Rudder Cut Cay To Georgetown

       After Big Farmer’s Cay, we moved to the next island - Rudder Cut Cay - and spent three nights there.  Rudder Cut Cay and its associated collection of very small cays were purchased by the magician David Copperfield, and it was he who installed the underwater sculpture of a grand piano with a mermaid lounging on the piano bench.  One of the first things we did was to go snorkeling over there, waiting our turn after the hovering tour boat with gawking tourists left.  

Dan plays the piano for the mermaid,

We did a lot of snorkeling in several different areas near our anchorage, often circumnavigating a small island in our quest to view the aquatic life.  We found a ledge filled with the exotic looking queen trigger fish and coral heads teaming with grunts and sergeant-majors. 

The striped fish are sergeant-majors.

        We have a Go-Pro camera now, and Dan is becoming adept at getting pictures of the fish.  We also did a couple of beach walks and picked up a few shells.  We already have quite a shell collection at home, but sometimes you just can’t turn away a really nice shell.  We’re not going to turn away any sea-beans either.  Dan has already found one hamburger bean.  

Hamburger sea-bean

We met the folks on the s/v Full Circle when they came over to ‘welcome us to the neighborhood’ and let us know they bought their boat in Camden, Maine. Ted and Stacey were happy to give us the history and to explain the name of the boat.  It had been built and first owned by Ted’s father, and had been sold a couple of times. The most recent owner did some digging and tracked down Ted and ended up offering the boat to him.  It turns out that we have known that previous owner since he was kid.  Small world!  

We left Rudder Cut Cay on Friday morning, when the winds and seas were good for making the journey to Georgetown.  For the first time since we left the US we traveled through very deep water.  Dan set up two fishing lines and we did catch something, but as our luck would have it, the fish spit the hook before we could reel it in.  We’re getting very good at catching fish, just not very good at bringing them in.  We had a very nice cruise to Georgetown and found an anchorage off Sand Dollar Beach on Stocking Island.  Coincidentally this is the same date - Jan 20 - when we arrived here the last time we were in the Bahamas!  We are one of about ten thousand boats here (just kidding, it’s more like three hundred fifty) strung out all along the beaches of Stocking Island and across the channel in front of Georgetown on Great Exuma Island.  There is quite a social scene here, with concerts and Trivia Night and water aerobics classes and such.  They even have Beach Church every Sunday, a non-denominational Christian service run and attended by the cruising community.  We like this area because there are plenty of snorkeling areas, good beaches to walk, easy access to Long Island and the Ragged islands, and there’s a nice airport in Georgetown for our guests to come to.  We plan to spend the better part of the next month in this area.

Sunset in Georgetown

Nightlife in Georgetown Harbour.  All those lights are mast-head lights on the boats!