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George Town is a destination for many cruisers and a re-provisioning stopover for those passing through. Either way the harbor is a long anchorage between Great Exuma and Stocking Island east of town. Priority arrived on Jan. 5th and is anchored just west of Hamburger Beach off Stocking Island. About 125 boats total are anchored in the harbor. Beautiful weather, nice breezes, white sandy beaches, five shades of blue water and everyone is welcoming to us “newbies”. Getting connected to internet on the anchored boat is a hit or miss event so we are finally taking the computer into George Town to get connected. Priority has the sun shining on it's white hull in the light blue water. |
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Stocking Island has some private home sites but mostly uninhabited. Visitors are allowed to hike and climb the many trails from our harbor anchorage across to the ocean beaches. We climbed to the monument on the highest point of Stocking Island which is a well traveled path. |
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| Flip Flop Beach is one of several uniquely decorated and named gathering places along the harbor shore. A sundowner gathering of 50 or so cruisers met here to share some snacks, meet old friends and make new ones on Friday night. Cruisers have created these meeting places which are all connected by hiking trails and they maintain them each year when they return for the winter. |
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The less traveled trails are our favorite ones to explore. The ocean pounds hard against the shore to create the cave like cliffs and more challenging trails. |
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| Jungle like surrounding of palms and hardy bushes create some shady trails. |
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| Beautiful beaches are found on both the ocean and harbor shores of Stocking Island. |
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We travel by dinghy across the harbor to George Town to visit the Exuma Market which is well stocked with reasonable priced items considering everything gets here by boat from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The other smaller cay markets we have visited get stock by mailboat from Nassau so their inventory is much more limited. George Town is also a popular cruiser stop for its free R/O water (reverse/osmosis) compliments of Exuma Market. Usually we must pay 40-50 cents/gal for fresh water so free water even if you can only get it in 5 gal. containers at a time is a treat. Our dinghy goes through the arch in this photo to enter shallow Lake Victoria to tie up at Exuma Market’s dock to visit town and fill our water jugs. Another cruiser delight is that you can drop off bagged trash to a dumpster- usually you must pay to dispose of trash. We will continue to explore George Town and surrounding areas for now. |
