Christmas With The Wilsons

Georgetown, Exuma

With Christmas and New Year over we find ourselves in Georgetown getting ready to head south to the eastern Caribbean.

We spent a wonderful Christmas with the Wilsons, they flew down to Staniel Cay and rented a lovely cottage for a week, plus 3 days on board Matsu.  We were also honoured by the girls coming to visit without Kate & Rog for a few nights, giving us a great chance to catch up on their real news away from Mum and Dad’s flapping ears!

While they had the house they also rented a Boston Whaler so we zoomed around the Exumas in that showing off our favourite spots to them.

Highlights included Sandy Cay, iguanas, eagle rays, feeding the nurse sharks at Compass Cay, snorkeling Thunderball cave and feeding the swimming pigs plus lots of wonderful talking drinking and laughing.

Christmas Day started early with Georgie dropping all Santa’s presents on the floor at 6am, after present swapping and brunch it was time for the cooking marathon and then turkey lunch before whiling away the afternoon on the dock with a few cold drinks.

Wilsons! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We sadly waved them farewell at the airport and then had a lovely sail down to Georgetown, losing yet another fishing lure on the way.

We have been here 10 days now, we have fresh fruit and veggies, diesel, petrol etc on board ready to go, and have had our fill of beach volleyball, yoga and walks on the beach.  We have a good window to leave over the next few days so will set sail for places new.

Happy Christmas & New Year To One And All

Our year in photos is below:

http://youtu.be/O9NQ3p8BUvM

Cat Island

Little San Salvador

From Nassau we headed across the banks to the top end of the Exumas at Allans Cay.  It’s a well protected anchorage and has some good lobster hunting nearby and we were very excited about starting the new season.  We anchored where we normally do and went for an hunt bagging a lobster for dinner.  We went to bed very happy and looking forward to tomorrow. 

During the night we were woken by a bang and the feel of the boat moving.  It felt like the rudder had hit something solid, but there was no obvious thing it could have hit, we had 12’ of water at the stern, checked with a lead line.  I shortened the anchor rode juts in case and we went back to bed with no further incidence. 

In the morning it all became clear, right behind the boat submerged in the water was a large dump truck!  It wasn’t there last year and has somehow appeared in the water at a small isolated cay in the middle of nowhere!  The damage to the rudder was minimal, just a small nick off the trailing tip, and soon repaired temporarily with underwater epoxy, but we were lucky it wasn’t worse.  Any ideas on how this truck got there gratefully received!

After a few days of hunting there and enjoying the Exumas we decided it was time for a change and headed over to Cat Island, our first visit there.

We passed an excellent 10 days, we were the only cruising boat there so had all the anchorages to ourselves.  We met some very kind expats when we anchored off there gorgeous house at Pigeon Cay, and as a result got to tour to a really nice resort on the NW tip for dinner.

Cat Island is also home to the highest mountain in the Bahamas, all 63 metres of it, atop said mountain is The Hermitage, a true hermitage built by Father Jerome a priest who had spent many years in the Caribbean building and designing churches.  In 1940 or so he retired and was granted the land on the hill by the Government and built his retreat.  It looks like a huge imposing building on a big hill:

But when you get close you realise it is a tiny, low ceilinged cramped single bedroom hermits house on a very small hill!  Still it’s not often you scale the highest peak in a country, especially in flip flops!

From there we went out to the small island of Little San Salvador, up until 1997 a remote pristine cay, but then bought by the Holland America cruise ship line as a day stop for their cruises on the way from Nassau to the Caribbean, and subsequently renamed half Moon Cay. 

So now there is a replica pirate ship on the beach, sailing dinghies, kayaks, 1000’s of sun loungers, horses etc etc to amuse the passengers. 

We had one day with just us and two days with ships there, and in fairness despite the delivery of humans the resort is run well and if you closed your eyes you wouldn’t know 500 people were sharing it with you!

Still the lobster hunting was excellent and despite being slightly rolly the anchorage was amazing at night when the ships had gone, sitting under the stars in our own private island

To cap it all off we even caught our first fish of the trip on the way back to the Exumas, a nice big Mahi Mahi.

So now we will hang out in the Exumas until the New Year, and then start the trip south to the Eastern Caribbean.

Made It To The Bahamas

West End, Bahamas

We carried on down the ICW as far as Brunswick, GA pursued by very strong winds and unseasonably cold weather enjoying the ability to move during the day when the sun was out rather than doing an overnight run.

The marshes were lovely in the autumn sunshine and we took in the history of the area, which was a real frontier for the British. 

With the Spanish in Florida wanting to move north, Georgia provided a useful buffer from the lucrative colonies in the north.  So fortified settlements were attempted to stake a British claim.  One of these is on the Frederica settlement and a tour of the ruins attested to the frontier feel.  Yes, those cannons are trained on Matsu!

The final Georgia section from Brunswick involves a very shallow stretch and a fixed bridge so we decided to head back out to sea, as with a high tide for the shallows we would hit the bridge and with a low tide for the bridge we would run aground.

We decided that the Georgia ICW was like Paris Hilton, pretty but shallow (insert additional non family friendly gags yourselves).

Our next stop was Cumberland Island one of our favourite spots and subject of several earlier blog posts.  We stayed here for well over a week as the winds howled and the temperatures plummeted.  We were on the Florida border for goodness sake and wearing woolly hats and gloves during the day!

Finally we got a great window of moderate northerly winds and left on a cold but clear morning in company with Chandelle and Discovery.  It was a great sail if a bit chilly enlivened by a great dolphin visit yet again.

With the short days we couldn’t make Lake Worth before dark so we went to a new destination Fort Pierce.  We timed it perfectly for the outgoing tide and had a very uncomfortable trip into the inlet with big standing waves, not at all pleasant, but Matsu looked after us well.

The next day we hopped to Lake Worth to begin a mad dash to get ready for the weather window coming up for the Bahamas trip.  We had a couple of minor boat chores to do and things to buy plus a last stock up at a USA grocery store.  We took the dinghy towards our usual store but on the way saw a huge, brand new Publix store had opened.  We left the dinghy at a nearby marina and wandered in.  It had opened the day before so the service was impeccable, but we think we left them thinking we were mystery shoppers sent by head office!

I had the distinction of being the first person to smash something, which caused chaos as nobody could find the spill cart.  Then as we were also buying food for friends Linda and I paid separately at the tills.  The bank saw two simultaneous charges on the cards at the same place so declined them, we were whisked off to customer service to make calls to the bank to verify etc etc. 

Finally we tried to leave with the trolleys to take the food back to the dinghy, but the state of the art trolleys had wheels that locked automatically as soon as they crossed a yellow perimeter line.  Legions of customer service people arrived and we explained what we were doing, so a ride up in the lift, carry the trolleys over the line in the car park, unlock the wheels and then they pushed our trolleys to the marina for us and helped us unload! 

They were now convinced that we were plants from head office hence all the amazing service and we were too embarrassed to ever return!

Amazingly we had the preparations done in time and on the morning of the 16th November left the USA for the last time in a while we think, for a very straightforward trip over to West End, Grand Bahama.  With customs cleared it was time for a beer, and then the next day we set off again for an overnight sail to Nassau.  At least this time we had no water spouts like last year, and we were wearing shorts and t-shirts for night watch rather than jumpers and hats.

We headed into Nassau harbour at sunrise just behind a huge cruise ship and so here we are, back in one of our favourite places and ready to head for the Exumas tomorrow.  But first we must have a Kalik and some conch!