Thurs. April 6, 2000

George Town, Great Exuma

Greetings all:

Isn't this Daylight Savings time great! It doesn't get dark here til almost 7:30 pm. Also feels like summer, hot every day, upper 70's-80,s. No more blanket at night.

Toward the end of the Walshes' visit, I had come down with a nasty cold, mostly coughing (all night long) and feeling generally miserable. I didn't want to do anything, talk to anyone, just wanted to be miserable. Finally, Ken got tired of this, said to get in the tender, he was taking me to Mac Duff's. On the way, he stopped at a newly anchored boat (from Cape Cod), introduced us and invited them for drinks later on. He's come a long way , baby! Then he took me for a long walk ending up at Mac Duff's where we socialized for about an hour. That evening , Beverly and Ed from Kokomo (Cape Cod) came for drinks and we established some new friends with whom we spent the next 3-4 weeks. That night I stopped my coughing , felt better and got on with life - and partying! I guess Ken knew what I needed.

3/5 We -2 boats- have reservations at The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, so we take off for a long forgotten experience, SAILING!. We head for Exuma Sound and spend several hours sailing with both main and jib, in 300-400 feet of water(as opposed to 8-12), doing about 6 knots. What a gorgeous day!!

Exuma Park is made up of 15 major cays and numerous smaller ones, extends about 22 miles and covers about 176 square miles. It is a designated replenishment area for all The Bahamas, no fishing or hunting is allowed and you may not remove or leave ANYTHING in the park boundaries. It is a beautiful, pristine area, full of good snorkeling, hiking, birding and watching nature. We picked up a mooring at Wadrick Wells, Park Head Quarters, and spent a couple of days exploring. No animal life feels threatened, and a pet shark swims from boat to boat

The only exception to leaving something is at Boo Hoo Hill, a high hill overlooking the harbor. Here, boaters leave something with their boat name on it. Anything goes as long as it isn't plastic or metal. There is a large mound of driftwood, fishing floats, coconuts and other paraphernalia with names and dates. Its interesting to see who you know..

Our second day in the park, a big blow came thru out of the east. Few boats are moving, even on The Banks (west side of cays) and those who are, keep calling looking for moorings in the park. Sorry, no room at the inn. We're very pleased to be sitting on a mooring in a secure harbor, a rare experience. We keep hearing a French boat on the radio. They're on The Sound, steep seas, high winds, coming from the east toward Exuma Park. They have no charts, only a pilot book and are asking for instructions to get into a harbor or thru the cut. The Park tells them if they can get thru the cut, they can pick up a mooring long enough to come in and look at charts and get some info. We watch their wild ride thru the cut to an outside mooring, still located in open water. As they motor by us in their tiny tender - their boat was pretty small, too- you can see they're just kids, about 20. If they make it wherever they're going, they'll certainly have stories to tell.

3/8 We're expecting guests (Ken's brother, Ron, Ron's son, Sam, and girlfriend, Christine) to arrive on March 19 in George Town, 65-70 miles south. We have 11 days, so no problem - HO HO HO!! The winds have died, so we take off down the Sound for another glorious day of sailing. The good news is the wind picked up and we had some good sailing; the bad news is, the wind picked up, we planned our time wrong and hit the cut with strong winds out of the east and strong current out of the west.

Now if you non-sailors have been paying attention to previous letters, you know that means lots of water rushing thru a narrow space against lots of wind and causing very unpleasant conditions. Luckily, my long time sailing friend(and drinking buddy), June, had warned me about those cuts. Thank you, June.

Kokomo was ahead of us and went through with both sails up, dead downwind. I said to Ken, "no way am I going with sails up and take a chance of jibing halfway thru. If we don't loose the mast, we'll broach." Which meant, of course, Ken had to get the sails down in heavy seas. (I don't do deck work, not my job, mon. ) But he knew better than to argue with me. And it turned out to be a good thing since when we left the park, there was little wind, so we were towing the tender. As we're riding the rollercoaster , Ken is minding the tender, trying to prevent it from swamping or turning over. I'm at the wheel, holding a steady course and making sure I don't look back. As long as I don't see how big those babies are, I'll be fine. Meanwhile, Kokomo keeps calling us on the radio, which we ignored. Later Beverly said she just wanted to warn us it was a " little rough" coming thru. When I told Ed how brave I thought he was to go thru with sails up, he said he just couldn't face taking them down in those rough seas. But, we all made it -with stories to tell!

Then on to Black Point, a true little Bahamian settlement of about 300, catering to yachties. Free RO water(reverse osmosis, from seawater) (cost $.60/gal in George Town, $6.00/day at marina in Nassau), free trash disposal, telephone station, post office, homemade bread, restaurants. Star Child had caught up with us and joined Kokomo and us for dinner at Lorene's Café. She had attended college in Nassau and returned to start a business and raise her children in Black Point. There was one other table of four, and after dinner (grouper, conch, ribs, chicken, porkchops or lobster), Lorene made us all stop talking while she read us a poem about loving one another and thanking us for our business. She also gave each of the women a handwritten note thanking us for coming. The food wasn't spectacular, but she is putting forth such effort that everyone recommends her to other boats and not many go thru without eating there.

Her mother lives in a house behind the restaurant and bakes fresh coconut, wheat and plain bread daily for boat people. Having run out of bread for sandwiches, I bought a loaf of plain, which turned out to be coconut. That's life in The Bahamas. Ken's working on that change in attitude with change in latitude, but wouldn't eat tuna on coconut bread.

Beverly decided she wanted a short haircut like mine. She found two (native) hairdressers up the road and went with the one with a beauty parlor in the back of her house. It cost her $8.00 and looked great!!

3/10 The wind was up out of the SE so all 3 boats took off beating down The Banks, doing 6-7 knots in 8-15 feet of water. Now, we're used to sailing without much water under us, but when we tacked over and reached off toward our anchorage for the evening, we were doing about 7 1/2 knots in 7-8 feet of water. Since we draw 6 feet, you really have to hope those charts are right and there aren't any little mounds or rocks that go bump in the night (or the day)! If we hit one, we never felt it, or more likely just flattened it out!

3/11 and 3/12 Winds and seas too high out oh SE, so stayed anchored at Musha Cay. ON shore is a big resort all lit up at night. It's private and you're not allowed ashore. There are several colorful cottages along the shore, a large building and dock (must be dinning room/clubhouse), a gorgeous sandy beach with lounging chairs, pool, swing, etc - and NO PEOPLE! The Guide Book says it is opening in '97 and will employ over 100 Bahamians, in '97. There are a few workmen around, a couple of local boats come and go, but no guests. Unfortunately this is the story on many cays. They pour a lot of money into it, but it never gets off the ground, or fails shortly.

3/13 Winds die a little so take off for George Town, 35 miles. We must go outside now since we draw too much water to stay in the shallow draft inner route. By late morning, the wind and seas are building so we decide to go into Lee Stocking Island and do the last 20 miles next day - A BIG MISTAKE!! As you know, they kept building right on the nose and didn't let up til the afternoon of 3/17.

Lee Stocking is the home of The Caribbean Marine Research Center and is one of NOAA's National Undersea Research Centers. They are affiliated with many US universities and conduct many ongoing research projects " designed to enhance stocks of various important food sources" (such as Nassau Grouper, Queen Conch, the Red Tilapia and the Spiny Lobster). They also maintain a tidal shaft, which accurately measures true Atlantic Ocean Tides. They discovered that extreme tides may forewarn of impending natural disasters. Four hours before the devastating 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, the chart recorder measured an all time high record of 8" above the highest spring high tide ever recorded in this area.

They also provide 8 free moorings, which we quickly snatched up. The CRMC is actually a little piece of the USA. Their own RO water plant, laundry, computers, all kinds of communications and a fleet of large outboards running around doing research and making trips to Georgetown and other nearby islands. However, they have an agreement not to provide any services which Bahamians might supply, unless it's an emergency. And they don't.

Since we all had been out of contact for awhile, and we were expecting guests shortly, all 3 boats needed to make phonecalls or send email. They told us at the CMRC that we could dinghy 5 miles to Barratarria where there was a public phone and call ahead for lunch at Fisherman's Inn, the best seafood in the Exumas. Starchild invited Kokomo and us to join them on their boat (Alborg 30, 4.5 ft draft) to motor over. Of course, with 6 people the draft went to about 5ft , it took us 3 hours and 7 miles to get there, with depth under keel reading zero much of the way. But we made it. There were TWO public phone booths on the island: unfortunately, neither of them was in working condition. Bev was frantic to use her pocketmail and sweet-talked the owner of the restaurant into letting her use his phone. We put an email on her unit to let his Ken's brother know we should make it. Of course, he never received it. So life goes on in The Bahamas. But our lunch was the best seafood in The Exumas - conch, turtle, grouper!

At the local store (a small building in a front lawn), we asked about fresh veggies. This nice old man, in 80's, said to follow him. He put on his shoes, led us down a long path and into his garden. They call it pot-hole gardening. The ground is all limestone, they chop holes in the rock, place humus in there and eke out a garden. They can only grow in Mar-April, other than that, it's too hot. He had small tomatoes (but delicious), cabbage, peppers, tiny eggplants, lots of big onions and squash. If we had known what poor quality and high prices awaited us in George Town, we all would have bought more than we did.

Now,the tide was up, we put out the jib, and had a spectacular 3 hour sail (downwind) back to Lee Stocking.

Next day, we hiked up to the highest point in the Exumas, 125ft, for a gorgeous view. You could even look down into the shallows on the Banks side and see rays and sharks swimming along the shore.

3/17 Wind finally died and took off 3/18 for George Town. Called home to find out Ron had to cancel, but Sam and Kristine arriving next day. A big disappointment about Ron, but the rest of us had a good time. George Town is unlike any other harbor. It stretches for about 5 miles between the main island and Stocking Island (not to be confused with Lee Stocking) and has lots of protected anchorage, although you have to keep moving as the wind changes direction. When we arrived, there were about 300 boats since Regatta Week had just finished. All these boats are here basically to party, party, party! It's a tough life, but somebody has to do it - and so we worked at getting into the swing of things (more on this in next letter).

We did get one day of sailing in before a front came thru and shut things down again. Sam and Kristine spent some time on the boat and some time in a small hotel in town. Ken would fight the wind and seas a couple of times a day picking them up and returning them at night. They all got used to very wet dinghy rides and living in wet clothes. (the ride across the harbor is about a mile). Luckily, they were happy spending most of their time wandering the beaches on Stocking Island. Their second night on the boat, they spotted a growing raft of dinghies, tied together for cocktails, conversation and watching the sunset. They hopped in the tender, tied up to the raft (about 25 by now), introduced themselves, and spent a couple of hours kibitzing. Sam admitted later they were so busy having fun, everyone forgot to look at the sunset.

More next letter. Our plans are to get out of here when and if the winds ever die down, head up The Exumas to Nassau. Then get into email (probably around 4/22, so get your emails out1). Then back to Lucaya and off to someplace in the States, possibly Florida.

Jane and Ken