It’s Thursday afternoon and a beautiful day here in George Town.  This morning’s sunrise was particularly spectacular as the sun rose over Stocking Island to the east.  And, as the sun was higher in the sky, the clouds to the west took on a beautiful hue in the reflected sunrise.
I coudn’t resist a panorama.  If you click on the photo it will get bigger and hopefully more impressive.    Notice Monument Hill in the center of the photo. The other day I hiked up over the Monument Hill and took a photo of Pandora riding at anchor among the other boats. There are a LOT of boats here in the harbor.  The view to the south shows just a portion of them. After enjoying the view I found my way down to the ocean side of the island and spent some time collecting shells.  It’s a pretty well picked over beach but I was still able to find some little gems. As I mentioned in a recent post, I have mixed emotions about being here in George Town.  On the one hand, it’s a lot of cruisers jammed in one place, 310 boats at last count, which makes for some interesting dynamics.  However, I have to say that it’s a very nice group that will do just about whatever it takes to help out each other.

Today, during the morning radio net, here in the harbor, I made an announcement that we were looking for a particular book, Spanish for Cruisers, which would help us with phrases that are particular to boating, something that really isn’t covered in most English/Spanish phrase books.  And, within a few minutes, we had a call from a fellow boater, from the same town we live in in CT, no less, offering for us to have their copy of the book to keep or borrow.    Now that’s fast service.  Who needs Amazon Prime?   That’s what we call a “threefer”, a new friend, a book and meeting someone from our home town all wrapped up in one.

Anyway, it’s been fun being here and what a nice experience to prepare us to shove off and begin our run to Cuba tomorrow.    And speaking of Cuba, which readers of this blog know I do ad-nauseum, I have mentioned on the Net that we were are heading to Cuba a number of times and the amount of response has been amazing.  Some folks that have been there have offered to give us advice. Others wanted to learn more about the process of gaining approvals and a few were interested in buddy-boating with us.

Interestingly, just about everybody knows someone who’s going and only a handful seem to be doing so legally.  Most seem to just go and return, hoping to stay under the radar.  Having said that, I have also heard of a number of cruisers who have gotten in trouble although wrist slapping seems to be the punishment norm.  This is very different than in the past when the punishment was harsh and sometimes meant loosing your boat.

However, with this blog documenting our every move combined with my insatiable desire to stay in touch, I would not take the chance of running afoul of the law.   And, I am sure that they’d find out.

One way or the other, visiting Cuba is all the rage with just about everyone thinking about doing it so It will be interesting to see what the experience is like even if we are only a few pages ahead in the “book” from everyone else.  And, of course, that ignores the cruisers from other countries that have been visiting Cuba for years as it’s only the U.S. that has imposed sanctions for these many years.

In any event, the weather still looks good for a departure on Friday morning so stay tuned for more  developments of Bob and Brenda’s most excellent, Cuba adventure.

Details to follow.

 

It’s Tuesday afternoon here in Georgetown Great Exuma.  Brenda’s aboard working on a tapestry weaving project and I am in town getting some last minute chores done.   As an example of the complexity of managing our affairs from afar, I discovered that my ATM card expired last month so I can ‘t use it to get last minute funds or the run.  Fortunately, Brenda’s card is fine so I’ll come back to town tomorrow to get funds, fuel and whatever else we need.

I also had to anticipate any bills that need to be paid and funds to transfer to last us through early May when we re-enter U.S. Waters as we could very well not have access to much via the Internet while we are in Cuba.  I sure hope that I have thought of everything.  Fingers crossed.

Our plan is to leave for Cuba, after months of preparation, on Friday morning with the expectation that we will do a overnight to Great Inagua with an assumed arrival sometime on Saturday afternoon, where we will stop and rest.  After a good night sleep (hopefully) we will shove off on Sunday and head on to Santiago de Cuba for an arrival at some point on Monday afternoon.  The total distance for the run is about 350 miles.  The chart below shows the route with Great Inagua, the southern most island in the Bahamas and our stopping point for rest, at the lower right of the frame.    Our current location, Georgetown is where the “boat” is shown.   Of course, Santiago de Cuba is at the “end” of the course, where we will clear in to Cuba.  I spoke with Chris Parker, the weather router, earlier today and the route and timing we have chosen should take into account a forecast that suggests moderate conditions and good winds for the trip.

We will “fire off the SPOT” every four hours or so along the way so you will be able to track our progress on the “where in the world is Pandora” link on my home page.  You also can sign up to receive notices when I post by signing up on the home page.

I generally put up a short post each day when I am making passage by sending text to our son Christopher and then he puts it up.  We will see how it goes.

After we get to Cuba who knows what our coverage for posting will be but at the very least, I’ll be able to send text and perhaps a small photo to Christopher who will put it up.

After our visit to Santiago de Cuba we will continue along the south coast for about a month and then round the most western point of Cuba and head up to Marina Hemingway and Havana prior to heading back to Miami and the U.S in early May.

Well, it looks like we’re off to Cuba later this week.  Wish us fair winds and calm seas.

It’s Sunday morning and we are in Georgetown, Great Exuma.  Yesterday we headed the 1.5+ miles across the harbor and made our way around town.  It was plenty windy and bumpy with that long fetch so we were happy that we had invested in a dink with a high bow.  Without a high bow we would have gotten soaked.   When you are cruising the dink is like the family car and we have a good one.

As promised in my last post, we attended the talent show associated with the Cruiser’s Regatta held in Regatta Square, a sort of town green where the Bahamas Sloop Regatta is headquartered every April.  That event is one of the biggest in the Bahamas and draws sloops from all over the Bahamas for several days of racing.  Sloop racing in the Bahamas is revered on the level that baseball is in the U.S. and everybody shows up for the party.

Anyway, the cruiser’s regatta is held here each year in late February and they tie in with a number of Exuma Bahamas community events.  One of the more collaborative efforts was held yesterday, a talent show.

There were loads of acts and the entire event began shortly after noon and continued until well after dark.  Brenda and I enjoyed watching a good portion of it and it was a lot of fun.  As mature cruisers we had to head back while it was still light.  Besides, if we had stayed to the end we would have run the risk of missing our bedtime of “cruiser’s midnight”.  For the landlubbers among you, that’s 9pm.

The show as great fun and I’d say that about half of the acts were by local Bahamian groups including a particularly cute one that included some local scout groups.  The group was quite “age diverse” and very cute.  I don’t who was cuter, the little ones or the very enthusiastic adult leaders.  It was a fun show. There were also a number of dance numbers by local girls.  Very entertaining. One of our good friends, the always shy and retiring,  Cathy (the second from the right) from Five and Dime was part of a very funny spoof song about couples anchoring foibles.    Brenda and I can tell you from our own experience, there’s no shortage of material in “couples anchoring”, perhaps among the best spectator sports afloat.   They were even in matching costumes.  You know about retired “A types” with time on their hands, right?  They have plenty of time and energy to come up with the tune and words and between them they have plenty of “experience” to draw on. There were also a number of numbers that drew on popular songs including this dance number, set to the words of These Boots Were Made for Walking.  I guess anyone remembering this number is dating themselves and there were plenty in audience singing along.   I guess the lead singer planned ahead as there aren’t many places locally to buy thigh high boots.   Yes, very well organized and as provocative as a group of women of a “certain age” could make it.   Love the high kicking and “sea boots”. The audience was very enthusiastic and appreciative.   And what a crowd it was, all settled in for the duration with their lawn chairs. And, all those lawn chairs mean a lot of dinks.  It was tough to find a parking spot. Today the wind has picked up a bit more out of the east to about 20kts so getting across the harbor to town would make for a very wet ride so we’ll stay on board or perhaps go for a walk on Stocking Island later today.  Tonight we are having our friends Phillip and Joanne along with their very cute tiny dog Cricket aboard for dinner.  That will be fun.

Oh yeah, there will be a Caribbean sailing session on the beach nearby where some cruisers who have spent time in the islands will be talking about their experiences.  Brenda and I plan on being there next season so that should be very interesting.

For now, we are thinking hard about Cuba and any last minute details.  We may need to get a few last minute vaccines on Monday for Hep A and Cholera. Oops, missed that.

Over organized or not, it’s fun to be here and it’s clear that there is a lot of talent in the cruising community and they have plenty of time to show it off.

I guess that’s about it for now.

It’s Saturday morning and we are now in Georgetown, Great Exuma.  THE place that cruisers hang out in the Bahamas.  And, there are a LOT of them, around 350 boats at last count.   In fact, some have been here since November, to be sure that they get the best anchoring spot.  Saved seat!!!

On Monday the BIG EVENT happens here, the Cruisers Regatta, when all those cruisers that have not moved for months head out to race against each other.   “Quick, Alice, eat the heavy stuff, I’ll drink the rum, that’s heavy too.  We want the boat to sail faster. ”

And, with so many boats crammed into one harbor, surprise, anchoring spots are coveted.   And, those boats that are moving, if only for a day or racing, put down a temporary anchor to “hold their spot”.    Go ahead, make their day.  Take their spot at your  mortal risk…

And, as you would imagine, with all these cruisers (AKA: retired A types) jammed into one place, for months at a time, things are pretty well organized.  Ya think?   Actually, “think Regatta”, now that’s ORGANIZED.

Each morning at 08:00 there is a “net” on the radio when everything, and I mean everything, is discussed.  There are community announcements from local businesses as well as a rundown of who’s arrived and who’s leaving.  And, if you have something you need, or want to unload, there’s an opportunity to do that too.  There is so much to cover that it takes nearly 45 minutes to get through it all.  As you can imagine, Brenda particularly “loves” the constant click of mikes, the hard (for us) to understand accents and folks that seem to be chewing on their mike so you CANT UNDERSTAND A SINGLE WORD THEY ARE SAYING.  Let’s just say that “Static” isn’t her favorite.  I guess I bring enough of that to her life. But I like to think that I do it with a smile.  Yes, I am sticking with that.

With the biggest event of the year,  “regatta”, beginning this weekend (it runs a whole week) there is a veritable frenzy of events leading up to the races .  And, guess what, committees have been formed for just every aspect and  whatever you could wish for, or not.   And, there’s even a “talent show” today.  That should make for a great post.

And, rain or shine, and it just about never rains here, you can participate in yoga on the beach, church on Sunday and there’s even water exercise, a sort of low impact for the “mature” among us, which would be just about EVERYBODY who’s here, present company included.

Anyway, it’s an interesting place, in “appropriate” doses.  I expect that our “dose” this year will be about a week as we re-provision for our run to Cuba and wait for a good weather window to move south.

Yesterday we made the 60+ mile run here from Staniel Cay with a good wind.  And, as usual, Pandora moved right along and we completed the trip at an average speed of nearly 7 knots with only a moderate wind, on a deep run.  We only had the main up as it’s tough to run the jib on a deep reach and it just doesn’t fill well and tends to bang around a lot.

We were glad to get underway as the prior night had been really rolly in the anchorage.  I made the mistake of anchoring to close to the cut leading to the ocean and waves coming in from the ocean wrapped around, causing a very uncomfortable rolling all night.  We both slept in the main cabin as it was just too bumpy up forward.  Oops.  Bad anchoring spot.  Brenda said, “it wasn’t my favorite”.

However, we had a great few days, prior to that, with the always wonderful sunsets.  No green flash but beautiful. There isn’t much rain here in for much of the year so vegetation is sparse.  And, the “soil”, well there isn’t any to speak of, is on a bed of porous limestone.  Pretty rugged though and beautiful in the late afternoon light.  This is our third visit to Georgetown and we are anchored near “monument beach”, opposite the town, about one mile away. This was the view from Pandora.  It’s very pretty in the morning light. The first time we visited here, three years ago, Christopher, Rob and his now wife Kandice came to town for a week and we hiked up to the top of the hill for a “monument moment”.  That was a wonderful time together.  Not the “I wish I was jumping with them” part, the “having them here” part.Well, if I don’t sign off and head for town I won’t  see what the “in” cruising crowd does here for the winter and won’t have anything for another post.   Yikes, that just wouldn’t do.   Keeping busy is what us retired “A” types must do… Right?

Quick, quick, gotta go Brenda, we might miss something.

 

It’s Wednesday morning and we are anchored off of the “pig beach” here in Big Major Spot, near Staniel Cay in the Exumas.  This island is famous for it’s resident pig population.  How odd is that?  Pigs?  We have been here before and I wrote about one of those visits.  Another front is headed our way, although it’s not going to be a particularly strong one, unlike some of the ones that hit earlier in the season with such annoying westerly winds.

Our plan is to hang out here until Friday when  the winds shift to the north so we can have a good sail for the 55 mile run down to Georgetown where we will begin our preparation to make the jump to Cuba by mid March.

Although the front isn’t going to be all that strong, it will bring a westerly component wind for a day or so until it shifts back to a northerly component later in the week.  As we don’t want to be on a lee shore, with those westerly winds, we will be moving behind the island nearby to get shelter and also be in a convenient spot to begin our run south to Georgetown.

Once we are in Georgetown, we will be able to do some re-provisioning prior to leaving for Cuba.  As there are so many boats in Georgetown, more than 350 at last count, I expect that we will find some folks that we know.

We are also hoping that we will be able to hook up with another boat or two that are headed to Cuba so that we can “buddy-boat” with them on our run south.  It will be nice to have some company on our long run south.

I know that Brenda is anxious about our multi-day run south to Cuba so by extension, I am too.  It’s important that I make this as comfortable as possible for her as the run of 350 miles is about twice as long as her furthest run to date.

It’s nice to be back on the hook again as the boat rides much more comfortably when she’s pointed into the wind as opposed to being blown onto a dock by wind on the beam as was the case at Over Yonder Cay.  However, it’s tough to have left behind the comforts, and great WIFI of Over Yonder Cay.  This photo of the pavilion where we had our last lunch prior to leaving a few days ago certainly is a good illustration of how beautiful the spot is.
Oh yeah, I should mention that when we left OYC the other day we did so at dead low and promptly ran aground as we headed out onto the banks.  It’s amazing how much of a difference 6″ of draft makes when compared to our “old” Pandora.  Being stuck on the bottom for about two hours as we waited for the tide to come up was an ample reminder that we were indeed “not in Kansas any more” as we left OYC in our wake.

And even though it took almost three hours to go the 5 miles from OYC to where we are now, with 2+ hours stuck on a sand bank, we were rewarded with a nearly full moon rising spectacularly as we enjoyed dinner in the cockpit. Oh yeah, when it comes to running around, there are two types of boaters, one that runs aground and those who lie about it.   Me, I  don’t lie…on a regular basis.

So, while it’s a week or two until we head south to Cuba we are both looking forward to the trip with a mixture of anxiety about the unknown and excitement about the possibilities.

And, boy, do I ever wish I had taken Spanish when I was in highschool.  Perhaps Brenda’s study of Latin will help.  Hmm…

Well,  I guess that’s about it for now.  Time to move to a more sheltered spot.   Along the way today we hope to have lunch at the newly renovated Staniel Cay Yacht Club.  They have a very nice addition to their dining room and that will be fun to enjoy.  No, it’s not a “yacht club” by U.S. standards but it’s pretty nice never the less.