Exumas!

Wow – lots to catch up on.  We ended up staying in Bimini 2 weeks waiting for favorable weather to leave. While weathered in, we passed the time exploring the island (from end to end), learning Mexican Train dominoes, playing cribbage and reading. When the weather settled down enough to leave, we sailed overnight and arrived at Nassau in the morning, bought fuel and continued east across the Yellow Bank (we think the name comes from the color of the sand reflecting the sunlight) to the Northern Exumas.  We sailed along with JoLinDy, who we met in Beaufort SC and Unicorn, our friends from Annapolis.  Old friends and new ones – both a major part of cruising!

Since in the Exumas, we’ve been snorkeling several places including a wrecked DC-3 from the drug smuggling days on Norman’s Cay and several patches of reef in the Exuma Land and Sea Park.  No fishing or taking of anything allowed in the park, which probably explains the huge lobster in plain sight on the reefs – they know they are safe!

The Exuma Park mooring field is an amazing natural channel with postcard blue water and white sand.  While in the park, we hiked several trails to explore some Loyalist ruins and to the top of Boo Boo Hill to add our bit of driftwood with our boat name to the huge pile and to get a cell signal to catch up on email.  The things we do to stay connected!

We are now anchored in Georgetown with probably 300 other cruising boats.  It’s an amazing place with all the activities you can imagine from yoga, to water aerobics to beach volleyball and softball teams.  The morning radio net takes about 30 minutes just to announce all the activities for each day.  While it’s fun to meet other cruisers, we aren’t planning to stay long, although the weather may have different ideas.

We are learning more and more everyday about our weather dependency.  Each morning we get a weather update that covers the next several days. Then there are several conversations throughout the day between ourselves and with other boaters about places to go with favorable winds, places not to go due to the wind, places to hide from west winds, or clocking winds or squalls.   Actually, that’s how we ended up in Georgetown. The forecast was for 2 days of northwest winds about 15-20 kts in strength. Perfect for a run down Exuma Sound (the deep side) and into Georgetown Harbor.  Now we’re waiting for squalls and a clocking front (winds starting northeast, shifting southeast, then southwest, and so on back to the northeast over a 24 hour window) sometime in the next few days.  After that, we’ll see what the weather allows.  Perhaps a trip farther east to Long Island and Conception Island, maybe a run back north to other not-to-be-missed spots in the Exumas.  Hard to go wrong in these beautiful islands!

 

He quieted the sea with His power