Bahamas Journal - George Town Bound

 

	Wednesday, February 10, 2010 Black Point, Exumas After leaving Warderick Wells, we sailed south to the community of Black Point Settlement on Great Guana Cay in the Exumas. Â
Conception Island: Bahamas - Mary and Rob

Like most of the Bahamas, the anchorage is well protected from 2 or 3 sides and this was great from the east wind.

The happening place in Black Point is Lorraine’s. This industrious lady has a funky little restaurant and I had my usual - cracked conch and a cold Kalik beer. She also has internet access and a small business centre. It seems people cruising for the winter have to check back into reality on a semi-regular basis.

Lorraine’s mother cooks fresh Bahamian bread each day. Today was coconut bread. There is a way she swirls in minced coconut on the last fold so there is a seam of incredible flavour in an already scrumptious bread. And on the 3rd day when it is getting just a little stale, it makes the most wonderful french toast.

Thursday, February 11 – 12, 2010
Little Farmers, Exumas

We stayed on the Exuma Bank side as it was protected from the east wind and waves and sailed to Little Farmer’s Cay. The physical setting is very much like Warderick Wells with a sand bar in the middle of the harbour and moorings around the outside. The moorings are owned by three individuals - Roosevelt (who owns Little Farmer’s Yacht club), Terry Baines (who owns Ocean Cabins with his wife Ernestine) and a third guy we met, but were never introduced to. We rented a mooring ball from the Yacht Club.

Because of the tidal surge, it is good to be on a mooring ball here.

We went ashore for conch fritters and cold Kalik beer and to use the internet. Ashore we met a couple (John and Gina) from Knoxville, TN and struck up a conversation. A large powerboat came in to dock at the yacht club and since Roosevelt had gone off to do other business, John and I assisted the boat - Carol Ann with here docklines.

We stayed for some dinner (cracked conch for me and grouper for Mary) then headed back to our boat. The next morning, John and I went spear fishing and caught nothing. Oh well, another canned dinner.

A lot of other boats came in and we were invited to a beach party the next day. About 6 boats attended, each bringing an appetizer. The food was fabulous, the people incredible and another day was had in paradise.

Friday, February 13 – March 3, 2010
Emerald Bay, Exumas

We continued south, hoping eventually to get to George Town the southern most planned stop on this trip. The weather was getting better and the sailing was awesome. It’s a good thing too, because our pesky heat exchanger continued to have issues

We stopped at Emerald Bay, a former Four Seasons Resort and Marina that had been taken over by Sandals. The marina was new with incredible floating docks. The only downside was the surge in the marina. Boats were banging off of docks. Friends on a Cabo Rico 56 had 3 fenders explode from the pounding.

There seemed to be two schools of thought on how to control a boat’s bouncing in the marina. One was to hold the boat off the dock with docklines. In some cases, this involved boats on both sides of a basin tying to each other. The second school of thought, the one we followed, was to secure tightly to the floating finger and let the dock take the surge. After our docklines were laid out, we took a line from the dock to our primary genoa winch and cranked it as tight as we could. The bouncing stopped.

Emerald Bay was true to its name. Adjacent to the marina were two resorts - Grand Isle and Sandals. They sat on a beautiful crescent bay that in the bright sunlight was a brilliant emerald green.

A large group of boats came into the marina to wait out yet another Norther. This storm coincided with the opening of the Vancouver Olympics and a large contingent of Canadian boats watched the ceremonies on the large screen in the marina media room. Two other nights there were jam sessions on the patio with up to 6 musicians playing. The instigators, Doug from About Time and Gary from Tamari, had been doing this for years while cruising and it was great to sit in with people of my own era.

During this time, I had to return to Toronto to work on a project. Mary had her girlfriend Cathy visit and from all of the reports a g-r-e-a-t time was had by all. They went sailing down to George Town aboard Interlude with Tom and Cathy. They went out to dinner with friends Brad and Lois from America and then got thrown out of the resort pool at lunch one day.

On my return, we discovered the trouble we have been having with the cooling system stemmed from a virtually seized water pump. We ordered another from our Steve at Bristol Marine and were going to just sit back on Sojourn unit it arrived. Brad and Lois offered to take us sailing on America - a Cabo Rico 56. Now there is an invitation you just don’t say no to.

Saturday, March 3 – 8, 2010
Conception Island, Exumas

We packed our ‘jammies’ and a few bottles of wine and sailed out of The Marina at Emerald Bay for the first time in 3 weeks. It was great to be back on the water. We sailed to Conception Island and anchored in a simply marvelous bay. We snorkeled on a reef of elk horn coral. We spent 2 days at Conception Island and sailed to Long Island. The wind and waves made anchoring undesirable, so we continue to sail to George Town where we caught up with Tom and Cathy aboard Interlude. Monday night we went out to Rake ‘n Scrape, a Bahamian concept of one or two conventional instruments and then an assortment of percussion instruments made up from mostly household items that out together an fabulous syncopation of beats to the songs of the islands. Actually, many of the tunes were popular songs to the beat of the islands.

Conception Island, Bahamas: Sailing Vessel America anchored

We anchored 3 nights in Georgetown, taking time to play beach volleyball and drink a few rum drinks. Then it was back to Emerald Bay.

Tuesday March 9 – 10, 2010
Emerald Bay, Exumas

(23.63 -75.92)

The day after we arrived back the new water pump arrived and we installed in just a few hours. The engine started up, the water flowed and with one small leak that was corrected with a turn of the screwdriver, Sojourn’s temperature guage raised to 1800F and stayed there. At the time of this writing (Apr 4) we have still had no further issues with the water pump or over heating. Check out the separate article on the water pump.

Thursday, March 11 – 15, 2010
Little Farmer’s Cay, Exumas

After a month, we said goodbye to our friends at the Marina at Emerald Bay and headed north. Sojourn never did get to George Town, but we did and decided if we were to see the Abacos, we should leave soon. Our first stop was Little Farmer’s Cay, where we stopped on the way down. We took a mooring ball again and spent 5 nights.

We swam, barbequed and had a fabulous lobster dinner ashore at Ocean Cabins. The Bahamian style of cooking lobster is to par boil it, remove it from its shell, season it with salt, pepper, Old Bay and parmesan cheese then returning the lobster to its shell and baking it.

I don’t want readers to get the impression all we do is eat and drink. It’s true but I don’t want you to get that impression.

With limited storage and refrigeration aboard Sojourn, we have returned to an existence of hunting and gathering. At each Cay we hunt for a grocery store and we what they have. If the mail boat has recently visited, the selection will be quite good. The mail boat comes once a week to most cays so the day before pick’ns are quite slim. And it not there is a great selection when the boat comes. It brings what it can get, so you might get peppers and onions one week - but no tomatoes. Seafood is abundant because it is local. Steaks not so much. After all, we still have not seen a cow in the Bahamas.

Next chapter - Sailing North to Nassau