George Town 2008 - A New Year Begins

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January Update from George Town

We are still in Georgetown, Exuma waiting for boat parts to repair a couple of critical systems on the boat, like the starboard sail drive and the diesel generator. If we have to be stuck somewhere this is a pretty good place to be stuck.

We have participated in many of the planned activities that the cruising community puts together here. There are volleyball games every day, as well as yoga lessons, and basket weaving classes. People play bridge, or take classes in things like ham radio or swimming. In the evening there are organized Texas Hold’em poker nights, Trivial Pursuit contests as well as cocktail parties and beach bonfires.

We have experienced a lot of “Firsts” since the beginning of the New Year. Nancy attended her first Yoga class ever. Colleen from Mandalay teaches Yoga on the beach every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There are usually about 50 people attending and there are about as many men as women. Colleen is a great teacher and is very generous to give of her time and talents for free. Her husband Colin is the singer-guitarist who organizes most of the music events on the beach. We have just purchased Colin’s first CD, “The Lone Palm Tree” and are enjoying it very much.

Another “first” for us was going “bugging”. The people here call lobsters bugs because they l have big buggy eyes and long tentacles. Alan & Patricia on “Nauti-Nauti”, a Leopard 40 Catamaran, invited us and Bob & Vicki from “First Look” to go bugging with them on their cat. We motored about an hour south of Stocking Island our current anchorage to a remote location behind a group of rocky outcroppings just off the ocean. Everyone donned snorkel gear to search the reefs for lobster. Alan was the most experienced and he was the only one successful. He speared two lobsters. Cameron was next to Alan when he captured the 2nd one. He said Alan dove into an underwater cave up to his waist and then came out with his quarry after spearing the lobster. Cameron took a shot at a large grouper but missed him by a few inches - maybe next time. We sailed back to our normal anchorage at sunset and Patricia sautéed the lobsters in butter. How lucky are we?

One more first was a dinghy drift. Bill on “ Rocinate” of Miami invited everyone to gather at 5:00 pm at a location just off Volleyball Beach. Forty dinghies gathered, and tied together to form a large raft. We passed appetizers and boat cards from dinghy to dinghy as the raft drifted with the wind and tide. It was a great way to have some fun and meet some more new people.

Cameron and I attended our “first” fishing seminar. Mick from “Escargot” a trawler shared his vast fishing knowledge with an appreciative audience of about 35 people. He must be a good fisherman because he passed around pictures of the fish he caught last week which included a mahi mahi that measured 63” in length and weighed 55 pounds.

Another first for Cameron was learning how to change a starter motor on our engine. The original motor caught on fire and burned up the day after Christmas. It took 3 weeks for the Yanmar people in Florida to send a motor to the Yanmar people in Nassau, so they could put it on a mail boat and send it to us in Georgetown. Once again we are an example of the saying that cruising is really “An opportunity to repair your boat in exotic places” .

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