Mahi!

This post is mostly about Georgetown, but first things first… we caught our first mahi! We were sailing along at about 7 knots on the sound side on our way north out of Georgetown heading back to Farmers Cay. We put out our lines before we got into deep water so as not to miss a nanosecond’s opportunity to catch something. Okay, so it was five hours into our six hour sail when we hooked this one… but still, it was pretty exciting. Skip pulled him in on the handline and I doused him with vodka from a squeeze bottle we’d had at the ready since Charleston. (Vodka subdues the fish…. much the way it might subdue anyone drinking it straight from the bottle.) Unfortunately, after I gave him a few shots I dropped the bottle into the water (yes… I am now responsible for some of that plastic washing up on the beaches) so I gave him some of our rum. He put up a good fight, but it wasn’t really a fair fight since we were the ones with the 2 foot gaff with the bad ass sharp hook on the end. 

We (and by ‘we’ I mean Skip) filleted him on the side deck and he’s now bagged up in our fridge (the fish, not Skip). Skip put the line back out and saw another mahi take a shot at the lure but we didn’t hook any more. Not long after the big catch we went through the now familiar cut at Farmers Cay and had our very own welcoming committee at the round blue house on the point of Big Farmers. We brought some mahi with us and said hellos to the newest visitors at Steve and Cindy’s…. neighbors from home… the Stiess family. Ed, Janet and their son Will are down for the week and we spent the evening as we’ve done so often lately – eating, drinking, talking and laughing at Steve and Cindy’s.

So, Georgetown. It was a little jarring at first to be in an anchorage with so many boats and so much activity. After a few days we got into the rhythm of the place and even started listening in on ‘the net’. ‘Net control’ this week was done by a guy named Bruce on a catamaran with the best name I’ve heard yet for a catamaran; Hairball. That, and Doublewide are my two favorites. No run-of-the-mill catamaran names like Double Trouble and Twice as Nice for these guys. A few other cool cat (lame pun intended) names in the anchorage are, Sam the Skull (a Scotsman), The Great Catsby and Felix (the Cat).

Crowded anchorage at Georgetown....

.... means lots of dinghies on the beach.

We met new people and reconnected with people we’d met along the way. The New Hampshire kids, Tyler and Michelle on Alida were here as well as Josh and Jen on Sheliak who we hadn’t met yet. Josh and Jen got married on the beach here a few days before we arrived and we went to a celebratory beach bonfire to wish them well.

Louie, from Lumar, prepping pumpkin to roast on the fire

If you followed the explanation of who’s who back a few posts you’ll recall that Josh was Eliza’s academic advisor at UNH….. here he is in a rather non-academic endeavor... 

Skip asked him who we might contact at UNH about a partial refund.

One hub around here is the Chat-n-Chill, a beach bar with your basic beach bar menu. There’s a nearby conch salad hut that got my attention. Our budget keeps us from eating ashore… but this was SO good we couldn’t resist. Skip got his fill of burgers from the Chat-n-Chill and I got my fill of conch salad (well, not really) at this little hut. 

The part you don't eat...

We hiked the hills and walked the beaches, did some provisioning and some boat chores and at the end of a week decided it was time to head to Farmers where we had some packages to collect. We’ll likely stop back here on our way south again, to fill our water tanks and provision once more, so there are more burgers and conch salad in our near future. 

Collecting sand dollars on Sand Dollar beach at Georgetown

And just because it was very cool.... here's Skip with that mahi again!!!