These prickly shells were attached to a long piece of rope
that we found on the beach. Bill picked
two of the shells off the rope before he found a sharp piece of metal to cut
the rope and free the third one. Their
spines are incredibly long.
On the ocean side of Great Guana Cay opposite Jacks Bay
Cove, Bill found this perch in the rotten limestone cliff. I think the weather up there was about the
same as the weather down on the beach where George Brown and I were standing.
Bill and George went spear fishing with little success. They did see three lobsters, but
unfortunately the season was closed.
This one was peeking out of a hole in the coral. After the picture was taken Bill grabbed him,
pulled him out, then turned him loose.
This coral head had hundreds of squirrel fish and french grunts
schooling over its top.
George and Bill swam into Thunderball Grotto. The water filled room in the center of the island
has a few openings in the ceiling that let light in. They are also the holes that let James Bond
out when he was fleeing SPECTRE. The
room has both an entrance and an exit. The
entrance had a little air in it, but the exit was completely water filled.
The races start with the boats anchored in a row. In this picture the gun has sounded, and you
can see part of the crew pulling in the anchor as the others start to raise the
sail.
The Bahamas sloops come in several sizes. This is one of the smaller dinghy class
boats.
This is an A class Bahamian sloop beating to windward in the
evening sun. The weight of the fellows
on the two pries just barely keeps the boat with its huge sail upright.
The winner of the Regatta’s A Class was Tida Wave. Running Tide was her closest competator. Here Running Tide is at the last rounding of the
windward mark on the last race of the regatta.
The Royal Bahamas Police Force Marching Band performed for
the crowd at the reviewing stand on the last day of the regatta. Dressed in white and red with leopard tunics,
they were something to see.
Hello from George Town, Exuma. Bill and I came south to George Town last
week to see the National Family Islands Regatta. It’s been a couple of years since we were here
last, but it is great fun to watch the traditional Bahamian sailing sloops race.
At my last posting, we were anchored at Big Major’s Spot
waiting for a cold front to pass over us. Lots of other boats had the same idea even
though the anchorage was completely open to the west and offered little
protection from the wind and waves during a cold front passage. As it turned out, the wind only blew from the
west for a few hours and was never more than about 10 or 15 knots. After all our preparations and worry, it ended
up being an almost non-event.
During the day, a nearby boat suggested we have a have a
cruisers’ potluck party on Pirate Beach. It sounded like a good idea to us. I made a black bean, corn, and tomato salsa
which we took along with pita chips and (of course) our drinks. We tried out our new beach party drinks
system. Bill had bought five tropical
themed 24-ounce Tervis tumblers for fifty cents apiece at the Salvation Army Thrift Shop in
Kingsport. For a far higher price, I
bought straws and snap on lids from Amazon for two of the glasses. We mixed up three drinks in each glass before
we left the boat and were set for the entire party. There was no messing with ice, booze, and
mixer in the sand. It was a great
system. The potluck was well attended,
and we met lots of new people and caught up with some people we had met in the
years before. There was even a woman
from Rogersville, Tennessee visiting her sister and brother-in-law on their
boat – small world.
We moved Irish Eyes around from Big Majors Spot to anchor off
Staniel Cay near Thunderball Grotto in anticipation of George Brown’s arrival
on April 11. Bill filled our boat’s fuel
and water tanks, and I bought some fresh food to replace what we had eaten. We tidied up the boat and relaxed, eating a
few meals ashore.
George arrived on Tuesday, but his plane was a little late. With George’s luggage in hand, we started the
half mile walk down the road to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club where our dinghy was
pulled up on the beach. We had not gone
far when two women in a golf cart stopped and offered us a ride. We hopped in.
Bill had briefly spoken to the driver while waiting at the airport, and
George had talked to the passenger who had flown in with him. As we approached the Yacht Club, Bill
recognized the driver’s voice. It was
June from Over Yonder Cay who in our early trips to the Bahamas had read the
weather over the VHF radio each morning.
We were riding with an island celebrity. We
had not heard her in several years and assumed she had left the island. It turned out her radio antenna was damaged in
a storm and she decided to “retire” from weather reading. Bill and I were thrilled to meet the person
who went with the helpful radio voice.
After a late lunch/early supper at the yacht club, the three
of us returned to Irish Eyes. George
settled in on the boat, and we had a peaceful night at anchor. In the morning, we moved Irish Eyes briefly
over to Big Major’s Spot so George could see and feed the famous swimming pigs.
Bill and George left with some apple
slices and a few bits of lettuce to add to the pigs’ fodder. They took a few pictures, and we then left for
Bitter Guana Cay.
Bitter Guana Cay has a colony of endangered iguanas that
live on the uninhabited island. [I
figure that they are there because they were not good to eat, you know, “those
bitter iguanas”.] Lots of tourist boats
come from Nassau and George Town to see the iguanas either before or after
feeding the pigs. The three of us tried
to feed the iguanas apple slices, but the beasts did not seem to like
apples. No doubt the regular tourists
feed them something better. We walked
over to the ocean side of the island to see the rough surf. The wind was coming from the east and was
strong. The surf was pounding on the
rough and rocky shore sending spray 20 feet or more into the air. Off shore in the distance it was raining, and
we were treated to very nice rainbow out over the water.
During the ten days George was with us, we had very strong
easterly winds. We mostly went up and
down west side Great Guana Cay staying out of the wind and waves and visiting a
different beach each day. Bill and
George found lots of plastic bits on the ocean side beaches. George took home a sign written in Spanish
about life jackets, and on Irish Eyes we now have Bill’s hard round red plastic
fish net float and his very large faded red inflatable fender. I found pretty shells; Bill found plastic junk.
The trash on the beaches was sad, really
sad. Too much plastic stuff finds its
way into the ocean and litters the beaches.
Bill had finished making a batch of Pacific IPA Beer and had
started fermenting a batch of Churchill’s Nut Brown Ale just before George
arrived. George has brewed lots of beer
at home. He works at it using both the
best of ingredients and excellent technique.
As I can attest, he makes great beer.
Bill’s beer making is, well, to be charitable, a bit more, well,
basic. But, as with food, presentation
is everything, and Bill’s beer served cold on a warm sunny afternoon on a
sailboat surrounded by turquoise water with a tropical wind blowing, is also
great in its own sort of way. We drank
it all. None was wasted.
In addition to our beach explorations, we hiked through the
brush to a large limestone cave with a pool in its center. The cave had bats hanging from the ceiling
and crawfish swimming in the pool. One
afternoon we dropped in the water to spear some lionfish. We only got one, but we saw a nice grouper
and three lobsters. The grouper hid in a
hole in the coral and would not come out, and the lobsters were out of
season. That done, we stopped in Black Point
to view the geyser-like blowhole on the ocean side of the island and to have
drinks and dinner at Scorpio’s Restaurant and Bar.
On George’s last day with us, we moved from Black Point to
anchor again in front of the Thunderball Grotto. We had a very nice sail despite the strong
wind. After launching the dinghy, Bill
and George swam into Thunderball Grotto just like James Bond did in the movie ‘Thunderball’.
They reportedly found lots of fish, no
SPECTRE assassins, and no other tourists.
We were up by 6am on April 20 to get George to the airport
for his 9:30 flight. It was, as always,
a little different than doing the same thing at home. While the wet dinghy ride across the harbor
and the walk to the airport were negatives, the lack of x-ray machines, metal
detectors, airport security, and the boarding lounge wait were real
plusses. After a short delay the (always
a little late) airplane landed, the pilot looked at George’s passport, put his
luggage in the plane, and flew George and four others off to Ft
Lauderdale. By evening we had a note
saying that he was home.
Bill and I decided we would sail back to Black Point so I
could wash our mountain of dirty laundry. Another cold front was to pass over us over on
Sunday April 23. I did our laundry at
Ida’s Rockside Laundry on Saturday, and we readied Irish Eyes for the coming
high wind. Sunday, we did boat chores
and waited for the wind to pick up, which it did. During the night, we woke up when it rained a
little, the wind picked up, and there was lots of lightening. The wind clocked around to the west so the
wind and waves were coming straight on our bow with no land ahead to break
their force. There was lightening off in
the distance; some to the west and a lot to the east. We learned Monday morning that the Cape
Eleuthrea Marina had winds of 110 to 120 knots. That was the storm to our east. South Andros had 40-50 knot winds. That was the storm to our west. Our wind was nothing like that, but it kept
the boat rocking none the less. Monday,
the west wind was still blowing like stink and the anchorage was very rough. Several boats left Black Point. One left and immediately came back. It must have been still rougher outside. Monday night continued to be a rough ride. Even though the boat was bouncing around, Bill
slept soundly Monday night after being awake Sunday night. I did not sleep either night. I was not a happy sailor.
After putting the dinghy motor on the stern and the deflated
dinghy on the deck of our bouncing boat, we set out Tuesday for George Town. We motorsailed the thirty miles in the calm
seas on the east side of the islands. Along the way, we hooked two dolphin fish, one
getting off the hook immediately and the other shaking off the hook right
behind the boat while Bill was reeling him in. We arrived in George Town about 6pm, anchored
at the first good spot we came to, Monument Beach, and collapsed in our bunk.
Wednesday, April 26 was the first day of the Family Island
Regatta sailing races. Bill and I put on
our saltwater soaked clothes expecting a wet dinghy ride across Elizabeth
Harbour to George Town and headed to town. We took along our water jugs to take advantage
of the free water at the Exuma Market’s dinghy dock. After filling all five of our jugs, we walked
along the Regatta site looking at the temporary plywood shacks set up to sell fried
food and “adult beverages”. For lunch, we
shared an order of conch fritters and a tropical conch salad along with two
cold Kalik beers. The fritters were very
good. Bill talked to the woman as she made
them, and they compared making conch fritters to making hush puppies. I watched the man making conch salad and
listened to two nearby old guys talk about all the scantily dressed young girls
as they walked past. We took our lunch
over to the viewing stands and watched a race or two. Back on Irish Eyes after another wet ride, Bill put the water in our tanks, and we
had a nice swim around the boat. We did not need supper.
At 3 in the morning we woke up to rain. The weather forecast had called for isolated
thunderstorms. Well, our isolated storm
lasted about three hours and gave us two inches of rain and 30 knot winds. While worrisome at times, nothing bad happened.
Bill completely filled both our water tanks and refilled all
five of our plastic jugs with rain water. After the storm and after being awake half the
night, we watched the next day’s races from our cockpit happily napping during the
periods between the three races.
Friday, we again made the long and wet trip to town to be
racing spectators. I probably have
explained the races in previous years, but I’m going to do it again in case
anyone has forgotten. The boats are
wooden Bahamian sloop rigged sailing vessels with cotton canvas sails. They must be built in the Bahamas and owned and
skippered by Bahamians. The boats are
divided into four classes, A (28 ft), B (21 ft), C (17 ft), D (12 ft), and E
(the 12 ft youth class). The A and B
classes race alone, and the C, D, and E classes race together with the E class
having a shorter course. The upwind-downwind
races start with the boats anchored in a line and with all the sails down. When the starting gun goes off, the crew pulls
in the anchor to start the boat going forward and raises the sails to catch the
wind, then the crew move out onto the pry to keep the over canvased and now
speeding boat upright. Starting line
collisions and entanglements are common, occasionally with broken booms or
masts. All you Watauga Lake Sail Club
racers want to try that? Just watching,
it appears that if you have a bad start, you have a bad day. Bill and I spent all day watching the races,
moving from the starting line viewing area to the finish line viewing area as
the excitement unfolded. It was a fun
day.
The last day of the Regatta was Saturday. Bill and I decided to have lunch at the St
Francis Hotel and watch the racing through binoculars from the other side of
the harbor. After our delicious lunch of
cheeseburgers, fries, and beer, we made our way to Chat N’ Chill beach for a
couple of more beers. We chatted and
chilled most of the afternoon until the A class boats were ready to start the
final race. The A class boats have a
crew of 12 to 18. Their masts are huge
and their booms are almost twice the length of the boat. Their 5,000 lb lead ballast is not enough to
keep them upright; the crew must perch on the 3”x12”x16’ pry which hangs out
over the side of the boat to keep it from being blown over. When the crew tacks the boat (that is turns the
boat so the wind moves from one side of the boat to the other) several things must
happen at once. The jibsail and the mainsail
with its enormous boom are blown from one side of the boat to the other
threatening to sweep everyone off the boat.
The crew crawls in off the pry, unships it, and moves the pry under the
swinging boom to the other side of the boat.
The crew simultaneously moves across the boat and resumes their places
on the pry keeping the boat from being blown over. It is something to see. Bill and I took our dinghy and anchored near the
upwind turning mark for the A class race.
Watching the guys tack the boats was very exciting. After the race, we went into George Town and
watched the Royal Bahamas Police Force Band march and play. It was almost dark when we made the long, wet
dinghy ride back to our floating home, but we had had a wonderful day.
The following day, Sunday, we rested and snoozed until 6pm
when we went ashore for a cruisers party with food, drinks, a bonfire, and
music. Bill and I met lots of people and
stayed till about 9pm. The party
continued long without us. Sailors can
certainly tell lots of tales.
Our plan is to stay here in Georgetown a few more days then
head south or north or whichever way the wind takes us.
