17 March 2024 - Happy St. Patrick's Day
Since today was Sunday, we did not have a "Chris Parker Weather Report" to get out of bed for. We did, however, listen to the announcements on the boaters' net to kickstart the day. Clark and I decided to go our separate ways today for a change.
I desperately wanted to get the blog updates done as I was swimming in photographs and was afraid I would not remember where I had been or what we had done. Clark on the other hand had a few places he wanted to go. I wished him well as he went off on his own on the dinghy multiple times.
The supply boat came in today. The stores run out of fresh vegetables and meat on a regular basis. Folks are excited when they see the supply boat come in.
Clark's first outing today took him to the church where Lorraine's mother is the preacher. He said the music was too loud before the service started, and once underway, the audio started feeding back making it hard to hear the sermon. Eventually the pastor walked down and adjusted the volume controls to remedy the latter issue. Clark said that the congregation was more than 50% boaters. The locals all came prepared with tambourines.
Service started at 11:00. Clark returned to the boat for lunch around 12:30 and immediately afterwards went off on the dinghy again to attend a dinghy concert. We heard on the boaters' net that the "Electric Mermaid" was performing from the back of her boat at 1:00 today. She passed a hat around for donations from attendees.
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| Dinghies ready for concert |
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| "Electric Mermaid" performing on sailboat |
The dinghies are "rafted up" and ready to sit back, relax, and enjoy the show!
Black Point offered two activities / events for St Patrick's Day. Lorraine's Café offered a buffet dinner at 4:30, and at 7:00 a live band from Andros would be performing at the church. Having had my fill of expensive buffets, I cooked dinner. After we ate Clark went to hear the concert.
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| Live Band from Andros |
Clark did not stay very long. Once again the music was loud. He wanted to get back to the boat before dark to put the dinghy up in preparation for our travel the next day to Georgetown.
Depart: Black Point anchorage 8:50
Arrive: Georgetown anchorage 4:30
Distance: 55 nm
Conditions: sunny with a breeze
Today, in anticipation of leaving, we were both up before the sun, so I captured a sunrise picture for a change.
Clark tuned in to hear the "Chris Parker Weather" update and discovered that the broadcast was late starting. Instead of being over at 7:30, it was still going strong at 8:00. When we finally got going, it took a while getting the anchor up as Clark washed it down as it came up. Unlike on our old boat, we have a pump to pull in salt water to clean the anchor, so we do not have to worry about consuming our fresh water for an anchor chain wash.
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| Admiring the clouds while Clark brings in the anchor |
We were finally underway just before 9:00 and headed out into the Atlantic Ocean for today's travel to Georgetown (still in the Exuma chain). We transited to the Atlantic via a cut between islands / cays.
The anchorage near Black Point is indicated by the inked circle on the chart shown below. The cut we transited is also shown on the chart . We basically made a "U-turn" around the island / through the cut to start our voyage to Georgetown. Once we passed through the cut, we were in the Atlantic Ocean and no longer in the Exuma Bank.
Approaching the cut, we passed by the small bay we had seen on our bike ride.
After exiting the cut, we could see the "White Horses" as we made the turn towards Georgetown. Neither Clark nor I saw any galloping horses. Whoever saw that instead of white hills had a good imagination.
Part way into our day-long journey, just before 1:00, Clark decided to make a slight detour from the direct path to Georgetown to check out Lee Stocking Island. The Caribbean Marine Research Center that was located here shut down in 2013; however, we came in closer for a peak of the area because our friend Dave used to work there. There is not much to see any more, and trespassing in the area is not allowed.
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| Stone Beacon on Adderly Cay Lee Stocking Island is in the background |
After that we had nothing of interest to look at for the next three hours as we enjoyed a leisurely ride to Georgetown. We did pause along the way to drop our anchor in about 2500 feet of water. Clark wanted to let out all our chain and rode to get the kinks out. By dropping our 300 feet of anchor line in the deep, deep water, we could let it untwist itself.
I lowered the anchor as Clark checked for kinks in the line. Thumb up - I dropped anchor. Hand up - I stopped. We did this until everything was out. I told Clark before we began to make sure it was tied on so we did not wave goodbye to it as it all paid out.
Clark had me stop multiple times. He said the exercise was well worthwhile as he found several "almost knots" in the line. Since we have no place we travel when we go from Florida to New Jersey that has water that deep, this is not something we can normally do on our trips.
When we had the anchor line pulled in, we went back up to speed to continue on to Georgetown. Once we arrived in there, we had the fun of looking for a spot to drop the anchor in among all the other boats already there. We heard at Black Point that, compared to the 97 boats we saw there, some 400+ boats were anchored at Georgetown.
Georgetown and Victoria Lake can be seen on the left-hand side of the chart below. We heard windy weather was coming so we needed to find a spot with good protection.
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| Georgetown / Victoria Lake |
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| Potential neighbors for the next few days |
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| Passing the "Monument" |
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| Cute little beach |
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| The anchor-spot hunt begins! |
We entered the anchorage about 3:45. We finally had the anchor down at 4:30. We traveled about two miles through the anchorage until we found a promising spot to drop. I sat on the bow watching boats go by and waiting for a signal from Captain Clark that it was time to drop anchor.
Later, I wanted to get a sunset picture for the blog. I have found that it looks better before the sun is down rather than after it has set, so I got a couple as the sun was going down.
Folks blow on conchs here to acknowledge sunset. Before the sun was even down, we heard some sole blowing on his conch. After the sun was down, we heard more conchs and a few boat horns too.
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