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While the cruisers in the harbor were busy with their regatta, we had our own family regatta as Amy & Pat came to visit us in George Town. We took a dinghy trip to explore beaches along Stocking Island on the harbor side. |
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| Amy enjoyed the climb up Monument Trail. |
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Pat and Amy got a harbor overview as they reached the trail top at the Monument. The Monument is a landmark marker, not lit, but easily seen across the harbor as they drove from the airport in the taxi. |
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| Amy got a push from Pat at Queens Landing on the local driftwood swing. |
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Warm sun and beautiful beaches make for fun walks along the beaches of Stocking Island for Amy and Pat. |
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Andy & Andrea came to join us after a few days so we could all be together from Sunday through Tuesday. Andrea is known to bring along lots of wind when she visits Priority and this time she brought a weather front with up to 35kt winds. We took a group photo showing the warm winds blowing strong as we were anchored in the more protected Red Shanks part of Elizabeth Harbor. |
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Seeing the weather and high wind predictions and knowing our little dinghy would not even hold six of us in good weather, we rented a Boston Whaler so we could at least move around the Harbor as Priority stayed at anchor. Andrew seemed to enjoy using his boat handling skills to drive us as smoothly as possible to visit around Elizabeth Harbor. |
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| We did have one afternoon that was calmer and we took advantage of it to snorkel the reefs and view the fish at home there. Andrea and Amy are ready to go. |
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Six of us in Priority’s cabin utilized everyone’s sense of humor and flexibility as Norma & Jay figure out why there is a bit of water down in the bilge. It turned out to be a simple water tank issue that could be corrected easily. Pat, Amy and Andrea mixed up loaves of bread and cookie dough to be baked. Everything got done much faster with everyone measuring, mixing and helping out. Andrew enjoyed snapping photos of all the action. Norma had difficulty taking part in all of the activities (which she didn’t want to miss) and getting dinner ready at a reasonable hour. We had lots of fun and many laughs in our little home being together. |
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After Amy & Pat headed home to Arlington, the remaining four of us explored trail and beaches on Stocking Island. We found a shady spot for a snack break along the ocean side. Winds were still creating huge seas and large breaking waves along the shores. |
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One day we rented a car to explore Great Exuma Island since we could not sail to any of the outer islands with the high winds blowing. We visited Emerald Bay Marina by car this time instead of being there on our boat as we did back in January. It was pretty full this time with boating cruisers seeking protection from the winds. We walked out to the marina entrance and felt the fury of the winds and splashing waves. Andrew sprinted out to the airport wind sock seeing if he could keep dry as waves splashed over the pavement. |
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We drove north to BarraTerre which only became connected to the mainland by a bridge about ten years ago. It is home of pot farming to grow plants as Mr. Burrows explained to us. He was selling ripe red tomatoes from his stand along the road as we were driving by. We enjoyed chatting with the 86 year young farmer and he enjoyed sharing his pot farms with us. He explaining that he cleared the land of rocks and bushes to make a small plot or “pot” to grow his garden plants. He dug a spring well to use for watering his plants. The land is a generational plot meaning that he will own it until he passes it on to one of his family. Hurricane Irene stripped the banana trees but they had now just produced their first bunch of bananas since then. |
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Andy & Andrea stand on the high hill next to the Salt Beacon and cannon near William’s Town in the south of Great Exuma Island. The Beacon marks where you can see the salt pond to the west and open waters to the east where the boats would come to have the salt loaded for shipment out. Today only local folks come to gather salt for their own use or to sell to visitors. |
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One more photo at Exuma Yacht Club in George Town before Andy and Andrea met the taxi for a ride to the airport and travel back to Flagstaff. While the winds roared we enjoyed having the kids aboard. It made us all realize how lucky we have been to have good weather for our previous sailboat charter trips. Jay and I will stay In George Town for the week as more strong 25kt winds are blowing. We will get some errands done and renew our permit at the Immigration Office. When wind and weather look good, we’ll continue our adventure by heading north up the Exuma chain visiting spots we missed as we came south and venture out to Cat Island. |
