Last Updated 11/20/05

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Georgetown is the end of the cruising world for a lot of boaters who find the large harbor, great beaches, good weather shelter, and ad-hoc community too much of a good thing to leave. So they stay for 3-4 months at anchor, moving about in dinks, and call it cruising. That said, it is a neat place when you get a bit used to it and into the program.

We started the month of February by arriving in Georgetown after an easy 45 mile run south on Exuma Sound, passing "Haven," our dinner partners from the night before, along the way. Our Globalstar satellite phone has become very reliable; Andrea successfully continues most of her coaching practice and Chuck even managed a telephonic board of directors meeting on the way from Little Farmers Cay to G-town. The harbor is about a mile wide and 5-6 miles long with snug anchorages along the beaches that abound on Stocking Island. Some are local favorites - Volleyball Beach, Hamburger Beach, Sand Dollar Beach, Flip Flop Beach. None are official names but everyone knows just where you're talking about. On the Sound (ocean) side the beach is beautiful and depending on the direction of the swell, the surf is often really up.

On Saturday, 2/5 Ian arrived for a visit, and so did a cold front. Frontal passages are fairly well predicted. They produce a couple of days of winds starting with 25-35k the first day and dropping a bit each day until they are back to the more normal 10-15 in the mornings and 15-20 in the afternoons. Once a week it will be dead calm.

By Sunday the wind had dropped and swung to the NE, so anchoring behind Stocking Island produced a wonderful lee of settled protection just off Volleyball Beach. The ocean side of the island was still churning from the effects of the front. We hiked over and enjoyed the dramatic vista. For the Superbowl the place to be was the Chat 'n Chill; it was packed with cruisers whose only access to was by dink. Naturally we were there, too. Lots of instant Eagles and Patriots fans. Ian was not thrilled with the outcome.

The next couple days we tried some bonefishing in the flats. No luck, but it was an adventure. Provisioning is pretty easy at Exuma Markets. Access to their dinghy dock is under a narrow bridge. As usual, the dink is the taxi we use for all errands.

Weather was beautiful on Wednesday and off we went to Lee Stocking Island about 30 nm to the north. Patience paid off and Ian and Chuck boarded two 8-10 lb dolphins (mahi). Ian cleaned them promptly and froze 6 fillets from one leaving we had more than enough for dinner, even after giving half of one fish to Ron and Liz on Undine II. We were delighted to find friends we had made further north last month also anchored there, and a huge beach party ensued complete with pot luck hors d'ourves.

Thursday we did a tour by dink of the several fascinating cays (keys) in the area. The water was mirror-calm and crystal clear. A barracuda had taken up residence under our boat as we left. Over some rocks we just drifted and watched the many fish as if we were looking down into an aquarium. An endangered species of iguana live on one of the cays, and they rushed out onto the beach to welcome us as we floated by. The decision was made to return to Georgetown to hedge against another forecasted front and we arrived back in mid-afternoon. The front arrived as forecast early Friday morning and we were glad to be snug back at Exuma Docks. A good day to wash the boat (water was "only" 10¢/gal). do some general tidying up, etc. A fun evening of BBQ and local music at Two Turtles Inn capped the day.

Ian left Saturday. He left his snorkeling gear and fishing rod "for others." Right. We think he will use it as an excuse to return. That is just fine, too. We moved out to the anchorage at "Hamburger Beach" on Stocking Island in the afternoon and dinked ashore, had a burger, and walked the beach on both the sound and the harbo(u)r side.

Returning to the boat we noted a familiar vessel anchored by us, and sure enough, it was Karen and Peter's Emerald Isle. Also aboard were Jack and Cathy. Of course, there was an immediate gathering which led to a delicious and riotous dinner of grilled lamb chops. Peter insisted on a strict dress code which was ignored by all but Chuck.

Sunday the weather delivered a bit more breeze than the forecasted 10kts so at the captains' meeting a decision was taken to run north about 30 miles to Lee Stocking Island. By early afternoon we had arrived, and spent the remainder of the day visiting friends from Pendragon and Undine II, and resting up for the big event because the day was Jack and Cathy's 50th (that's right, fiftieth) wedding anniversary. All were aboard Celebrate to celebrate with another evening of fine dining, toasts, and warm cameraderie.

Monday, Valentines Day, arrived with another handful of unforecasted ESE winds. Emerald Isle departed by 0900 to return to Nassau and then Florida. Liz and Ron from s/v Undine II called and said they were going about 10 miles north to the Darby Islands and that we might find them interesting. We had met them a few times before and enjoyed their company last week at the beach party.  We followed and were snug in a protected cove between the islands by lunchtime.

Ashore is an abandoned house, actually more like a castle, said to be the base of a Nazi sympathizer during WWII. The site is atop a hill, and there is a magnificent 360° vista, each with a different palate of the pastel Bahamian watercolors. The owner was invited to leave the Bahamas by the Brits when it was learned he was provisioning U-Boats that could come through nearby Rudder Cut.

We hiked to and through the house that still has a few old pieces of furniture, but is essentially about to return to dust.

The following day, after a 2-hour dinghy trip with Liz and Ron exploring some neighboring cays, Andrea and I returned to take another couple of pictures, and we happened upon a trail leading away from the house. Following it for less than 10 minutes we discovered a huge cave open on both ends and with a ceiling almost 20’ above our heads. What a great place for pirates to have camped out.

The Exumas are a wondrous 120-mile long chain of islands, cays, and rocks that are the boundary that separate Exuma Sound to the east from the Exuma Banks to the west. These banks extend westward about 75 miles to Andros Island. Andros is not on many cruisers’ list of places to visit as it is largely mangrove swamps surrounded by coral and rock reefs with almost no access to sheltering anchorages, let alone developed marine facilities. The whole area is similar to New York’s Thousand Islands region except that the cays (islands) are mostly uninhabited, the land is low, vegetation is dense, the waters are warm (mid 70s+) and crystal clear, and there are sandy beaches for the taking everywhere.

The Sound is hundreds of feet deep right off the shore and then it plummets to an average of 1500 meters in most places and as much as 2200 meters near where it merges with the Atlantic Ocean. After that, the bottom just seems to disappear – our charts indicating 4500 meters less than 20 miles east of Cat Island. Doing the math, that’s something close to 3 miles deep! On the other hand, the banks on are rarely more than 20 feet deep and in many places we cruise in 10’ or even less at low tide. We have our two depth sounders calibrated – one to show total depth, and one to show depth under our keel. When the latter gets down to 4.0, the pucker factor hits the redline.

Because the banks are so shallow, strong and rapid currents develop at the cuts to the sound as the tide rises and falls. The range varies between 2.5’ and 3.5’ depending on the phase of the moon. Picture a dinner plate filled to the rim with water and imagine how it sloshes back and forth as compared to the sloshing in a pail of water. It doesn’t take much to upset the balance in the plate, and the same is true of the Exuma Banks. There is a lot of water that has to fill or drain the very large area of the banks every six hours, and that gives rise to the currents in the cuts. That said, tides are very predictable and it is easy to plan travels taking the state of the water into consideration. As a rule, we enter new waters on a rising tide unless the chart shows depths dependably 3 meters or more.

And that’s another thing. All the charts in the region are metric. In the Chesapeake we panic if we see a depth of 5, here we celebrate (pun intended). We have come to plan all our routes through areas of 2 meters or more. We will try an anchorage showing 1.7-1.8 at low water and have never been unpleasantly surprised. Adding to the safety factor, this winter low tides have usually been 0.4’-0.7’ above datum, the baseline depths shown on the charts. Anchoring has generally been straightforward because our plow anchor seems to really like the sandy bottoms found throughout the Exumas.

Where were we? Oh, yes. On 2/16 we departed the Darbys and went out to the sound through Rudder Cut and returned to the banks side a whole 10 miles later at Farmers Cay Cut where we anchored just off the west side of Farmers Cay. Here our civilized life changed because we welcomed aboard Chris Parker, the renowned weather guru, who installed two new pieces of software.

 First is an email system, OCENS, which dazzles us with its speed. It compresses everything and sends and receives in burst mode instead of the constant back and forth and turning around that email via the Internet. At times, using our satellite phone, it took nearly 4 minutes just to get on to the web and then another minute or two per message sent or received. As a comparison, we now typically send and/or receive a dozen messages in less than 30 seconds! Keep those emails coming, now to our new address, celebrateanc@ocens.net. Even attachments in MS Word or Excel do fine. It’s just the big graphic pictures of Aunt Clara’s new puppy that choke the system.

The second addition is OCENS WeatherNet. It provides a menu of over 20,000 realtime weather products that also download quickly and efficiently. Every day we get a 5-day text forecast of wind speeds and direction, precipitation, cloud cover, lift index, etc. Another is a 7-day graphic file that is manipulated by the software and maps all the above on a satellite photo of the region. We center on our current latitude and longitude, and then a player animates all of it at 6-hour intervals for the entire coming week. Occasionally we download a similar graphic file that animates predicted sea state – direction/height/period. Chris also emails, as a service, a daily synopsis of all the fronts and forecasts that will be in play for our near term future. The chart to the right shows the prediction for 2/28/05 at 1900 (7:00 p.m.). Although it is dated 3/1, the time is “zulu” and is 5 hours later than where we are. Where we are is dead center on the chart and it looks like some rain is heading this way The wind arrows are hard to see, but show the direction and strength, and the strength is also displayed in digital form. Suddenly we have access to unlimited weather information, and it is a huge comfort.

Moving on the next day we anchored south of Black Point and walked the mile into town, meeting Constable Kevin Rolle along the way. He is the sole official in the area and a real ambassador, welcoming cruisers and appreciating the business they bring to the local economy. Which, by the way, we helped by buying three loaves of Bahamian bread – two wheat and one coconut. Bahamian bread is delicious. Kevin also went on record that it would be a great help to the area if cruisers would bring along some school supplies – paper, notebooks, pencils, crayons, rulers, etc. – to help the kids. We will stock up next time we are in the US and planning a Bahamian visit.

Friday was the fifth or sixth day in a row of perfect weather. Clear, flat calm, warm, sunny. We actually reversed course and eased south just 4-5 miles and anchored close off a beautiful sandy beach which we had all to ourselves for the day. We brought the chairs ashore, read, and at sunset toasted the idyllic existence we are enjoying for the time.

Saturday was Andrea’s birthday!! North another 10 miles to the Staniel Cay area. Just as we dropped the anchor of the west shore of Big Majors Spot, the GPS odometer turned a major milestone, 10,000 nm since commissioning in June, 2003! We dinked ashore that night for dinner at Fowl Cay Resort. It is a tiny cay with fantastic facilities including half a dozen small homes that house 2-8 guests and rent out for $4,000 - $9,000/week (American plan, of course). Ouch. But their dinner is special – about 20 guests/visitors are welcome to a $50 prix fixe dinner including open bar, wine at the table, and nitecaps in the billiard room. It is elegant and an unexpected pleasure; also a great way to meet other cruisers and make some friends.

On Sunday someone called for a pot luck beach dinner on the VHF. At 1700 a couple dozen dinghys arrived with appetizers, casseroles, and desserts. Great fun. Monday we were invited for sundowners aboard Glory B, a 77’ Grand Alaskan. Tom and Donna not only were fun and interesting hosts, but also treated us to a Green Flash the instant the sun fell below the horizon. This is not an urban legend, it is real, and we have seen three so far this month. When the weather is perfectly clear and there are no clouds, the rim of the sun turns brilliant green as it falls past its equator over the horizon and into the sea. There is no mistaking it. Best seen with binoculars but the naked eye catches it just fine.

With no particular rush or calendar we have been enjoying over a week anchored in the area. The chart above shows our boat anchored snugly, and hints at the myriad of channels, cays, beaches, and places that abound. The days are all different, but all similar. Up early and start the generator to load up the batteries, make some water, do some laundry, brew some coffee, catch up on email (remember celebrateanc@ocens.net?), go ashore to run, walk, grocery shop, hop on a wi-fi connection to the Internet, grab some lunch, watch the locals clean lobsters and groupers and the rays and nurse sharks that clean up the leavings, back to the boat, welcome friends aboard, visit friends on their boat, catch some CBS Evening News on the tube, make a great dinner. . . .   On some days we jump in and snorkel through amazing coral gardens and schools of exotic and colorful fish. Other days we have toured up and down the many cays and waterways a dozen miles or more. Beaching the dink to hike the sound-side cliffs or provide a banks-side venue for Andrea’s yoga.

Life is good, and we appreciate it. We don’t miss the snow and cold back home, but we do miss the warmth of family and friends. It’s going to be really blowing for the next few days – maybe even some rare rain – so we’ll be hanging out in the Staniel Cay area for a while. Maybe back to Warderick Wells later in the week.

Stay tuned; we will try to keep things fairly current. Thanks for visiting, feel free to email (text only, please) any time to celebrateanc@ocens.net.

Home | Up | Junkanoo | Bahama Daze | Spring Break | April Fooling | May Days | June Bugging | Independence Play | Dog Days | Going Homeward | Fair Winds, Following Seas | Welcomed Abroad | Back Ashore