January 29 - Feb 1 : Hanging out near George Town
After we said goodbye to Veronica we did some grocery shopping to stock up for the next guest and then moved the boat out of Kidd’s Cove in front of the entrance to George Town and back around to the Red Shanks area where there is more protection from winds and swells and fewer cruisers. Kidd’s Cove can be quite busy. It’s a good anchorage if the wind is from the West, the Exuma Yacht Club is right there, and there is a steady parade of dinghies from all over the entire harbor coming and going from George Town. The only entrance to the town itself is under a very small bridge into a very small lake where the grocery store has a dinghy dock. George Town is one of the few places in the Bahamas where there is free water, and it is at this dinghy dock, courtesy of the Exuma Market, so the dock is always busy. The bridge entrance can only admit one dinghy at a time; it’s not unusual for there to be a line coming out or going in, and the dock can sometimes have fifty or sixty dinghies at it. Once we had resupplied to see us at least through the weekend, we moved to Red Shanks to get out of the traffic.
This isn't the same bridge to Lake Victoria/George Town, but it looks like this one.
Saturday we dinghied over to the entrance to the red shanks area to do some snorkeling. This place seemed to be where sea stars hang out - we saw many of them, up close and personal. For some reason the water here is several degrees colder than it is almost anywhere else we’ve been, and despite our wetsuits, we found it too chilly to stay in the water very long. So after we had our sun showers, we climbed back into the dinghy to do some gunkholing. There was a wreck we’d passed before last time we were here, and Dan wanted to see if there was anything salvageable on it. It had obviously been in the water for a long time, and had already been extensively looted for its portholes and winches, but Dan thought if the remaining pilothouse windows were plexiglass we might be able to use some to fashion ourselves a lookee-bucket. (That’s a bucket with a clear bottom you can use to see underwater from the dinghy.) Turned out the windows were glass, not plexiglass, so we passed on them, but he did manage to find some little brass and bronze bits among the barnacle encrusted hull. As we continued our tour, we found another wreck which gave up a small cleat. We called it a day and returned to the Willie for a good meal of grilled steak and brussel sprouts. (When you don’t have a fridge or cooler, you really appreciate fresh meat and produce!)
On Sunday we decided to take the dinghy outside our cove and across George Town harbor in search of some larger reefs for some better snorkeling. We’re getting pretty good at identifying the littler colorful fish we see, but we want to get more familiar with bigger fish in hopes of spearing some for supper sometime. This whole area is a no-take zone, probably because of the hundreds of cruisers that hang out here all winter, and we thought we’d have a good chance at seeing some larger game fish at an outlying reef. The Atlantic side was sending some good swells at us, making snorkeling a little like body surfing, and we had to mind our location so as not to get shoved into the limestone shores. We didn’t see much in the way of game fish, but we did see two large barracudas. One of them was over five feet long. Back in the dinghy Dan admitted to me we’d used up all the gas getting out this far to this reef. Good thing we have a fatty knees and not one of the little inflatable dinghies almost everyone else has. It was a long row back across the harbor, but we had those swells pushing us, and that helped a lot.
Monday Feb 1st we upped anchor and made our way back to Kidd’s Cove. We had a list of things to get done - laundry, water re-supply, gas for the dinghy!, a trip to the library to drop off school supplies - before son Joe came in on the 12:30 flight. Joe will be here for three weeks. It was a hot and muggy day and sitting in noisy, steamy laundromat took up most of my morning while Dan went back and forth with water jugs and fuel jugs, topping off all our tanks. When Joe came in we all thought a burger ‘n beer special at the Redbone Grille sounded like a good idea before we showed him the town and went back to the boat and moved across the harbor to Elizabeth Island. It was hot and we were all eager to get into the water to cool off. Within twenty minutes of us exploring a reef, we spotted two lionfish, which are not included in the no-take limits, as they are invasive and have no natural predators. Dan got out his Hawaiian sling and he caught one and Joe caught the other. Lionfish are somewhat dangerous because they have needle-like spines along their backs and bellies that are venomous, but they are very meaty and very tasty. We’ve read up on how to avoid being pricked (basically you keep the thing at arms’ length and use a long-handled sharp scissors to cut off the spines and fins in one motion) and Dan filleted them like a pro.
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