge for the bent rim and feeling like we got off kind of easy. The rental car company then dropped us back in town where we picked up fresh grouper and lobster tails for a yummy taco dinner.
So nice to have guests on board. We laughed a lot and lounged a lot. Eddie and I gave up our cabin for the tall guest to have the longer bed! Instead we slept in the middle cabin which we actually loved!!! Lots of snuggling going on.
The winds continued so two days in a row we dinghyed to shore with chairs and sat on the beach reading or Hiking. One day Eddie and I hiked towards the monument. We didn’t actually cross the whole way there from Honeymoon Beach but we got close. Amy and Wayne, lounged and swam choosing not to hike.
View of the South Monument Beach anchorage.
Eeeuuuu, that is a termite’s nest. It’s huge!
Loving the light in the scrub. A welcome reprieve from the hot sun.
Later that same day we went to Chat & Chill for a late lunch / early dinner. Chat & Chill is a local watering hole with volleyball, beaches, and corn hole. It is sort of the center of the activity hub. Yummy bbq ribs for all of us.
Eddie loves these totem pole signs!
Chillin in the evening
Another day, another beach, another hike. Eddie and I had spent a week here in Elizabeth Harbor aboard a Tennessee River Houseboat with the girls. We think it was in 2005. The boat leaked like a sieve, we were constantly wet, we made lots of memories and had a great time. One memory for me was pulling up to a beach and walking up a hill and finding a stunning, empty beach on the outside. I was determined to see that again and this short hike over the hill brought that memory right back to life.
Views from the Exuma Sound side. I will go back next week when we are back in George Town for a few days.
When we got back from that walk to the sound side Wayne and Amy had found three queen conch. I knew what that meant! Eddie would be making conch salad. I am still traumatized from when he made that conch in 2005 plus I really don’t care for conch. I wanted no part of the whole thing and thought we should free the conch. Eddie would hear of no such thing saying, ‘don’t you take food out of my mouth.’ Alas, I ignored the whole process and stayed out of the galley and away from the preparations and Eddie was in conch heaven.
The end to a great few days sharing our dream with our friends.
The weekend brought laundry and the Regatta talent show as well as more winds!
We took the water taxi to shore to watch the Regatta Softball game - Bahamian police department versus the cruisers. It was a lot of laughs, silliness and day drinking!!! We got to town early and had lunch at Choppy Waters.
We had heard that the Tennessee River Houseboats were still around even though Bahamashouseboats.com had shut down and we went searching for them. They were easy to find, in the Fruit Bowl Hole behind Chat & Chill. We stayed on Guava which we did not see but we did see many others. Word has it that they are all owned by French Canadians now.
Cute pic of the Admiral and the Captain taken by new friend Irv aboard SV Bonnie Jean
Next stop Long Island, but that’s for another post!
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