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Into the Groove- Jan 29- Feb 2

Bit by the George Town bug, a victim of “a boat at rest, remains at rest”; call it what you will, we have settled in and the possibility of only venturing 32 miles east to Long Island sits in serious jeopardy. Not that we hadn’t planned a long stay; just now we’re glad we did.

A lovelier evening could not have been spent than the one we shared with George and Toby aboard Puff. They have lived on Puff (the magic dragon) since 1993. The boat has no engine as some house boats do; the mooring in Hole 1 on Stocking Island is home. Owners of several monohulls over the years, Toby and George have also fit in 5 years of summers along the canals of France and a year in New Zealand before settling down in on Puff.

Happy hour aboard "Puff"

Russ has become a voracious reader but in between devouring a book a day we’ve developed a routine of sorts. Mornings are spent either hiking/ beach walking or in town, after lunch we usually head over to Volley Ball Beach to cheer our gutsy friends, chew the fat with others, make new friends and discuss upcoming events. The 32nd annual Cruisers Regatta (cruisers let loose enjoying fun, games, music and racing) starts Feb 25 and preparations are in full swing. We’ll be gone before then (yes, we will); still a T-shirt was in order, especially when the charming design was done by none other than Toby. Hey, we bought Green Mtn’s Quidditch World Cup T-shirts, what’s one more in my huge pile?

Volley Ball Beach is THE place to hang out and fortunately it is centrally located. Mornings may be art, yoga and Sunday Beach Church then in the afternoon you’ll find: volley ball games from 2pm-4pm, ladies making baskets using palm leaves, rummy, backgammon, horseshoes and small groups of cruisers form to discuss travel plans, weather, more weather, share intel on places they’ve been and get to know one another.

Volleyball Beach

I’ve been collecting small shells during our walks; why? that remains to be seen. These beaches only contain small shells… and at some point I’ll figure out what they are. Low on variety and not much for color but if you want small, mostly white ones- this is the place.

In an earlier post I mentioned One White Tree. Does anyone know the literary connection?   Speaking of boat names and Canadians an interesting bit of knowledge we recently re-learned is that in Canada your boat name has to be unique. I’m sure Canada does not have as many boats as the U.S. but still, the creative juices need to run strong to achieve a unique name.  So many Canadian flagged boats can be found in The Bahamas and especially George Town that the joke is any elections would have to be postponed ‘cuz no one is left in the country. In addition to plenty of U.S. and Canadian boats, U.K., Australian, New Zealand, Brazilian, Irish and German flagged boats are here too. Many of the morning Net announcements are also relayed in French.  I often can get the gist, but that’s because I’ve heard it in English first!

Holes 1 and 2 with Elizabeth Harbour at top

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Church and Chill Jan 26- Jan 29

Sunshine equals energy generation on Ortolan and with the boom swung to the side we get a full day of Ms Sunshine beating down on our four solar panels. Power hog that we are, the sun provides most of our juice although not all.  We have fallen into a 3 day cycle with the generator: day 1 no use- yea!, day 2 run it an hour and day 3 run for two hours to charge the batteries well and make enough hot water for showers. Making water is another matter. Harbor water is clean enough for us to make fresh water, but will run down the batteries unless we run the generator. Did that once but otherwise we lug our two 5 gal jugs every time we go in to town.

A very full dinghy dock

Exuma Markets provides free R/O (reverse osmosis) water right at the dock, making it easy to dinghy up and fill your jugs. So now you have the background story on the “chill” part of the title because when Russ hurt his back lifting a jug from dinghy on to the stern, we ended up lying low for a few days, and taking things easy for a few more after that.

Once again I played galley-slave and baked coconut bread, cranberry/oatmeal bars and poached chicken breasts for chicken salad. We visited the Corner Laundry one afternoon when the wind calmed down; always feels good to get that chore done with.

Saturday afternoon and evening was a celebration at Regatta Point in honor of Buzzy Rolle, boat builder extraordinaire. Bahamian sloop races, delicious ribs, burgers and fish, rum punch all enjoyed to a danceable selection of Bahamian /Caribbean music blasting from the speakers.

Donald- the man can dance!

Sunday we attended Beach Church, an officially recognized non-denominational church… under the pines, on the sun-bleached wooden benches and picnic tables. A prettier setting is not to be found. Oh, and a choir accompanied by organ music or on some days guitar and violin.  Coffee and tea is provided (not sure by whom) in thermoses and cruisers who want to socialize afterward bring a treat to share. We brought some coconut bread. Dress is naturally very casual and footwear is scarce.

The roughly hour long “service” and I use that word in the most general sense, is led by George Hohenstein (more on him and Toby his wife later) on Puff and proceeded such: greeting and messages, new attendees stand and introduce themselves, hymns, more hymns, more hymns – no ok not that many, but to me, who can’t carry a tune, it was more than I was comfortable with- songbook provided of course, then a “lesson”, concerns and anyone who needed to be prayed for, choir song and closed with everyone joining hands and singing the Lord’s Prayer.

Russ had no more than picked up a coconut cupcake than Toby came up to us and shared that she and George hailed from Groton and would love to chat. We were eager to get a look at the inside of a house boat- be there at 5pm.