Goodbye George Town

         

One last rum punch at Chat 'n Chill

        On Friday morning we moved from Sand Dollar Beach over to Kidd’s Cove, right in front of George Town, so we could get ashore when the grocery store opened and visit the Farmer’s Market while the good stuff was available.  As it turned out, getting to the store when it opens means it hasn’t yet been stocked, and it seemed to be the same at the Farmer’s Market.  People were there ready to sell but the selection wasn’t available.  However we did get the things we truly needed, and we got a chance to say goodbye to Erica, our favorite seller at the Market.  If you’re ever at the George Town Farmer’s Market, we highly recommend the items at Erica’s table, which range from cabbage to homemade essential oils.  

Dan & Erica

After lunch we moved across the harbor to North Monument Beach, the better to stage our departure on Saturday morning.  It was a long dinghy ride from there to Chat ’n Chill, the cruisers’ hangout, but worth it for one final rum punch.  We also put up our 2023 ball - a hard plastic fishing float we’d salvaged from one of our beach walks - bearing all our names who visited here on the Willie Dawes this year.  Our old one, from 2016, still hangs on the other side of the sign post.   

This morning (Sat, March 4) we bid goodbye to everyone on the ‘departures’ portion of the morning net, and set off to begin our journey northward and eventually back to the US.  We crossed onto the ocean side north of Stocking Island and Dan set up his fishing rods.  A few hours later, just before we crossed back through the Rat Cay cut, a fish took to the bait.  Dan was just getting ready to reel it the lure in and stow it away when he hooked the fish.  It must have a been a good-sized one, because there was no fight.  It just snapped the line and went on its way with our hook.  This is the kind of luck we have fishing.  We can catch ‘em, we just can’t get them back to the boat.  Or it turns out to be a barracuda and we don’t want it.  

Oops... too shallow!

On the bank side of Exuma cays once again, we explored the possible anchorage at Children’s Bay Cay, a beautiful little cove which sported great ratings on Active Captain, but it was much shallower than our chart showed, and we were lucky to get out without mishap.  We continued on, now leery of the depth markings on the chart, and decided to anchor with several other vessels at Lee Stocking Island.  We snorkeled for about an hour - more of an exercise in cooling off than a view, as it was mostly grassy sand - and got out of the water before the bull shark came nosing around in search of food.  It’s pretty lean pickings in here, I doubt that shark found anything.  I’m just glad we were done with our swimming!  

Sunset, Lee Stocking Island