Farmers Cay to Georgetown

Saralane still anchored in front of Steve & Cindy's

Since we’ve been spending a lot of time at Farmer’s Cay we tacked on a few provision orders to Cindy and Steve’s orders and gotten some deliveries from the mailboat that arrives once or twice a week. Sometimes it comes on Tuesday…. or maybe Wednesday… or perhaps Thursday or Friday. We were there when it arrived this time and we went out with them to pick up the orders.

Everyone's meets up at the mail boat!

It’s a bit of a social event, and in addition to delivering goods from Nassau around the islands, the mailboat has bunks for people to travel throughout the islands too. We met locals and visitors traveling on the boat and even this little baby goat got a ride from Ragged Island to the vet in Nassau. He was treated for an injured leg and after his visit to the vet he was on his way home to Ragged.

Skip hitched a ride up to Nassau with Steve when he flew up to pick up new guests… and took this shot when they flew over Saralane. Taken at 100’ and 100 miles an hour…. (or as Skip says “50’ at 500 miles an hour!”) you’ll just have to take my word for it that it’s Saralane with me standing on deck waving!

We made our way to Georgetown, Great Exuma ahead of a cold front, leaving behind blustery winds that have made for very wet dinghy rides. 

Evening sky in Georgetown - hours after we dropped the anchor.

We trolled the whole way from Farmer’s Cay, about 40 miles, and only managed to catch a baby barracuda that we let go. The fishing has been a complete bust so far – and we’d imagined ourselves with a freezer full of mahi by now. The only fish on this boat is packed in a can marked ‘tuna’. 

No fish yet... but we did manage to wrangle this coconut.

Georgetown has become a magnet for people traveling by boat in the Exumas and there’s a weird day-camp-for-grown-ups vibe about it, starting with the ‘Cruisers Net’ daily at 8 AM – where the person in charge of ‘Net Control’ organizes announcements over the VHF. There are more than 300 boats here (according to the count done yesterday and announced this morning on the ‘Net’) and some come back year after year to spend the winter. There’s everything here from regulation volleyball tournaments to talent shows to poker games to AA meetings. To counter the AA meetings, there’s also a group called something like AAG, which stands for the Alcohol Appreciation Group or some variation thereof. Skip and I happened upon one of their meetings the other day. We’d tied up the dinghy at an empty dock and had gone for a hike; when we returned around 5:00, there were dinghies buzzing in from all directions and swarming the dock. People were jumping out with coolers and drinks in hand. The topic of that day’s meeting was double malt scotch. We’re not really into volleyball or poker… soooooo… I guess we’ll hang out with this group. 

Note: Kitty update... I got an email from the kitties foster mom (See 'Bahama Bound' post in January); they've gone to the local Miami shelter. I wish we'd taken them.