Hello George Town!

Wow! I knew George Town, the biggest city in the Exumas, was a popular cruising destination, but I did not expect 370 boats to be anchored here. Cruisers from across the globe gather in George Town’s Elizabeth Harbour every winter, some for a few days and some for the entire season. Many have been coming here for decades. While most of the boats come from the US and Canada (it seemed the majority were Canadian), several crossed the Atlantic or came up through the Panama Canal from the Pacific. And the reasons are obvious: a large semi-protected harbour with excellent holding in deep sand (for the anchor), miles of white beaches, a couple reefs for snorkeling plus a town that caters to the cruising community with 2 grocery stores, a hardware store, laundromat, numerous restaurants, gas station, local businesses and tradespeople with boat repair skills as well as an airport with daily flights from Nassau and Florida. Add a few hundred boating enthusiasts, and you’ve got a thriving community and one hell of a party!

Among this community are a group of volunteers that organize various events and activities in the George Town area. A “Cruisers Net” is broadcast every morning over VHF channel 72 – just turn on your radio and listen to the latest news about weather and goings on in the area. The Net is hosted by one of the boaters and begins each day with emergency call outs (thankfully no emergencies while we were there), then weather then on to various topics including saying farewell to boats departing the harbour and welcoming newcomers, buy/sell/trade items or services amongst boaters, shout-outs to local businesses, assistance requests for anything from refrigerator repair to sourcing parts for an outboard motor. We tuned in every morning, and while most days we just listened, a couple times we jumped on and were able to help other boaters with a spare part, an iPhone adapter and I even scored a stove-top toaster.

The timing of our arrival in George Town was impeccable – we arrived one week before the famous George Town Exumas Cruising Regatta, a 67-year tradition that resumed this year after the pandemic forced its cancellation in 2020. We learned in previous years the boat count averaged 250-275, but this year it was over 370 (someone actually tours the harbour each week and counts boats). The Regatta runs for two weeks and includes a couple traditional regattas (sailboat races), but also daily events from competitive volleyball tournaments to the silly coconut challenge where participants compete to pick-up floating coconuts with just their paddles. The Regatta festivities kicked off with an almost 3-hour variety show that included music, skits, stand-up comedy and a book reading, but my favorite act was my Allen playing and singing The Boxer on stage – he won’t let me post the video, but he was fabulous!

George Town also offered a place to just sit and rest for a while. From the beginning of this adventure, back in July, we’ve been constantly on the move…hiding from storms and outrunning the cold, from jumping onto weather windows to getting to airports on specific dates. In George Town we were able to just relax and savor the Bahamas – the sunshine, the beaches, the ocean, the snorkeling. We enjoyed the company of friends and fellow cruisers, bid farewell to two of our favorite stow-aways, we restocked the fridge, read books, took naps, played in the surf and ate in restaurants – we finally felt like we were on vacation. But after two weeks of down time, we grew restless again, time to move.

After hauling anchor in George Town, we turned our bow northeast and headed to Long Island, known for great anchorages, an inland blue hole and generally a great place to explore. We didn’t have time for a long stay here this season, so we had a “Long Island Appetizer” – one night in a lovely bay. We dinghied around the bay and up an estuary surrounded by mangroves and to our delight, a 5-foot shark (nurse or lemon?) shot-through under our dinghy as it swam against the strong current. Gorgeous place, we’ll be back.

Next was Conception Island, an uninhabited island, part of the Bahamas National Trust, a protected park. The water surrounding this island is an impossible blue – so clear it looks like a swimming pool. Even at night with a full moon, I could see pebbles and ripples in the sand, under 15 feet of water. The island itself is a mix of white/pink sand beaches, rocky cliffs, scrubby bushes and jungle. With no buildings on the island, the only source of artificial night-time light were a half dozen anchor lights in the bay, giving us a magnificent view of Venus and Jupiter playing in the sky.

When the winds shifted to the South, we hoisted our sails and moved further north to Cat Island. This long skinny island east of the Exumas is sparsely populated, but is known to be welcoming to cruising boats. It does not have many services, but the few restaurants and shops offer excellent food and friendly service. I found delicious home-baked coconut bread and gorgeous field tomatoes at the local bakery, and a promise from the proprietor that she will have fresh peppers and organic eggs later this week.

On Cat we were able to go to a Fish Fry, a small-town Bahamian tradition, and one of our favorite things in the Bahamas. Fish Fry consists of small food shacks on a beach near a town. They are open whenever the owners decide to open, some for lunch, some for dinner, but not every day. Traditionally they all open on one or two evenings a week, usually a Friday or Saturday. The festivities start at dusk when food is put on the grill, usually fresh local fish, and the cold beer is accompanied by live music and dancing in the streets. The food is delicious, the beer is cold and the mosquitoes are out in force, but it’s always a fun, friendly way to mingle with local Bahamians and fellow cruisers.

Near Bight Settlement on Cat Island, is Mt. Alvernia, also known as Como Hill, the highest elevation in the Bahamas at 206 feet above sea level. On Mt. Alvernia sits the remains of a small stone medieval hermitage built in 1939 by a Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor John Hawes, known as Father Jerome. Born in England in 1876, Father Jerome was an accomplished architect before becoming a priest and traveling the world before settling in the Bahamas, where he preached and built churches, clinics and schools until his death in 1956. He was beloved by the local people and per his request, was buried in a cave under the hermitage he built. Today the hermitage is owned and maintained by the Catholic church, and is open to anyone who hikes the 20 minutes up the mountain…it was so worth the hike in the searing mid-day heat to visit the hermitage and take in the views.

It’s now March, and we have arrived at a critical milestone in our journey – the turn-around point – time begin the journey home. As much as I’ve loved this adventure, I am not sorry to come to this point. We still have several weeks of Bahamas adventures ahead of us, but I am happy to be homeward bound. I miss my family and friends. I also miss the conveniences of living on land – easy access to groceries and services, having a safe place to sleep no matter the weather outside, not constantly checking if the refrigerator is staying cold (marine refrigeration is notoriously unstable), and stepping out for meal when I just don’t feel like cooking. I believe in balance, and the city-girl is saying “it’s time” while the sailing-girl is saying “see ya next season”; however, as we hear about the latest “snowmageddon” in Toronto, I am still happy with this view: