Staniel Cay to George Town, Crew Change January 16
We arrived in Staniel Cay mid afternoon on Dec 28, thinking we were going to run aground in the 5.5 foot deep “channel” into the anchorage at the Yacht Club. Everyone has been telling us that Staniel Cay was the party for New Years, so we had to go check it out. Sure enough, they were right. We ran into San-San again, and Jake and Carol from Offline, whom we had met in Allans Cay.
The next morning we and San San all went to Thunderball Grotto, a swim-in cave filled with coral and fish. The name comes from the James Bond movie that made it famous. Light comes in through a couple holes in the roof 30 feet above. It is very pretty for swimming and snorkelling.
We met Twyla at the Staniel Cay “yacht club,” which is really more of a bar with a few docks, because she recognized Blue Hill on the back of John’s Heretic T-shirt. She interned at MERI in Blue Hill and knew a bunch of people Seth did. Amazing how small the world is.
The New Years day Cruisers’ Regatta was a blast! 17 entrants, but we had a good start, because Seth grew up racing. We crossed the line 6th (after passing a catamaran at the last second), but ended up in 4th place because of some politics. The local race boat didn’t count, because they aren’t cruisers, and another boat fouled everyone right in front of us at the first mark. We’re pleased with our racing.
Jan 2 we sailed north to Compass Cay a few hours behind San-San, to escape from the party scene and have a good bonfire. Seth and Nate figured out how to extract and skin conch, which was… exciting. Ellen took the cake by eating the crystalline style raw, like a real native Bahamian. We explored the island the next day, found tons of driftwood for a BIG fire, and Seth managed to catch a 3 foot barracuda fishing from the shore. They have big scary teeth, so we cut him loose.
Nate spent the 4th sailing with San-San south past Staniel Cay to Black Point, where Heretic stole their wind and beat them in to the anchorage. Twyla lives in Black Point, so we got to see her again. Heretic stayed at Black Point for a five days with Seth, Ellen, and John, and Nate left with San-San for George Town.
John, Seth and Ellen had a good time at Black Point with Twyla. We took lots of hot showers and did laundry at Twyla’s house, as well as having dinner with her multiple times. Over the weekend we decided to sail down to the south end of Great Guana Cay to see the dripping cave that is home to a blind endemic fish. The plan from there was to head to Little Farmers Cay for the night. That’s when the problems began. We started up the engine and started going when the binnacle and the wheel began to shake. We immediately cut back the engine and began to worry. So from then on we have been sailing on and off the anchor. We got back to Black Point and soon found out that the wind was about to die and with no engine we decided to hang out there until the wind picked up and shifted to the north.
Wednesday morning we said our goodbyes to Twyla and headed on our way to George Town. Our trip was quite exciting as we were unable to get through Galiot Cut due to the ripping current. Two tries and two failures. We headed south to Cave Cay Cut in hopes of having better luck. After tacking twice in the narrow channel we finally made it out of the cut and into Exuma sound where we have 5-8 foot seas and 20 knot winds with gusts of 30. It made for a fast trip to George Town in which we hit our top speed since Seth got the boat of 8.6 knots. Just before arriving in George Town we caught a dolphinfish which ended up getting off the hook as we were bringing it up on board. We got into George Town and we got looks from lots of the boats as we came into the harbor under full sail and doing 6 knots, but we anchored beautifully without any hitches.
In George Town, we had a crew change. Nate Moore is now sailing aboard San-San, with GR and his girlfriend Jessica and her daughter Gia, for the foreseeable future. Josh Houck, formerly aboard San-San has joined Seth, Ellen, and John aboard Heretic. We (Seth, Ellen, John, and Josh) will continue on to the Turks and Caicos Islands, Jamaica, and Panama.
