George Town Harbour that is … hard to believe we’ve been here 2 months! The weather, as usual, has dictated our schedule & activities.  Every week or so there is a cold front which offers one perfect, low wind day, followed by several high wind days, followed by moderate winds.

You can see the weather coming in.

The first (of many) dragging boats during our stay. At least this one was in ideal conditions – daylight, low winds and didn’t hit or get tangled with another boat. That’s me by the stern just after we pulled it off the rocky shore (it only gently hit, so only scratched paint on it’s rudder).

While most boats are anchored out in the large 1 mile by 8 mile harbor, we spend much of the time in a protected area called Red Shanks behind Crab Cay.  There are 6 different “holes” – areas with 2 or 3 sided wind protection.  Some are fairly deep with rooms for up to 20 boats – this one spot is fairly shallow & barely room for one boat – us!  High hills to our north & east cut the wind down by half.  Our anchoring app to the right gives you a visual idea of the wind’s “clocking” with each cold front – the little anchor symbol in the middle is our anchor – the colored lines show our boat’s track as the wind takes us around during about a week’s stay.

 

 

This little beach in Red Shanks used to be where cruisers hung out most nights, jokingly called the “Red Shanks Yacht and Tennis Club”. Someone had a great idea to gather one night – just like in the old days. All of those things high up on the rocky bank are dozens of old conch shells cruisers used to paint their boat names on & leave on display.

Military? helicopter exercises on adjacent Crab Cay – no markings, tail numbers or IDs?? Better not to ask …

While waiting for winds to die down, there are always various projects to keep us busy.  I’m making a watermaker repair replacing the feed pump.  Here’s Lori’s latest creation!

 

 

We always make the best of the good weather days!  We get our shopping & errands out-of-the-way to have some fun!

As part of the George Town Cruisers Regatta, there is a softball game between the cruisers and Bahamians. We had never attended before so it was fun, although the Bahamians were so late we only saw part of the actual game.

A feast courtesy of Cort and Max – Max caught the lobsters and fish that morning.

This is the view the tourists see from the Peace and Plenty Hotel looking out at the 300+ boats anchored out in the harbor.

Overall it was a great season! Lots of time with old cruising & land friends, along with a some new friends. While we had planned on staying a bit longer, there is a long stretch of windy weather ahead so we need to head about 50 miles north up the Exuma chain, which allows us to cross over from the east side (basically open ocean) to the west side (the “bank side”) of the chain which has protection from the most common east winds. Over the next 2 weeks we’ll slowly continue up another 50 miles stopping at favorite spots such as Black Point, Staniel Cay, the Exuma Land & Sea Park, then Highbourne Cay.

This is our first stop heading back north up the Exuma chain.  This sunset picture shows a peaceful scene, however 1′ – 2′ waves rocked us silly for a few hours until the front switched the wind around.  By midnight the wind clocked around to shore side giving us some relief.  The faux castle is actually just someone’s house, although we haven’t seen anyone around in a few years.

What wind?

This is our protected, beachside anchorage we moved to the next morning, since the wind was forecast to be blowing 25 – 35 knots for the next 4 – 5 days.  Our move, however, was not without a bit of drama.  As we passed by 2 sailboats, they started yelling & pointing, then air horn blowing, again & again.  Finally we motored over closer & were told we couldn’t re-anchor because that’s “their spot” they were planning to move to later in the morning! “Their spot” was a large corner for the anchorage with plenty of room for several boats. We weren’t even necessarily anchoring there anyway – we were simply making our way past them.  Later on the beach he told me that the day before “everyone” had pre-planned their anchoring spots, including where they might be moving to when the wind changed, so they were pissed that we (& another powercat before us) had just moved on our own?!?  Anchoring situations can be stressful, but this was a first!!