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.