Mar 16-19
Well, this move was much more pleasant than the previous. Why? Because we sailed most of the way. The boat does not beat into the waves and get slammed between the two hulls as much, compared to when we are mostly motoring and powering through them. So, that is a very good thing. We can keep the boat (for now).
We found that the back of our reef lines are chafing through, which is not a good thing, so Mark is looking at reconfiguring them. The cobalt blue of the Atlantic water is mesmerizing. Angie saw a large dorsal fin at one point, but could not tell what it belonged to. It could have been a very large dolphin, and she is sticking to that theory. We are now in the Southern Exumas, heading towards the George Town area.
This anchorage looks like there is a lot of current. Up until this point, we have set the anchor with Uno Mas pointed into the wind and the boat will swing based off of the wind changes. Swinging with the current as the tide changes is something to get used to. At least there are no other boats in the anchorage to worry about them dragging into us. There is just land to deal with infront and shallows behind us.
There is a sunken sloop near the entrance to the anchorage, across from Square Rock. We snorkeled around Square Rock and saw some coral, fish (any tropicals plus glass eye and mutton snapper, a turtle, and a school of 4 large barracuda).
We took a few dinghy rides around the other islands in the area.
Angie also made bread for Mark for the first time, thanks to Dave on Cross Seas for his recipe back in Green Turtle.
We took two trips to Barraterre, across the channel, over on Great Exuma.
The first trip was not successful. No place was found to eat lunch, very marginal grocery store, and the guy never showed up at the gas pump. Getting onto the fuel dock was interesting as well, especially at low tide.
The second trip, however, we rented a car and drove down to George Town for grocery provisioning , lunch and to check out Emerald Bay, where we are going to leave Angie and Uno Mas while Mark flies back to Colorado.
We saw Belle Vie (another Lagoon catamaran from St Augustine Marine Center that charters out their boat) at Emerald Bay and talked with them a bit and got to see Porto, their Portuguese Water Dog. We had an awesome double hamburger (worth the $14 each) at Splash, a restaurant at a resort near George Town, with a pretty view.
George Town took every dollar we had taken with us to provision. We forgot about having to put fuel in the rental car and also fill up our dinghy fuel tank. Mark had to return a few items at our last stop in order to take care of the fuel purchase.
While driving back to Barraterre, we saw an interesting cloud formation, that almost looked like a tornado or water spout dropping out of the clouds, but it never reached the ground.
We met a really great couple while they were out dinghying around our anchorage, Joy and Craig on Sonjare, a Knysna 48’ catamaran, and had sundowner drinks with them on our boat. So glad we found Diet Ginger Beer in Georgetown!
