First, just a little bit about George Town. Located on Great Exuma Cay, George Town is the city on the shores of Elizabeth Harbor. It is somewhat of a mecca for Bahamas cruising boats, especially sail boats. Many cruisers make a beeline for this area and stay for months, often for the entire cruising season of November to May. There can be as many as 500 boats anchored around the harbor at the height of the season, although this year due to the unusually unsettled weather, the highest number was slightly over 300. There is a protected dinghy lake with access to laundry, a good grocery store, free water (yay!), a well-stocked liquor store, shops, restaurants, and bars. Each morning at 8am there is an open “net” on VHF channel 72 where the tides and weather are relayed, local businesses can give announcements about food or shopping specials, and free activities for cruisers are announced. A typical set of activities may include yoga, aqua fit classes, making grass baskets, volleyball tournaments, boat part swaps, nature talks, snorkeling trips, island hikes, etc. Most of the beaches have nicknames so each activity is hosted on a specific beach – Volleyball Beach, Hamburger Beach, Monument Beach, Flip Flop Beach, Sand Dollar Beach, etc. In the middle of all this is a restaurant/bar called the Chat and Chill where beers are cold and burgers and fries are hot. It’s a great meeting spot to hang out under the shade of the casuarina trees. Another unique attribute of George Town is that typically many “kid boats” hang out here. On the first afternoon there, Ava and Reed met a whole group of kids, including teenage girls, which made Ava very happy. However, consistent with our past months of travels, there were still many more boys than girls. Each day around 1pm, usually after most kids had finished their school work, Ava and Reed met up with the kids from Singing Frog, Other Goose, High 5 and Cookie Monster and played volleyball, swung on the rope swing, jumped off the docks, swam at the beach, and just hung out. These afternoons were a fulfillment of their vision of our cruising adventures. One night we had a bonfire on the beach with the kids and their parents, Reed had a sleepover with 6 other boys aboard the boat Cookie Monster before they left for further travels. It was great fun for all! Speaking of friends, upon arriving in Georgetown, we met up with one of our earlier “buddy boats”, Finley. We hadn’t seen Jeff and Kendra on Finley since they left Palm Cay over 6 weeks earlier. They had planned to leave for Eleuthera the day we arrived but unfortunately, they had some engine issues and had to turn back. The silver lining was getting to see each other - so we both took moorings next to each other and Eric helped Jeff troubleshoot the engine while Kendra and Karrie and the kids hung out at the Chat and Chill beach the first few days. In addition to seeing Finley, we reconnected with Grace V – Tim, Karen and their dog Poppy – who were also in the mooring area. Karen was back in Canada for a 10-week work assignment so Tim was hanging out in George Town getting some projects done. We did our best to distract him with fun outings instead! Eric, Tim, and Jeff took several spearfishing outings to a reef about 2 miles north of the anchorage and it paid off. One night we had a fish smorgasbord of grouper, snapper, hogfish, jack, mackerel, mahi mahi as well as grilled lobster. It felt decadent but with limited refrigeration, it has to be eaten! Other nights we shared dinners and sundown beverages aboard Grace V with Poppy scarfing up any scraps that fell to the floor. Ava made a point to swing by Grace V at least once each day with a dog treat for Poppy – she loved it! We also briefly connected with our friends David and Marcy on Trebuchet. They were in George Town to pick up their son Jake and then head to more remote islands for a week. We only had a few hours with them once we arrived but it was great to share stories of what we each had been doing whilst apart. Reed, being a Packer fan, especially loved to wear all of his Packer gear when visiting Trebuchet to tease David, a Seahawks fan. Lots of light hearted trash talking ensued. Dave has a knack for jokes and pranks and they kids love to hang out with him. Marcy is a great lady, funny and smart, as well as a wonderful cook. Ava wishes we had their oven and their provisions to make brownies, breads, and other treats that they often shared with us. After about a week, we needed to prepare for our next and last set of visitors, Wendy (Eric’s brother Henry’s wife) and her friend Anita arriving from the Netherlands for a 10 day stay. Thanks for following along and hope you enjoyed the post! | |
2 Comments
Carla
4/11/2016 06:16:03 am
Great to spend time with you while we were all in George Town!
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Karrie
4/11/2016 02:23:13 pm
We really enjoyed our brief time together with the whole Singing Frog crew! Hope we cross paths as we head north.
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AuthorsWe are Karrie, Eric, Ava, and Reed Sanderson. Our house is in Seattle but our home is wherever the four of us are...and for the next two years, our home is Night Music, a Tartan 37 Sailboat. Archives
June 2016
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