Continued down to George Town after leaving Farmers Cay the next morning. Tried to sail with no luck. Tried to fish with no luck. Did manage to learn a new card game that was pretty cool. Other than that, it was just a loooong day of motoring the final 40 miles or so to GT.
We had to enter in from the ocean side through a cut in the reef called Conch Cut. I’m sure it’s normally pretty tame, but when we approached it, all we could see were these massive curling waves with what appeared to be a tiny section of calm water in the middle. Like, west coast surfing waves that actually formed into a tube as they barreled towards shore. Apparently this is what a “rage” looks like. All of our guidebooks strongly advise against entering any cut during one of these “rages”. Great. Guess we should start paying attention to tides.
Aside from a few uncomfortable minutes in which the galley managed to completely dislodge it’s contents, we were totally fine. I know I don’t give him enough props, but Matt is a really, really good captain and always has complete control of the situation. Don’t want that to get lost in translation since I’m the one doing all of the writing, usually from my point of view, which in this case, was scared shitless with a white knuckle death drip on the side railing.
First impression of George Town, the “cruising” capital of the Bahamas? Holy freaking sailboats, Batman! My goodness, it’s like Annapolis on steroids! Boats were everywhere. We had to pick our way through them all in order to make our way into the marina we were staying at, which judging by all of the boats at anchor, is NOT the thing to do here. Oh well, I think we got a pretty good spot. Note that this photo is unedited – that actually what our boat looks like tied up at the marina. Wow.
We spent a night exploring the area by our marina and Alex and Char left the next morning to meet up with their parents, who had flown in and were staying at a hotel just up the road for 10 days.
Spent the next morning giving the boat a good scrub in preparation for our guests that were coming in the next day. We’re both super anal about this, which is probably why we get so many compliments on how good our boat looks. Any time we have access to fresh water, it’s bath time! After she was all tidied up, we met up with Alex, Charlene and her parents at their resort where they were kind enough to let us use their washer/dryer to do our laundry. Nothing like having fresh underwear again! Their house was huge with amazing views of the harbor below. I’m not going to lie, I was a tiny bit jealous that they’d be spending the next week or so on land. With unlimited water and electricity. And queen size beds. And the washing machines. And ice. Ahhh…. ice.
Since it was a Saturday – and Valentines Day to boot! – we all went down to the local fish fry for dinner, since it was THE place to be in town. They called it a fish fry, but everything was actually grilled and not fried, and they seemed to be selling way more chicken and ribs than fish, but hey, who am I to judge. The only thing that’s pretty consistent down here is that things are usually inconsistent. Once you know that and just go with it, you’re life will become a lot easier. We placed our orders with the cook and waited around for about an hour and a half, talking with some locals and tourists until our food was ready. Wow, was it delicious! Anytime you see a sweaty cook laboring some love over a pile of hot charcoal, you just KNOW it’s going to be good. Either that or you’ll be in the bathroom all night. Like a game of roulette. That night, I won and Matt lost.
