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.