Long Island, Bahamas

While in Georgetown we decided to join the "Long Island Rally" which included about 3 dozen boats that traveled together to Long Island, about 35 miles SE of Georgetown. While waiting for decent weather to make the trip, we hung out in Georgetown. On not-too-windy days, we went for walks on the island paths...

 ...which lead over to nice beaches on the Atlantic side of the island, where the waves were still pretty large due to strong, steady east winds...

Apropos of nothing, several people have commented that I looked like I had a brother among our fellow cruisers. Here he is, a guy named Bill, no relation but it's easy to see why people made a connection. Two "poodle heads"!!

During the Long Island Rally from G'town to Salt Pond on Long Island, there was a fishing competition. Several cruisers caught fish during the 7-hour trip (remember, these are sailboats and we're traveling at about 5 knots on average, so 35 miles is a iong trip). Unfortunately most fish caught were barracuda, but George on "Copper Penny' was the winner of a large bottle of rum for catching this 51" mahi.  We have a rod and reel but didn't put out a line. We have realized that we don't really have enough room in the cockpit or on deck to filet a fish this big if we ever caught one 😞

Organizers for the Rally had arranged for the whole group to travel by bus around the island for 3 days to visit various points of interest.  There is only one major road on Long Island (the Queen's Highway), so you travel either north or south, through pretty nondescript terrain that has been decimated by massive saltwater flooding from hurricanes. At one point we stopped about a mile inland and the driver pointed out that the house nearby had been flooded by 7' of water in winds that lasted 30 hours or more and reached 140 mph. So, much of the vegetation has been killed and many structures have been irreparably damaged.

  The first night we went to a torchlit cave at the north end of the island where a meal was served. This would have been terrific if there had been adequate seating for everyone and if the cave hadn't been smoky, hot and pretty filthy. Won't do that one again!!  

We traveled everywhere on an old schoolbus. Almost everyone had seats and many of the bus windows actually opened (it was quite hot most of the time). BUT.  Zoom in. Take a REALLY CLOSE look at the tires 👎 Luckily we didn't have any bus breakdowns or tire blowouts.

We got to see a couple of churches in Clarence Town that were built by Father Jerome, the same priest/architect who built the Hermitage that I described in a previous post. One of the photos in front of a church is of Jim and I with our good friends Hayden and Radeen.

We also went to the famous "Dean's Blue Hole" where international free diving competitions are frequently held. The beach drops off precipitously into well over 600' of water. The platform in the middle has a line attached that measures the water depth for divers as they descend.  Jim went in. I did not.

Near the Blue Hole is a commemorative plaque for members of one family - 2 young women and a younger girl - who all drown one day in the Blue Hole.  As I heard it told, they didn't know how to swim, one slipped into the deep water followed by another who tried to save her, followed by the third. Quite a few people have drown in this Blue Hole, including very accomplished divers.

Along the way we stopped to meet the local builders of a 28' sloop. I'm not sure of the name of the model of boat, but the exterior is fir (imported from the US) and the interior wood is locally cut.

And of course we stopped to see the remains of an Anglican church. There are lots of churches throughout he Bahamas, most intact, many in ruins. 

 

For lunch we stopped at a nice restaurant in Clarence Town that had a lovely pool and a great view of the ocean on the Atlantic side of the island.  It took couple of hours to get all of us served and the kitchen ran out of a lot of choices on the menu (yeah well, it's the Bahamas), but the view was superb.

The next day we visited Hamilton cave. This is a cave where inhabitants of the island used to shelter from large storms. It's also home to 5 species of bats. Bats are good; they eat annoying insects. Though obviously not the large cockroaches crawling on the ground or the millipedes on the walls.  I took lots of photos but most of them totally creeped me out when I looked at them later. So you only get to see one. After the cave we went to an archeological site on the beach where ancient bones from 3 buried bodies had been discovered. Apparently burial of bodies by early inhabitants of Long Island was unusual (it's believed that most dead were disposed of in blue holes). So this archeological site is rare, but unfortunately it had been filled in so there was nothing much for us to see.  

As usual, there was a spectacular sunset that evening. We all met at a spot near the anchorage for sundowners and conch salad or fritters.

This is Candy, who made the fritters (she ran out of conch for salad).

So that was Long Island. Been there, done that. The next day we motored in wind too light for sailing back to Georgetown to replenish our badly depleted supplies of water, fuel and food, and to do laundry.  Today, back in Georgetown, we hauled 60 gallons of water and 15 gallons of fuel by dinghy, did 2 loads of laundry and bought 7 bags of groceries. Each time we ran the dinghy from town to the boat in the anchorage, we got drenched in saltwater waves. Ahhhhhhhhhhh, the joys of cruising!