We’re often hidden away in Red Shanks, Rolle Cay, The Litter Box or off Crab Cay

Still hangin’ out in George Town, doin’ the George Town Shuffle, as it’s called.  Elizabeth Harbour is large – about 1 mile wide by over 5 miles long.  Who the heck decided that this was the ideal spot for hundreds of boats at anchor out in for weeks, with cold fronts, squalls & generally breezy weather? As the wind builds and/or clocks around, many boats shuffle about the harbour looking for protection, while some don’t want to give up “their spot” so they just stay & take it.  Of course, high winds or squalls cause boats to drag anchor, which only adds to the fun!

For a few mild days we had a great spot up very close to Monument Beach in shallow water, no one in front of us, with the 40 or so other boats well-spaced on each side & behind us.  Another boat even stopped over in their dinghy & joked that we were the envy of the anchorage with such a great spot.  That soon changed!  This 50′ sailing cat anchored very close to the beach, off our forward bow – not great, but clear of us.  20 minutes later they suddenly began dragging about 75′ to alongside of us.  We yelled over “You’re dragging!”  The captain stuck his head up & said “Don’t worry – I didn’t set my anchor – it will set itself”.  WONDERFUL!  While his anchor did seem to have now caught, we’re both swinging at different intervals & sometimes only 15′ apart.  Twice I told him (no need to yell anymore) “I don’t think this is going to work”.  Finally after a few close swings he agreed & retrieved his anchor – Yeah!!  Wait … what … now he’s re-anchoring about 75′ directly in front of us!  Oh yeah, the guy who thinks it’s fine to let his anchor drag to “set itself”!  With the wind remaining in the same direction & increasing during the night, we gave up & just moved.

Our next anchorage: That little speck in the middle is us.  In a harbour of 300+ boats, we found a spot with no other boats for 1/2 mile – probably because this entire side of Crab Cay is very shallow.  We draw 34″ & our rudder was brushing & smoothing off the nice, sandy bottom at low tide.

In between shuffling around the harbour & waiting for winds to lie down, we’ve been enjoying friends, happy hours, lunches, dinners, paddleboarding, kayaking & some of the annual Cruising Regatta activities on the calmer days.  This year, we joined our friends Chris & Erin on the Poker Run.  Poker Runs are often high-speed boats racing around to collect cards at different stops.  As Erin pointed out, this is more of a pub crawl – we just dinghy around the harbour stopping off at different restaurants & beach bars, picking up a card at each venue.  The winning poker hand wins a bottle of rum.  We didn’t win, but had a fun time!

Our time here is coming to an end.  We’ll be soon looking for a weather window to slowly begin our trek north once again.