It’s Friday mid-morning and we are yet again sitting at anchor waiting for the wind to settle down as yet another cold front passes through the area. I know it’s Friday because I listened to the Cruisheimer’s SSB radio Net today and they told me so and I also consulted with my calendar. When you don’t have a weekend to look forward to, with two days off, it’s very easy to forget which day of the week it is.
I am hopeful that it’s spending time aboard cruising that is causing me to loose track of what day of the week it is and not something more sinister. I’m not going to focus on that right now. “Quick Bob, what year is it?” Uhh…..2014? There, not so bad. I guess you’ll have to take my word for it that I don’t have a tear-off calendar near the nav station on Pandora.
“Bob, Bob, where are you going with all this? Snap out of it and get to the point.” Ok, OK, thanks, I needed that.
It’s Friday….. No wait, I already said that.
Yes, it’s plenty windy with sustained winds, let’s call them “fresh breezes” in the 20s with higher gusts. That’s a bit much and with a wave fetch across the harbor, the water is kicking up a bit here in Georgetown.
Chris Parker, the weather router we use said, on this morning’s weather forecast on the SSB radio, that this cold front is likely to be the last really strong one to hit us in the Bahamas this season. Yes, there’s another one coming through on Sunday but it’s not likely to be anywhere near as strong as this and prior fronts have been. It’s high time as April is just around the corner (see, I do know what day of the month is) and springtime calmer conditions should begin to dominate. That’s good as we only have a month left on our cruise and I’d love to be able to move around a bit prior to heading back to Nassau and the US.
In particular, we would like to visit the Jumentos and Ragged islands which are south west from here. This part of the Bahamas is much less traveled by cruisers as there very few good harbors and getting there can be challenging. With no settlements along the chain, we will be on our own with know one to help us if we get into trouble. We will actually have to travel southeast to Long Island when the winds shift to the west with the coming cold front on Sunday and then wait till the easterlies fill in again and then head to the southwest and on to the Jumentos.
These two lsland chains are about 50 miles long from one end to the other, not a very long distance and are laid out in a crescent that runs on a gentle curve in a northeast to southwest direction. Once you get to Duncan Town, at the very most west portion of the Raggeds, you are within 50 miles of Cuba. Now, that’s a spot we’d love to visit. We have met quite a few Canadians and a few Americans who have visited there. Perhaps we will soon be able to go. Washington? Are you listening?
Visiting Cuba is at the top of the list for Brenda. Me too.
Anyway, here we sit, in the wind, waiting for things to settle down so we can get on with it. Hope so…
Yesterday Brenda and I took some time to go ashore and had lunch a nice little resort here in Georgetown called St. Francis. They serve simple lunch fare on a beautiful deck overlooking the water. This view is pretty representative of just how beautiful it is.
After lunch we headed out to the nearby ocean beach to watch the waves crash ashore. The beach was about two miles long and we had most of it completely to ourselves. Even with 100 boats anchored nearby, most everyone stayed aboard given the wind.
With the very strong onshore winds and waves, we were pretty well coated with salt when we returned to Pandora. Happily, I had filled our water tanks with the reverse-osmosis (watermaker) earlier in the day so we were free to shower and clean up. I love, LOVE, our watermaker. Brenda? Love isn’t strong enough to describe how she feels about it.
So, what’s on for today? Not sure but I do have a good book. Not too much on the agenda here in the warm and sunny Bahamas when the wind is blowing. Good thing we aren’t in a rush.
Sorry though, for not including any great shots of sunsets, turtles, shells… You’ll just have to check old posts for more scintillating pix.
That’s my report and I’m sticking to it…