Out of Dodge, er, George Town, at last. On to the “real Bahamas”

It has been nearly three weeks since we arrived in George Town.  Yes, it’s a great spot to visit and the folks there are very nice, but…

To paraphrase a friend, “there’s George Town and there’s the Bahamas”.   I agree.  To visit George Town is like visiting some sort of retirement community and when you get 600 retirees in the same place for months at a time.  Each morning there are announcements on channel  72 and by the time they are all done an hour has come and gone.  That’s a lot of announcements, and activities.

Activities include, dinghy parades, pet dress up (no I didn’t make that up), dinghy poker runs, volleyball, softball and a blur of other activities.   And, the highlight of the season is the Cruiser’s Regatta, beginning this week that is a series of events that takes place over a period of nearly two weeks with some 300-400 boat participating.

Someone described the George Town scene in this way.  “Imagine getting some 500 successful A type retirees together for 5 months and have them organize activites.”  Yes, it’s a lot of activities.  Fun,  yes, but not for 5 months.

Well, on Saturday, yesterday, we got a weather update from Chris Parker and headed out of Dodge.  The winds were a bit heavier than predicted with 20-25kts on a close reach, and some “meaningful” seas.  After an hour we decided to head back in and wait for better weather.  We didn’t know how long it would take to get better weather but, Eureka!!!  Today, when we woke up the weather looked perfect, and it was.

So, we headed out to Long Island and had a great, relaxing sail over to the northern tip of Long Island and are now anchored along side a beach that I understand is ranked as one of the top ten in the world.  Yep, it looks pretty good.

While Brenda enjoyed a short nap, I headed ashore for a visit with some friends that are here too and shared their rum punch.  Pretty good to anchor the dink in knee deep water, wade ashore and be handed a glass of punch.

The water is really clear and on our way in we saw coral heads all over the place.  However, these reefs were nearly 20 feet down but because the water was so clear, they looked like they were going to rip the bottom out of the boat.  Alas, the charts said otherwise and we coasted easily over them.

I am told that the snorkeling is great here so hopefully, we will have our first lobster dinner.  Wish me luck.

This is the view from Pandora’s cockpit to the nearby beach.  Yes, looks like a “top ten” sort of place to me too.

Indeed, this is the “real Bahamas”.  Miles of soft sandy beaches and palm trees.  Hmm… I could get used to this.  No wait, I AM USED TO IT!!!