Lee Stocking Island, Exuma, The Bahamas to Great Exuma Island, Exuma, The Bahamas //
We departed Lee Stocking on Wednesday morning, January 30 and arrived George Town in the early afternoon, around 2pm. We had a beautiful sail in through the harbor and were amazed at the sight of the hundreds of boats in the horizon.
We immediately anchored near Lake Victoria to stock up on dinner essentials and ice at the Exuma Market. In the first two days we collected FREE water at the dinghy dock, did a couple of loads of laundry and enjoyed a delicious fried Snapper dinner at a local joint overlooking the Exuma Yacht Club. Not sure of the name of this place to this date... Maybe it was the yatch club itself, but it was certainly under repair.
The next couple of days we moved Sparidae across the Elizabeth Harbor and enjoyed hikes up to Monument Hill and around Stocking Island and, of course, hung out at the famous Chat N' Chill where we met up with Jay, fellow cruiser on S/V Aquatrek who we had met way back in Bimini!
By Saturday morning we found time to fit in a workout after dinghying over to Starfish Beach which we had all to ourselves! And in the afternoon, we motored back and anchored again outside Lake Victoria to do our final round of provisioning and get ready for our sail to Long Island. We had been observing the weather studiously and a favorable window had opened for a passage by Sunday, February 3. We were lucky the mail boat had fully stocked the market as we were able to load up with fresh veggies and plenty of protein to keep us going until the Turks and Caicos.
Looking back, it felt we spent quite some time in George Town, but it really came down to only a mere five days. Still surprised about that. Perhaps we feared getting stuck for too long as George Town is also known as 'Chicken Harbor.' Being traditionally the final destination for many cruisers that start their journey from the States, many don't continue East to the Far Out Islands where finding places to hide from strong weather systems is not as easy. Nevertheless, we had been looking forward to arriving to George Town particularly because we knew it would become a significant stop: our departure point for heading towards the Caribbean, and we got the rest we needed, from weathering cold fronts at the very least, to be able to happily move on.
Smooth sailing into G-Town!
Views from Monument Hill