Feb 23-27:  George Town Regatta Week

     This week we have been somewhat weather bound with strong East winds.  We have also been getting ready for our three week trip back to Maine. In preparation of that trip, we have found a sitter for Tommie. Frank and Rose from another 30 foot motor-sailor Local Knowledge are going to feed and watch her for us. Part of the deal was that we anchor nearby their boat, so when we saw an opening, we pounced on it. We are in a very secure place with good holding bottom, and lots of friends around. 

Our view of Chat n Chill from our anchorage.

     On Friday we went snorkeling in a blue hole in one of the inner harbors on Stocking Island. The blue holes as they are called are bottomless areas, this one goes somewhere under the island though no one has ever been all the way thru it.  Several years ago they dropped dye into the water and days later it showed up three miles away out on the sound. All we did was swim around the entrance, but the fish that are there are plenty, and some of the biggest fish we have seen yet. As soon as we jumped in the water we were surrounded by fish, probably because people feed the fish here and this is a “No Take” area. It was so calm that we swam around with our plastic covered fish ID sheets and identified many. One fish we saw swim thru was at least 4 feet long, altho we did not get an identification on him.

Stock photos of the internet - above blue wrasse, below a group of grunts

     The GeorgeTown Cruisers Regatta is in full swing this week.  One of the first events was Dinghy Poker. All participants dinghy from bar to bar, back and forth across the harbor, and at each bar, besides having the opportunity to get food and drink, pick a playing card from a deck.  At the end of the day the dinghy with the best hand wins a bottle of rum. We didn’t play that game since our dinghy is not up to speed to keep criss-crossing the harbor.  Most of the dinghies here are hard bottom inflatables, with a 15 or so horsepower outboard.  Pretty fast.  About 5 percent of the fleet uses 5 HP or less.  We are definitely in the minority with a hard dinghy and 3 HP outboard.

     To give folks in Maine some perspective on the size of Elizabeth Harbor, picture the Eggemoggin Reach from Pumpkin Island to the Deer Isle Bridge, put a small town midway down on the mainland side, have the prevailing wind blow from Deer Isle toward the mainland, then anchor 350 good sized cruising boats along the Deer Isle side of the reach. Oh yeah, put sandy beaches most of the way along the Deer Isle side, and figure that even though boats come and go every day, at least 50% of the cruising community stays at anchor for between 1 month and 5 months of the year.  Many never pull their anchor at all for months.  If for some reason they have to take their boat somewhere, they leave their tender on the anchor, thus assuring their “spot” will be safe.

     All that being said, the cruising community is very gracious and giving.  If anyone has an issue with their boat, engine, hull, electrical, equipment, what have you, there are multiple offers of assistance.  Almost every day there is a shout out on the VHF radio of someone praising the fellow boaters who came to their aid.  There is also an amazing availability of spare parts in this harbor. People a very generally ready and willing to “pay forward” and offer the spare part that they brought along to a fellow cruiser in need.  Examples are spare microphone for a certain make/model radio, epoxy and bottom paint for a hull repair, specialized tools for rigging repair, an anchor to replace one lost, dinghies and motors swapped daily.

     Back to the Regatta.  Yesterday, Saturday was the big Talent/Variety show, featuring cruiser’s singing and dancing acts, a Bahamian Kids nine piece marching band, several Bahamian Kids dance acts, tug of wars between cruisers, men and women, and not to be missed, who can blow a conch horn the longest! All conch horns made on the beach here in the harbor. I would say the favorite acts were the Bahamian Kids, they did a great job and are not afraid to perform.

Loaded dinghy dock in George Town - everyone turned out for the variety show.

Just one of the Bahamian dance acts.

The high school marching band.  Impressive selections and sound for a nine piece band!

     Today, we went to Beach Church where Kathy and I sang in the choir again. Of note there were two pans of chocolate brownies and cookies after the service.   Tonite on Exuma Island the cruisers are challenging a local team in a softball game, under the lights.  I’ll bet I can guess the winner of that game. 

     Tomorrow is the In Harbor Big Boat Sailing Race, where I am crewing on a Catalina 34, Wisp in the Wind.  Weather permitting we will race again on Wednesday. That one is “around Stocking and Elizabeth Islands.” In preparation for the races, I went for a long sail in the fatty knees (our dinghy), a nice reach from our anchorage to one end of the harbor, then all the way back to the other end and back to the Willie Dawes.  While I was out sailing someone one one of the boats wanted to confirm that his anemometer was reading 22 knots with gusts to 35!  Our 25 year old dinghy with 45 year old mast stood up just fine.

     Tuesday we are going to do the Scavenger Hunt, which will cover from 0900 Tuesday to 0900 Wednesday.  Rumor has it we will be cleaning the beaches!

     We will be flying home on Thursday, so will miss the end of Regatta Week. We will miss the make your inflatable dinghy sail downwind event, beach golf, the end of the volleyball tournament and of course the closing ceremony and the raffle drawings.  We will be enjoying the cold north at that point.  How refreshing!

Feb 20-22: George Town Cruising Community

     Saturday we weighed anchor and moved back over to Kidd’s Cove to drop Joe off for his taxi to the airport.  I spent the rest of the day with a lump in my throat and tears threatening to come.  (The boat was so quiet and so roomy with them gone!)  We spent a few hours doing laundry and a little grocery shopping and brought the Willie back over to Honeymoon Beach.  One of the many boats anchored off this beach organized a shoreside get-together, complete with bonfire, and we headed to the sand around five to join them.  It made for a nice evening, sitting around the fire and swapping stories, getting to know our fellow cruisers.  We had a nice diversity of cultural backgrounds as well as ages and there was no shortage of advice from the more experienced cruisers.  Everyone had brought a dish to pass and two of them even thought to bring marshmallows and hot dogs for roasting over the fire.  

Just some of the cruising community.

     Sunday morning Dan and I took the dinghy over to Volleyball Beach for Beach Church.  Every Sunday morning they hold a non-denominational Christian service on the beach, complete with choir.  Dan and I arrived in time for choir practice.  It was a simple, laid-back service with coffee afterwards and we were pleased to be a part of it.  Afterwards we reviewed the bulletin board where all the activities for the upcoming Regatta were posted.  The George Town Regatta is supposedly the largest cruising Regatta in the world, though this year they say their numbers are down.

     The events kick off this week with such things as a pet parade, a dinghy poker rally, a variety show, and a scavenger hunt.  Next week there will be races in the harbor and around Stocking Island.  We have tickets to Maine for next Thursday, so we will be around for much of the festivities, something we hadn’t really counted on when we came here.  Even this week we thought we’d be taking off for a few days, but the prevailing winds aren’t giving us much of a window for cruising, so we figure we’ll make the most of what’s going on right here.  We decided to start right away.

     Sunday night we joined the weekly Trivia game held at the St. Francis resort.  We’d heard about it and our friend Bill on Charisma filled us in on the details - show up to be part of a team of four and for $1 per person you get a sheet of paper and a pencil to list your answers.  The Trivia master spends the week researching questions and presents a list of forty of them.  The team with the most correct answers receives two bottles of rum.  Second place earns two bottles of wine.  Third place wins two bottles of beer.  The money goes to support local charities, the winnings are donated by the resort’s restaurant who does a brisk business with the Trivia players every Sunday night.  Dan and I went up early to have dinner first.  Our team partners were Jo and Bruce from Solana.  None of us knew what to expect. 

     The questions were not just obscure but hard.  Examples - name two US presidents who were Quakers? What is the name of the largest desert in Europe?  What is the next letter in the sequence OTTFFSSEN_?  Out of forty we got perhaps eight or nine correct answers.  The winning team had half the answers right.  Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun, and the winning team shared their bottles of rum with everyone else.  We may play again next week.     

     Monday we headed back into town first thing to drop off our propane tank for refill.  Since this was putting our stove/oven out of commission, we picked up a steak and some potatoes for a grilled supper.  It was still quite windy, and the tide rushing into the narrow opening into Lake Victoria made dinghy rides pretty exciting.  A lot of people wear their foul weather gear or even large garbage bags because you will get wet on the ride.  Dan and I are fortunate to be able to bring the Wille in pretty close to make our dinghy ride much shorter, not to mention less eventful.  This morning we had just pulled up the anchor to head back to Honeymoon Beach when we realized another cruiser’s dinghy had become swamped.

Entrance to Lake Victoria on a calm day.

      Dan immediately got on the radio requesting assistance and we turned around, setting out the fenders and putting down our boarding ladder.  Earl and Sue of My Bonnie were in the water - he gamely holding onto his tiller to keep the dinghy from completely submerging, she trying to corral all their bags and packs of groceries.  A few other cruisers came over with their dinghies to assist, and we managed to get Earl and Sue aboard the Willie along with all their purchases and belongings.  Did you know Ritz crackers stay dry in their packages?  Most of the food was still usable after the dunking, but cell phones and paper towels will end up in the trash.  Earl and Sue were in great spirits despite the misadventure, laughing and joking the whole time we crossed the harbor over to Volleyball Beach where Craig from the s/v Tilt took the swamped dinghy we were towing and brought it and Earl onto the sand.  We continued to My Bonnie and dropped off a still cheerful Sue along with all their sodden supplies.  Later in the afternoon Earl called to thank us and let us know everyone and everything was just fine; he said the dinghy’s engine now ran better than it ever did.  All’s well that ends well.  We were glad we were there when it happened and could come to their rescue so quickly.

     Dan spent the afternoon crewing on s/v Wisp in the Wind with owner Ivan, preparing for the harbor race next week.  I went over to Solana to play a game of Scrabble with Jo.  We’re getting into this cruiser community now, I think.  

Feb 14 - 19:  Family Time

     It’s a tight fit with all four of us on this boat, but didn’t we have a great week!  Joe slept on the bench in the salon, and Billy claimed he was very comfortable in his cushioned sleeping bag on the sole between the table and the galley.  We soon fell into a daily routine - everyone sleeping in, the boys pitching in with the boring chores like dishes and the physical chores like raising anchor (I have been spoiled this whole week!) - and every night we sat around the galley table and played games, swapped stories and did a lot of laughing.  It’s been a long time since the four of us spent so much time together.

     Sunday we all went snorkeling at the reef just off Crab Cay in Red Shanks.  This may have been the best reef we’ve found yet, and it was a great introduction to snorkeling for Billy.  We saw several different kinds of fish and many kinds of coral as well as a small forest of plants and sponges.  It was a bit rough from the strong NE wind, but we managed almost an hour of goggling at the wildlife.  

     Monday we moved over to Sand Dollar Beach on Stocking Island (there are several beaches with descriptive names like Monument, Flip-Flop, and Volleyball) and dinghied ashore to walk the beach on the Sound side and hike to the top where the stone monument overlooks George Town harbor.  The NE wind was blowing a steady twenty-five knots and the six-ten foot waves were crashing with fierce determination on the Sound side of the island.  We took a picnic lunch and set off about eleven in the morning for the quick hike across the island and then two miles down the beach.  It was a good day to do this, we crossed paths with several other cruisers out for some exercise.  Hiking with the wind sort of at our backs was easy.  The way back to Sand Dollar Beach was another story.  The constant spray of the waves crashing soon misted our glasses with a salty fog and our clothes were all slightly damp by the time we made it back to the boat.  We weighed anchor and moved over to the more protected Honeymoon Beach, a nice shallow cove custom made for the Willie Dawes.  The wind was supposed to die down in the morning and we were going to head over to Long Island.

     Tuesday we weighed anchor early and made a run into George Town as we’d discovered our cell phone data had run out and the only way to get more was to stand in line at the Batelco office to get more data.  (You can “Top Up” at many of the local stores, but it’s far cheaper to go directly to the telephone company and do it there.)  I need to be online periodically to check my email and do some occasional work, and Joe wanted to keep tabs on his email while Billy needed to check in with school to retrieve assignments.  That errand finished, we set off across the Sound for the five-plus hour cruise to Long Island.  The rough 6-8 foot seas of yesterday were all but gone as if we had dreamed them.  The guys broke out all the fishing rods and set out lines but once again the fish eluded us.  We arrived in Calabash Bay on Long Island around three and quickly broke out the snorkeling gear to check out one of the nearby reefs.  There was a gentle swell running and the sand was pretty stirred up and covered everything, making the coral all look fairly bland.  There wasn’t much to see, but we stuck with it for about an hour and then gave up.  Dan thought the swell would be enough to bother us if we stayed the night there, so we weighed anchor and moved on down the coast to Alligator Bay by the town of Simms.  The sea were both flat calm, save a long slow swell, and the air was heavy with humidity.  We had learned by now that this weather would mean a return of wind, and sure enough, the forecast predicted very strong winds building up Wednesday night into Thursday, blowing 20-30 knots right through Sunday, so we knew our time on Long Island would be short.  We spent the night in Alligator Bay and weighed anchor at first light to move down to Thompson Bay/Salt Pond for one last good snorkel before we returned to the George Town area.  Billy was only with us for a week: he needed to catch a flight back to Maine on Friday.

     Indian Point off Thompson Bay was where we had found all the lobster.  This time we had to look quite hard to find any but we did harvest enough for a meal, along with an Atlantic spade fish.  Our fish book declared this fish “highly edible” and we were very excited to get one with our Hawaiian sling.  There were two of those fish, and Joe tried for the second one, but two large barracudas showed up, and Joe decided to leave it for them.  It was around noon then, and we had that five-plus hour cruise back to George Town ahead of us, so we raised the anchor and set off and decided to have lunch on the way.

Atlantic spade fish have black stripes on white/silver, as opposed to angel fish which are white stripes on black.

Lobster feast.

Fish and fries.

     Dan cleaned and fileted the spade fish, Joe peeled potatoes for french fries, and Billy took the helm while I prepared for the meal.  When the lobsters were cooked, I took the helm and they started in on the crustaceans while Dan tended the french fries and baking fish.  We enjoyed a large meal as the winds started picking up and the seas started to build.  Dan, bless ‘im, stayed below and cleaned up the galley afterward as we bounced along, while the boys laid down to sleep off the seafood.  We got back into protected waters close to sunset, and came into Honeymoon Beach to drop the hook in ‘our’ spot for the night. 

     Thursday we discovered our friends Jo and Bruce on Solana were anchored nearby when we heard them on the morning net making a plea for help with setting up their phone as a hotspot.  Well, with two young men thoroughly literate in all things computer-related aboard, we promptly volunteered their help and all of us went aboard Solana after breakfast.  Joe and Bill solved their problem in no time while the rest of us caught up on our various adventures since we’d spent those six days with the Hog Cay Yacht Club, and they invited us back that evening for supper.  

      We spent the day hiking back up to the Monument to retrieve a lost water bottle (no luck, someone else must have retrieved it for us) and snorkeling one last time together off Elizabeth Island in Elizabeth Harbor.  There were several reefs with lots of fish and lots of coral along the shore; it seemed everyone discovered something to show everyone else.   We spent almost two hours in the water, probably our longest time in the water.  We took turns showering with the sun shower and returned to Honeymoon Beach in time for our dinner aboard Solana.

     Bruce and Jo hail from Ontario and put on a great spread of grilled chicken and pork with tzatziki and a bean salad.  The hit of the evening was her wonderful brownies, studded with pecans.   The wind howled outside but we were snug and comfortable sitting around their table.  We couldn’t think of a better way to end the day.

     The winds stayed strong and gusty all night and the day promised the same.  Today was Billy’s last day with us, and Joe would leave tomorrow.  The boys and I played one last game of Scrabble while Dan went to visit a couple on a nearby boat who have offered to watch Tommie for us so we can make a trip back to Maine in March, and then we moved the Willie back over to Kidd’s Cove and went to town for lunch and to wait for Billy’s taxi later in the afternoon.

     As we waited outside Redboone Bar and Grill we played a few rounds of checkers on a large table set up just for that purpose, drawing the attention of a few locals.  One of them just shook his head at our lack of strategy and another came over to start coaching.  “Billy!  Why you doing that, mon?  You do this!  You going to lose, mon.”  He showed us all some new ‘power’ moves apparently allowed in this game in the Bahamas and when that game was over, planted himself on one end of the board and directed Joe to play against him.  He was not above inventing new rules as the game progressed, clearly favoring himself, and we attracted a few onlookers who stood grinning - cruises and locals alike enjoying our being had.  The entire time the man played checkers he kept offering to Dan - sotto voce - something from the selection of product that was undoubtedly his main line of business.  (Dan kept declining.)  Local color.  

Dan plays Billy, and below our local friend instructs Joe on the new rules.

     Billy climbed into his taxi close to three pm and the three of us returned to the Willie and back over to Honeymoon Beach. Tomorrow we’ll say goodbye to Joe.  It’s been so wonderful having the boys with us, so sad to see them go.  

Feb 12-13: Waiting for Son # 2

    Friday we moved from Sand Dollar Beach across and back to one of our favorite spots in the Red Shank/Crab Cay area of George Town harbor.  Another vessel - Lazy Pirate - was hauling out at a small boatyard and Dan wanted to check it out as well as lend them a special tool.  We had time on our hands and spent a lazy day preparing for son # 2 Will (although we call him Billy) to join us.  On a thirty foot boat this is something to consider, especially when the fourth person is the tallest of all of us.  We divided up bedding and made a list for grocery shopping on Saturday and otherwise had a quiet day.  

     Saturday it was hot but breezy.  The weather here has alternated between windy and very windy with a few breaks of calm, hot and muggy days before the wind picks up again.  Cruisers with a lot of Bahamian experience have told us they haven’t seen a winter like this in ten years, some of them even have resorted to wearing sweaters!!  We’re not complaining - it’s still warm and sunny, even when it’s blowing thirty knots - but the strong winds and accompanying sea do limit the areas we can go.  We’ll take hot but breezy.  We gathered up the laundry and our shopping list and moved the Willie around to Kidd’s Cove in front of George Town, and dinghied in to do our errands and to wait for Billy’s plane.  He arrived around five that afternoon, excited and eager for his cruising adventure, fully clad in jeans, heavy shoes, and long sleeved shirt.  He claimed not be warm, but he made the rest of us feel even hotter.  

     We had hoped to cross over to Long Island and discussed briefly whether or not to try for it, despite the building seas in the Sound and the strong winds.  The consensus was to go for it, and we set out.  In about an hour’s time we decided we were crazy and turned around to head back for the sheltered water of Red Shanks.  It was enough that we were together, and we would work out the trip across the Sound at another time.

Trying for the crossing.

February 8 - 11:  Circumnavigating Great Exuma 

     Monday we weighed anchor and headed back across the Sound toward the Exumas with the intent to cruise up the West side of the island.  We had figured the wind would make the water warmer on the Bank side, and had heard there were lobsters on this side to be had.  (All of George Town harbor is a no-take zone.) The forecast wind, however, did not materialize as predicted, and we noticed that the water temperature, despite the much shallower depths, steadily went down as we traveled through Hog Cay Cut and up the Western side of Great Exuma.  What’s up with that?  We spent the entire day cruising in a brisk wind.  Good trip, but we were too chilly to get into the water at the end of the afternoon.  We dropped the hook in a sheltered area off Green Turtle Cay.

     The first thing we checked on Tuesday was the water temperature - surely it had come up?  Actually it had dropped another few degrees, to 69 degrees.  None of us felt hearty enough to go snorkeling in that, even with wetsuits and so we raised anchor and pushed on to Barraterre, an island at the Northern tip of Great Exuma.  Here we encountered the almost hourly traffic of small speed boats ferrying passengers from nearby marinas and resorts to other cays in the Exuma chain for snorkeling, hiking, and beach combing excursions.  We have not seen a lot of that in other areas of the Bahamas since leaving Nassau, but here it is quite a business.  It was not a good place to snorkel, so Wednesday we raised anchor and continued up the Exuma chain to Lee Stocking Island, to an anchorage we’d used before on our first way down to George Town.  We tried fishing again on the way, still no luck.  We did do some snorkeling here, still hoping for conch, lobster, or some kind of fish for supper, but no go, so we returned to the boat for a dinner of chicken pie from leftovers of last night’s roast chicken.  

Barraterre, just before the little harbor.

A little show of what it was like out there on Thursday.

     Thursday we made our way back down to George Town.  We chose a new path from Lee Stocking Island - keeping to the Western side of the cays until we’d passed Barraterre - and then went outside into the Sound again for the rest of the way.  It was windy and the seas were rough, but we had both sails up with a double reef in the main, and we actually passed a couple of boats as we headed to the Conch Cay cut and into Elizabeth/George Town Harbor.  A forest of masts greeted us on the horizon; the annual George Town regatta is coming up in March, and boats are already gathering for that.  We chose to anchor temporarily off a a small beach on the Northern end of Stocking Island and do some snorkeling here (the water was up 77 degrees) and though it was wonderful snorkeling, the current was strong and I insisted Dan and Joe stay away from the big reefs where the surf was pounding.  (Can you hear the “Aw Mo-om...”? It came from Dan, not Joe.)  We moved the boat from that beach over to the more populated, more protected Sand Dollar Beach further down Stocking Island (not to be confused with Lee Stocking Island) and because we still had no gathering from the sea, had a vegetarian meal of spinach and sweet potato curry over rice.  

Feb 5 - 7: Salt Pond - Work Party & Superbowl

     Friday we assembled with several other cruisers for a work party.  A small building that was once a school and now houses the Farmer’s Market had some roof damage during Hurricane Joaquin.  A party of men quickly went to work, many of them bringing their own tools.  Dan spent a good part of his morning up a ladder wielding a nail gun.  I joined a small party of women and helped bag free trash and debris from the sides of the road around the small cement trash receptacle.  Trash here in the Bahamas is a big problem, and it’s surprising that boaters can bag it and dump it here for free.  Someone collects it twice a week but it has to be bagged.  We also chopped down the weeds growing up the path and in front of the small building so there’s no mistaking where to put the garbage.  Both our mornings were pretty productive.   While we women beautified the dump, the men got much of the plywood on the Farmer’s Market building.  Next weekend a group is planning to clean up the beach of Clarence Town, the main town on Long Island, but we probably won’t be able to join in, as son Bill is coming into George Town then.

Former school, now a Farmer's Market

    Friday afternoon we did a bit of snorkeling near the landing dock.  Another cruiser had mentioned that the hurricane had destroyed the dock, sending its aluminum ladder off somewhere nearby, and we all three went looking for it.  We found a length of aluminum pipe, many old tires, an engine block, and lots of tree and roofing debris, but no ladder.  We returned to the boat for sun showers and then came back ashore to the Sou’Side Bar and Grill for happy hour and dinner.  We were surprised not to see the whole work party there, as they had talked about gathering for happy hour, but we did meet a couple of Mainers who spend six months here on Long Island and the other six months in South Brooksville/Bucks Harbor.

     Saturday we went ashore to see the Farmer’s Market in full swing.  Lots of interesting crafts but not a lot of produce, but it was fun to see what was there and to meet some of the islanders.  Many of them thanked us for the roof work.  I did buy a loaf of bread and jug of frozen lemon-mango juice whose chief attraction was that it was frozen.  We also visited the grocery store and picked up a frozen chicken among other things.  We have an insulated bag that can work as a short-term cooler, and those two items stayed cold for several days.  I’d almost forgotten what it is like to have a cooler on board!

     In the afternoon we moved the boat over to the Northern section of Thompson Bay (still Salt Pond) and tried our hand at snorkeling over in that area.  We discovered a bonanza of langostino there - the spiny Caribbean version of lobster.  Dan and Joe spent a good hour chasing them out of their holes in the limestone rocks and bagging them up.  Those buggers move fast!  We had our version of surf and turf that night for supper - lobsters and hamburgers.  These lobsters don’t have claws like Maine lobsters, but they taste pretty similar, especially with butter.

     Sunday dawned quite blustery and the sea in the harbor was a bit rough for much of the day.  We did some more snorkeling in spite of this.  Probably the other cruisers in the harbor thought we were nuts, but we had fun and good swim.  As things calmed down in the evening, we moved the Willie closer to shore and then dinghied in to join the Superbowl crowd at Sou’Side Bar and Grille.  The windstorm had knocked out some electricity but the two large screen tvs at the small outdoor restaurant were working and the owners were ready to ply everyone with their chicken wings and ribs.  

     Watching the Superbowl together has long been a family tradition of ours; a year ago we had joked with our sons that next year we’d be watching from a little bar in the Bahamas.  Joe had said “I’m all over that!” and timed his vacation to include this day with us.  Billy couldn’t come as he is at USM, but we were all thinking of him.  

Superbowl Sunday at Sou'Side Bar and Grille.

4 February, 2016, Thursday: to Salt Pond

     Today we make a 20 mile passage down the West side of Long Island.  We had a good 15 knot SE wind and motor-sailed right along.  True to form, all the boats we saw underway were going on a reciprocal course.  We had a great ride down in the lee of the island, sometimes under main and jib, sometimes with main alone.  For a while we actually sailed with the engine out of gear, and lets just say that if the engine fails we hope our destination is off the wind and that we have a running start!

      5 miles shy of our destination,  Salt Pond on Thompson Bay, we stopped at Whale Head and did some snorkeling.  We swam among thousands of small fish and Jackpot!  We found 2 big   Hairy-ass crabs.  Joe stood guard on one while Kathy and I swam back to the Willie to get the dinghy, mesh bag, and dip-net.  We got back to Joe, he scooped up crab number-one, into the boat, and then I led him to where I had seen another.  Once there, Joe got the crab to squirt out from under the rock, netted him and also into the boat.

      Kathy already had fixings for crab soup, so finally a sea dinner!  Up anchor once again and off to Thompson Bay where we went ashore to check out the island’s grocery for a few staples. 

      Staples aboard, and met a few cruising folks ashore, we came back to the Willie, steamed up the crabs, Joe and I picked ‘em out, and into the broth had going on the stove.  After having crackers and fresh guacamole Canadian style on the foredeck, we retired to the galley/saloon for Whiskey Crab Soup!  A very satisfying day.

3 Feb 2016, Wednesday: To Joe's Sound

     After breakfast we hauled anchor and drifted back to the barrier reef where we re-anchored to do some snorkeling.  Joe saw his first stingrays and we watched a small octopus changing all sorts of colors as he blended with his surroundings.  We also picked up a Queen”s Helmet Conch, really stunning coloring.

     Back at the Willie, we hauled anchor again to move 5 miles south to an inlet called Joe’s Sound.  Pictures can’t do justice to how narrow and jagged underwater ledge lined the entrance is, with a hairpin turn at the end.  We anchored outside the entrance and did a survey of the entrance with the dinghy.  Satisfied with the depths, we returned and hauled anchor again, then threaded our way into the Sound.  Of note, there is a ballast keel from a good sized sailboat laying on the edge of the channel, as if to say, “Go ahead, try it!”

Looking back (from the Sound) at the entrance to Joe's Sound.

You can see how shallow and narrow it is.  Good thing we only draw 3 1/2 feet!

    This sound, or harbor amounts to a submerged river surrounded by some very shallow and some exposed sand banks.  There were several boats anchored, four sail, one active cruiser, and one houseboat, and a sailboat and a fishing boat both aground.  We passed them all by and found a spot in the 100 foot wide channel where we set 2 anchors.  The wind was screaming across the sand flats, and continued to blow across the channel most of the night.

The sand flats of Joe's Sound.

     We had arrived just after lunch so we made another snorkel expedition to a ledge just outside the sound.  There we found many interesting rock formations, many mini deep pools and many areas with extensive rock overhangs.  Kathy and I had a large barracuda swim right between us,  and Joe saw his first Stingrays up close and personal.  Kathy saw a lobster, but we were unable to coax him out of his rock hide-away.

     Back at the boat we cleaned up and made a dinghy trip up the sound to complete our survey of the back passage around Galliot Cay. This time we brought money so we could patronize ”The Last Stop”.  Well let me tell you, the wind came on and with three adults in the fatty knees, she makes some spray. Poor Kathy caught most of the spray and soaked right thru her windbreaker.  But we persisted and made it over very shallow water much of the way, thru the same bridge we had ducked the day before and right to “The Last Stop” .  Great, closed!  Back into the fatty and thru the bridge a forth time, back over the shallows and to the Willie, just about at sunset.  Probably a good thing the bar was closed, otherwise we would have been coming home in the dark.

     We will definitely come back to Joe’s Sound sometime.