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.