April 14, 2008

At Anchor, Elizabeth Harbour

George Town , Great Exuma Island, Bahamas

23 – 30.41 N

75 – 44.70W

Hanging in Chicken Harbor

We finally arrived at George Town, Great Exuma Island on April 9 after a 50 mile hop south from Black Point Settlement on Great Guana Cay. Following our stay at Exuma Park we headed south to Staniel Cay, then on to Black Point Settlement. Both of these locations were small and quiet, with anchorages changing daily as boats began the great migration north to leave the Bahamas before hurricane season. We are one of the few boats going south at this point, as most going south out of the hurricane zone are well ahead of us, and those headed north moving in large numbers.

At Staniel Cay we snorkeled in Thunderball Cave where part of the 007 movie was filmed and enjoyed the swimming pigs on adjacent Big Major Spot. Yup, they come right out to your dinghy to get a handout. Here we also met Kitty on Falcon who was worrying at the bar about her husband Donn who was in Ft Lauderdale at the doctor’s office for a check on a finger he nearly severed a few days earlier by catching it in the windlass. Her spirits were buoyed with a phone call from Ft Lauderdale saying it looked like he would be able to keep the finger and several days of celebration began at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. It turned out that Falcon, an Endeavor 40 was headed south as well and we decided to buddy boat for the trip south to St Maarten.

This arrangement paid immediate dividends as Donn and Kitty’s dinghy split a seam at Black Point Settlement, our first stop on the way south together. We joined with Ken on Sulis to get them and the wounded dinghy back to Falcon and since then we have been”taxi on call” while we repaired the seam and wait for a new dinghy to arrive from the States.

A little aside concerning Staniel Cay. There we ran into Walter and Connie on Summer of 42 who had known the original owners of our boat and were able to fill in a lot of gaps on things we could never figure out. They even gave us a boat card from the original owners. We always wondered why a 1998 boat purchased in 2004 only had 600 hours on the engine. Or why the only things removed from the boat when it was sold were clothes, and galley ware. Or why there were charts for countries all around the world but not the Bahamas. Or why all the equipment on the boat looked brand new when the boat was supposedly cruised in the Caribbean for several years.

Well, it turns out that it was purchased in early 1999 and sailed on the Chesapeake out of Solomons, MD. The retired owners planned to join the 2002 Caribbean 1500 Rally from Norfolk, VA to the Virgins (bypassing Bahamas) and then circumnavigate the world (their boat card proclaimed “Circumnavigation Nov. 3, 2002 to 2008”). So they outfitted the boat for a circumnavigation and took off with a crew of 2 (owner and wife) on the Rally. On Nov 7 the fleet was hit with a storm lasting almost two days which packed steady 50 kt winds and seas over 20 ft. They were able to hove to for some of the storm and were badly shaken up but managed to finish the race with boat and crew intact.

After the finish they parked it in a marina and lived on it until the spring of 2003, for all practical purposes, never sailing the boat again after it crossed the finish line. They walked off of it and moved to Colorado while a crew took it to Ft Lauderdale for sale. We purchased the boat in July 2004 so it had sat

unused in Ft Lauderdale for 16 months before we bought it. So basically it was lightly used for 3 years on the Chesapeake, sailed to the Virgins, brought back to Florida and that was it. That filled in a lot of holes for things that we could not figure out about the boat. It was certainly unfortunate that the original owners had their dreams dashed by a storm only 4 days after they started out, but at the same time we are lucky to have been the beneficiaries of their bad fortune.

By now nearly all of the boats headed north have left from George Town which is the hub of the cruiser life in the Bahamas. Elizabeth Harbour swells to over 400 yachts at the height of the November to April season, but the population is now down to under 100. When the harbor is in full swing it is organized and regimented with a daily radio net from the yachts in the harbor covering weather, thought for the day, announcements of events for the day, business advertisements, requests for help on various boat projects and just general information. I am sure it is great for those who like that sort of thing, but I can’t help but think that is smacks way too much of the daily announcements at the Sunnyside Retirement Village. Way too structured and organized for us, we are glad to have missed the height of the season here……..we even understand that the net is supposed to close for the season this week.

While most boats have headed north to please their insurance companies by being safely out of the hurricane zone, they are missing one of the biggest events in George Town, the Family Islands Regatta, the world series of Bahamas sailing. Yachts from all over the islands will converge on George Town for the event and the town swells with sailors and spectators and a carnival atmosphere takes over the island for a week. The ‘yachts’ competing in this event are over canvassed wooden boats of traditional design based on working boats (no winches for example) and are kept upright by lead pigs in the bilge and hiking boards weighted down by willing crew. Winning this event is a matter of great pride for the various islands and the names of past winners are well known throughout the Bahamas.

The boats are full keeled, of lightweight wood construction, and carry massive amounts of traditional sail. The rules have kept the boats (somewhat) true to their working heritage, but have also kept them the same for many years. The most revered boat racing is named Tida Wave which has won many championships under two different owners. The first win was in the mid sixties and the most recent were 2006 and 2007 showing the staying power of these traditional designs.

While the boats are based on traditional fishing boats which are essentially non-existent today, the event displays the sailing skill of the islanders as well as celebrating their work boat heritage. We have seen very few sail boats piloted by local Bahamans and wondered where and how they acquired and honed their sailing skills. We found the answer to that question after a long walk on a hot Sunday afternoon heading north out of George Town to a place called “Fish Fry” by the locals. It was a collection of small restaurants and bars on a sandy beach on the west side of Elizabeth Harbour, just off the race course for the upcoming regatta.

Here we found the Bahamian equivalent of the structured youth training courses at Annapolis, MD that we had witnessed last summer. There the kids sailed sparkling new FJ’s, Lasers and Optimist prams with new sails and were coached by trainers circling around in high powered RIBs shouting instructions through PA systems. We found a local training center at Fish Fry Village on the northern edge of town. Here they sailed patched up Sunfish with patchwork sails. Their yacht club was Porgy’s Bar and their ‘coach’ was shouting instructions and calling starts with a bullhorn, standing on the beach, nursing a cocktail. Each race had a standing start from the beach, the race being a triangle course taking 20 -30 minutes to sail. After all boats crossed the finish, another race with the same boats was started about 15 minutes later, one race after the other for the whole afternoon. All of this with the sounds of Caribbean music wafting from Porgy’s out onto the sands of the beach.

While the older boys were racing three of the cutest little boys ran and played in the water. Sometimes they would carry out fishing line and pretend to be fishing, they hauled around a fish caught earlier by their parents, they jumped from boats on the beach, they sat in the racing Sunfishes and pretended to be racing, and when the boats would finish a race they were always there to jump aboard or help push the boats up onto the beach. They were in constant motion the whole afternoon and, I’m sure, slept well that night. The whole event was not only training for future Family Island Regatta skippers, but a pleasurable family event to wile away a sunny Sunday afternoon.

George Town is well known in the cruising community as the hub of activity in the Bahamas. Many boats sail directly to this harbor from the east coast on November first and stay here the whole season and then head back north. Most travel slowly down the islands, enjoying them as they work their way south to George Town. With the islands of the Bahamas being so close together, the whole trip from the US to George Town can be made in day trips and most hops can be made without being in truly open water.

South of George Town the going is a little different. It is then almost all open ocean sailing and the distances between islands is long enough that overnight sailing is required. Weather windows must be longer (rare) and most sailing is done in taller waves. The wind is always on the nose and all of this is why it is known as the Thorny Path south. Everything is a little harder to get or unavailable (fuel) so this is where “going south” gets more interesting and fewer and fewer boats will be with you until you reach the Caribbean. As George Town is the point where people make the decision to turn around or keep on going south, it is affectionately known as Chicken Harbor.

Our plans are to stay here through Regatta week and then head south to Conception Island and then on into the Turks and Caico’s . With some luck that will be next weekend but, as the weather determines our schedule, it may be somewhat later. We will keep you posted as we move on down the Thorny Path.

Fair winds and no leaky boats,

Lew and Lyn

s/v Sea Wings