Georgetown, Stocking Island Take Two!

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Geo: 23.5182, -75.7565

Dolphins and Stingray, Sea Planes and Helicopters! Oh my!

Having fun at Stocking Island and in Georgetown now that the crowd of cruisers has cleared!

May 29th, 2014 – Georgetown / Stocking Island…Take Two!

Hello again from Georgetown (GGT)

This is my 2nd time entering the Georgetown Harbour and Tony's 3rd time during this trip. Tony, of course spent a lot more time here while the boys visited in March.

We've been here since last Thursday. Several of you did see our track entering the harbor from about Emerald Bay onward. Today, we moved from Stocking Island to the "town" side of the harbor to make it a shorter, drier, and easier dinghy ride when doing laundry and groceries. You should be able to see our track again today crossing the harbour. The tracking station is located at the Exuma Yacht Club which we visited on our first trip into town the first day we were here. Really, a very beautiful setting. How fun to be at an EYC "South"!! 😊 Here's their website: http://www.theexumayachtclub.com

We've had a fun few days at Stocking Island. I can't help but call it an “adult playground”. It is the spot that the tourists come over to for the day to enjoy the beach, water sports, and the “Chat and Chill” restaurant and bar. On the weekends, the locals make the most of this beach too. It's a busy place, even now that the majority of the cruisers have left. Whereas the last time we were here there were close to 300 boats, now there are only about 20. Coming to Georgetown is a lot more pleasant now during the "off" season.

We have a pet dolphin. I'm not kidding. She's been by our boat to visit us everyday since our second day here. We've found out that her name is Nick (because she has a "nick" in her tail) and she is incredibly friendly and seems to want to "play". She comes by in the mornings and circles our boats to see who's around to play. The first morning that we saw her, we couldn't believe that a dolphin would circle our boat over and over again. I had the camera and was walking around and around the boat taking pictures of her. Usually, a dolphin spotting is a quick thing, they stop by to visit, and then are once again on their way. But this one stayed. And circled. The joke became that the smart dolphin had the silly human walking around and around the boat!! I finally got into the water with her and she continued to swim circles around me and then, together, we swam around the boat. When I got out of the water, she waited for Tony to get in! After three hours of playing with her, we left the boat and took the dinghy ashore, but we could see from the beach that the tour boats were all stopping by our boat so that everyone could take pictures of the dolphin!

The following day she also joined our friends on Bliss II and they too, got into the water with her. So now all four of us have swam with Nicky. Tony got some info about her from the people at the St. Francis Rresort and Marina on Stocking Island. They say she is very tame and the locals know her well. She loves the attention of people and she likes to put on a show, especially if you give her feedback! This morning as we were moving the boat from Stocking Island to the Georgetown side of the harbour, she gave us a grand goodbye by jumping high in the air eight times in a row! But then she followed us over to this side of the harbour anyways!!!

I also fed the stingrays while we were at Stocking Island. They love the unused portions of conch that the Conch Shack on the beach doesn't serve in conch salad to the tourists. These stingrays all have their tails clipped so they apparently can't sting...but in my eyes, they are still a creature of the wild and I therefore have a "healthy" fear of them. The locals say that they are very dosile creatures who also enjoy interacting with humans. They are surprisingly soft on their undersides. I was not nearly as brave as some of the people on the beach who held their hand right under the stingray and into their mouth! Even though they don't have teeth, they are just like a big vacuum, I didn't want my hand scooped up!! 😊 (Curious about Stingrays? Here's a link for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray)

Our trip here from Little Farmer's Cay was uneventful save for FOUR minutes as we were leaving. It was the first time I've been scared on this trip. Tony and I took the first good day to finally make our jump to Georgetown after waiting for weather for too many days. We raised the anchor, and made our way towards the cut. (The "cut" is the section between Islands that allows us to pass from the Exuma Bank (shallow) to the Exuma Sound (deep). All of the cuts have a lot of current depending on which way the tide is flowing, so we need to time our pass through the cut appropriately.) Looking back on it, Tony figured we were probably about an hour early. One more hour would have brought us to "slack tide". In our case, the tide was still going out. The weather that had kept us at Farmer's was from the East, so the waves were still coming in. It turned out to be a pretty rough exit for the four minutes where we had to get through opposing current and waves. I was gripping the companionway with both hands, looking back at Tony, while Tony was at the helm looking ahead. At one point, his eyes got really big, which is probably the part that scared me the most. He yelled "hang on!", and the bow shot up over a huge wave and then we submarined. Submarining probably sounds worse than it is...The nose of the boat went underwater and then came back up with the water rushing along both sides and into the cockpit. If you watch a sailing race on tv, it happens ALL the time. At no point were we in any danger whatsoever. A sailboat is designed to handle that. Now I know that OUR boat can handle it. And, I know I can handle it too! 😊 The rest of the day was just a regular day of "motor sailing" because the wind was not quite there.

We've been having rain showers periodically throughout the days, and we therefore have enjoyed freshwater showers in abundance! Once again we've stayed a bit longer than planned, but as you've come to realize...we are in no hurry! 😊 We've made friends with a lovely couple on a Jamaican boat, Patrick and Regina. Patrick is Jamaican, and Regina is German although she's lived in Jamaica since the 80's. Wow, can you imagine her accent?!? It's definitely a different one! Our Canadian friends Dave and Rita on Bliss II have been taking in all the sites and haven't been in a rush either. We are still planning to continue south with Dave and Rita until they need to turn around north again to park the boat here in GGT for a few months. Then we still plan to head towards the Turks and Caicos and then the Dominican Republic.

Tony is happy to be off of cooking duty while we're here. The Chat 'N Chill has surprisingly good grilled food for excellent prices, and there's a Chinese take-out in town that has great variety and again excellent prices! Why not, when groceries are so expensive here anyways?!? 😉

I've uploaded EYC, dolphin, and stingray pics to the latest entry on the photo blog - Georgetown, Stocking Island Take Two. Here's the link: http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/inspiration38/1/1401381677/tpod.html

Hope everyone is well and that the weather is FINALLY looking up for you?

Love and kisses!

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Comments

[Danko]

Royals do not mix with pleebies.

[Nicole Swift]

The REAL "EYC South", miss you guys xoxo