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Georgetown, Great Exuma
Island, Bahamas
23rd March - 20th April 2008
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We'd told everybody that, after the hard work
and traumas of the previous twelve months, we just wanted to get to the
Bahamas and do nothing for a while. The frantic rush to
get down to the islands had only intensified this desire.
It was with great relief that we dropped our
hook in our favourite spot in Georgetown's Elizabeth Harbour, Monument
Beach. Anju was snuggled in the relative protection
between the main island and the off-lying, smaller Stocking
Island.
We were glad of the shelter when, on only our
second evening in town, a strong cold front passed by during the dark of the
evening, bringing stiff winds and the normal chaos of boats dragging in the
crowded anchorages.
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Monument beach anchorage -
Georgetown visible in the far distance.
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Atlantic side treasure
beaches
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Our beach holiday was soon in full swing, with
daily walks up Monument Mountain's tough 37 metre ascent for exercise (37
metres is a mountain in this part of the world!). The rest of
our exercise was found trekking up and down the beach at various stages of
the tide to seek out treasures washed ashore in the breakers.
The Atlantic side of Stocking Island had
altered dramatically since our last visit two years earlier, with large
areas of cliffs eroded and boulders crumbled onto the
beach. Our favourite walk was named "Nev's
Trail" in memory of frequent Georgetown visitor and Welsh boating friend
Neville who, tragically, had been killed in a white water rafting
accident. We found that the trail had become pretty
precarious in places, where it was teetering on the edge of the newly eroded
cliffs.
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It was interesting on our daily walks to notice
how the locations of the best treasure hunting areas and the amount and
quality of shells washed ashore changed with the tidal range and weather
conditions.
After a successful treasure-hunting trip we
would return to Anju to begin the time-consuming but relaxing task of
cleaning of our finds. Most of the shells would have large
grains of sand wedged inside which was painstakingly scraped out in the
interests of not turning the inside of our boat into a
beach. Once we had a good selection of shells to work
with, we could set to work on our arts and crafts projects to display the
shells. It kept us out of mischief.....
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Cleaning the
"treasure"
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Talking of mischief we were quickly reunited
with friends Chris and Vivian who arrived in Georgetown a day behind us and
continued to bring joy and chaos into our lives! Their two
Portuguese water-dogs, Zappa and Shelley were a continual source of
entertainment and disruption to add to the fun. As ever,
intelligence was not the dogs' strong point but Chris did a remarkable job
of training Zappa to crew a Hobie cat!
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Who's in charge, Chris or
Zappa?
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Dinner with Vivian and
Chris and Anju's "Outback" restaurant.
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Chris and Vivian had a seemingly constant stream
of visitors aboard Second Chance but we managed to fit in some fine dining
and card game evenings aboard our boats. They also
introduced Phil to the bi-weekly "Texas Hold-'Em" tournaments held
at the St. Francis resort. It was a card game based on poker
where for the sign-up fee of $5, each participant was given $1400 worth of
chips for betting. Of course the chips couldn't be cashed
in, but at the end of the evening there were prizes for the last, second and
third to last players to have chips remaining, with prizes allocated from
the pool of sign-up fees. Phil was soon hooked, sometimes
playing twice a week. His ranking on his first attempt, in a
game of thirty players, was
third at the end of the night and he normally managed to make it into the
last handful of players each time he played. This was pretty impressive for a novice.
On one occasion, however, Christopher was lucky to survive unscathed after
knocking both Phil and Vivian out of the game in the same hand!
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One Sunday we took a road trip with Chris and
Vivian to visit their friends in the north of Great Exuma Island in a
village called Barraterre. Although they spent a lot
of time in that area, Anju's deeper draft made it impossible for us to
anchor anywhere near the village, so it was great to travel by road and
finally meet the good Bahamian friends they so often talk about.
First we visited Norman, whose seafront
restaurant in the village had recently burnt to the ground, leaving him with
only the clothes on his back. However, his business was
back in operation from a wooden lean-to with a couple of picnic tables and
sun-umbrellas for customers.
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Strolling through
Barraterre with Berthalee
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Vegetable shopping,
Barraterre style.
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Berthalee and Hughrie gave us a warm welcome at
their home, proudly showing us all the major renovations they were
undertaking. Berthalee had already been in the
garden harvesting fresh tomatoes and red peppers, insisting we take a bag
full of the tasty produce, even though we'd only just
met. Their grand-daughters quickly disappeared up a
tree in search of their fruit, sapadillos, or dillies as they are know
locally, for Vivian. Meanwhile, Berthalee took us to visit her
cousin Eunal's vegetable garden.
Gardening in the parched islands of the
Bahamas seemed very hard work. Luckily the vegetable
garden lay adjacent to a fresh water pond, from which water could be carried
by hand to keep the plants alive. The results of Eural's hard labour
were evident in the wonderful selection of sweet potatoes, onions, beetroot
and carrots we plucked from the ground.
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It seemed we weren't the only tired folks,
enjoying relaxing in Georgetown. Our trusty inflatable rib
dinghy, christened Anjulita, was definitely relaxing too. It
seemed that each time we stepped aboard, we needed to take the pump with us
to re-inflate the sagging tubes. Apparently we had a leak
which would require attention back at the yard but in the meantime we were
sure not to travel without our foot pump! Life in the yard and
the indignity of being deflated and stuffed into our storage shed for the
summer had not agreed with Anjulita!
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Pumping up the dinghy
(again!)
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During our stay in Georgetown, we'd often
spotted the silhouette of a tall ship, Mystic, anchored in the distance and
we were delighted to learn, one morning, that the cruising community were
invited aboard for an "open house". On
arrival we were greeted by Amy, "Hello, welcome aboard, I'll be your
parking attendant and I'm the Captain of Mystic".
What service, the Captain would be parking our dinghy, which was a relief, as
the side of Mystic was congested with quite a crowd of small
tenders. We stepped aboard to enjoy our tour, with
complimentary coffee, toast and bagels, our third breakfast of the
day! Mystic, like Anju, was steel hulled and she carried a
crew of eleven plus paying guests for cruises in the Bahamas, Chesapeake and
New England.
When the time came to leave, our parking
attendant was nowhere to be found, probably busy with Captain-type
duties. Anyhow, Phil bravely set off along the precarious
ledge on the side of Mystic's hull, to retrieve Chris' tender.
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Mystic in Georgetown.
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Phil, part-time parking
attendant.
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Georgetown was slowly filling up, ready for the
highlight of our stay, The Family Island Regatta.............
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