LIFE AT GEORGE TOWN
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DATE: February 23 to March 21, 2001 Miles Traveled (nautical- we are not on the ICW now) Engine Hours: 4 (mostly charging time) Generator Hours: 4 per day - The EZ Kold sucks power big time but I suspect it's the fridge construction that is the problem. Sailing Hours: 0 Expenses: See below for example of prices in Georgetown Boat count 448 as of March 20, still lots of space - There are 5 anchorages and several "holes" |
GENERAL:
Georgetown in the Exumas is perhaps the friendliest place in the world for boaters. The whole town revolves around the sailing community. The local businesses bend over backwards to help out yachties. It is a place that runs a lot like a club. People feel a part of this little town and come back year after year. For the majority, it is a bit like your new home, but with sand and salt in your pants every day.
At times, there is almost no way to stay dry when you have to navigate the dinghy through 3 foot. swells across a mile or two of harbour; and then survive the "bridge". The "bridge" is the nasty stretch of water, between the harbour (Kid's Cove) and the dinghy dock on Lake Victoria. Even if it is only a ten feet wide and twenty ft. long tunnel, when the tide and wind are against each other or a large boat planes through it at high speed, just before we go through, it is pure soggy dinghy hell!!!
Once inside Lake Victoria, there is a great floating dock to tie up to, provided by Exuma Markets, on which is the brackish free water tap, that at times only trickles. Propane is expensive and not always available and gas and diesel prices, are very high.
It is difficult and in fact sometimes impossible to phone home; Batelco has installed a number of "trick" phones in the town center, which cut callers off with no notice, that is, if you are lucky to get a dial tone at all. They say it is because a microwave tower collapsed further north in the Exhuma chain. So after our wet ride into town, we often find out that we cannot use our Pocketmail or make phone calls to Canada. It can be quite frustrating, to say the least. People use various methods to avoid the Batelco $1 per minute long distance charges. We purchased a "Sea and Air" prepaid card from BASRA which advertised 29c per minute but had a per call connection charge. It worked out to about 50c per minute. It ran out and currently we use our Bell Canada card but currently we cannot phone home to know what it is costing us to phone home ;-).
The beaches are beautiful; some quiet and secluded but others crowded with organized games, sports, restaurants, etc. The snorkeling is OK. We stayed at "Volleyball Beach" for 2 weeks and moved to "Hamburger Beach" where we found the anchorage quieter, and if the waters were a little bumpy, we could dinghy over in less than one minute to the beach, sit in lounge chairs and spend a quiet day reading or strolling along the secluded beach where we found numerous star fish. From there we also have easy access to the breath-taking ocean side beaches or the rough trail to climb to the monument for the best view of the entire harbour.
Anchorages
We arrived Feb 17 and anchored in Elizabeth Harbour close to the town but after a couple of days we moved to the east side of Stocking Island Harbour off Volleyball Beach. Volleyball is the middle beach and as the name suggests it has several courts for volleyball. North of it is Hamburger Beach complete with a hamburger stand run by the Peace and Plenty Restaurant and south of Volleyball is Sand Dollar Beach, which is the best place to find sand dollars. The majority of the 400+ boats are anchored in these three areas.
Social life
It is about a mile from Volleyball beach to the town where much of the social interaction occurs at Regatta Park, the various bars and restaurants and it can get quite choppy so we often don wet gear for the trip. Finding ones way back at night can be challenging as from Georgetown's Elizabeth Harbour we are presented with a sea of anchor lights spread across several miles of anchored boats across Stocking Island Harbour.
On the shore at Volleyball Beach is the beach bar, Chill and Chat. They serve strong drinks, good food (we recommend the ribs) and sell RO (reverse osmosis) water at 60c per gallon. (At that price most people drink something else:-)) Occasionally they have a dance, but generally the bar closes by 8.00 p.m. and the social life shifts to the boats.
We finally drank the champagne from Kenwood while entertaining our friends from Barefoot'n.
The Net:
The morning cruiser's VHF radio net is run by volunteers from the people who live here during the season and is an important part of Georgetown life. It starts at 8.00 a.m. on VHF channel 68. People are expected to call in between 8.00 and 8.10 a.m. and state the category of message they have. Local businesses, such as taxis and water taxis, laundry, restaurants, car rental come first, but it is mostly people trying to buy, sell or barter various items or obtain help with a technical or sometimes a medical problem. It usually starts with someone giving the weather outlook from NOAA and the Bahamas Met. Office, (Information from Herb on Southbound II is broadcast separately later in the day around 5.35 pm.)Other items advertised include:
- Beach Church Services, this week's topic - Is your bilge pump more important than your god?
- Volleyball teams, various levels - seven courts!
- Baseball teams - volunteers needed to build washrooms
- Sing alongs,
- Thought for the day
The Western Beaches
The western beaches are accessible by paths across Stocking Island. They are all very long, beautiful; largely pristine beaches which, considering the boater population, are rarely used. Sometimes we will walk for an hour and meet no one at all. There are protected pools on the north beach where our friends and we, enjoyed a swim and a champagne lunch to celebrate our arrival; there is also a wrecked DC3 aeroplane. An offshore reef allows ocean swimming. The middle beaches have a wrecked sailboat, aptly named the Wayward Wind, which provides some much needed protection from the sun.
Excitement
During our stay on Feb 25th a 30 ft. racing sailboat Tabu foundered on the reef south of Conch Cut while navigating the dangerous northern entrance at night. - Volunteers from the Hamburger Beach boaters in dinghies discovered 3 young men on the reef the next day; all recovered with no injuries.We snorkeled on the reef in the harbour south of Sand Dollar beach, then some people we met there suggested around the islands near "hole two". After snorkeling around the two islands Jeffrey turned back toward the beach and in front of him was a 5 foot reef shark The shark had his back to Jeffrey and swam faster than him and so, it quickly disappeared. After our return to the small beach, we re-boarded our dinghies and as we started to leave, we noticed a large Manta Ray, which we followed for a hundred feet or so before it disappeared.
On March 10th at the start of the Cruising Regatta week, the cruisers organized a "dinghy bridge" across the harbour starting at the Volleyball beach and ending on the mainland near George Town a mile away. Around 200 dinghies were tied fore and aft to each other and every fifth dinghy was anchored. People came with their flags to wave. We had a large Canadian flag on a pole and an even larger one, which we tried to display horizontally as the whole exercise was being photographed from a helicopter for inclusion in a future edition of "Cruising World".
Goodbye Karob and Concert
After two weeks we said goodbye to Concert and Karob. They decided to head back north through the Exhumas but we expect to see Karob at least in the Abacos. Concert is going directly back through Nassau to the USA, as they want to haul out in Florida and return to Canada by April.Weather
We also have our storms, usually related to the same highs and lows, which cause storms in continental North America, but we do not have to shovel the results. Instead we have to find ways of preventing the boat from going on the beach or reef. We cannot always hide behind a piece of land, as we would like to. Instead occasionally our only resort is to lay at anchor with our 45lb Bruce and generous amounts of chain (currently 160ft. in 15 feet of water), and just plain put up with the high winds and resulting wave action. People are not always successful at this. In our previous storm (March 04-08) several boats dragged and re-anchored, and two ended up on the beach. In the latest (Mar 20-21) we were anchored at Hamburger Beach and had to handle thunder, lightning and gusts to 35 knots during the night. One of the rental houseboats hit ground on Volleyball beach. Problems like this are usually due to poor anchoring skills, inadequate equipment: anchors, chains etc. or an engine that decides not to start when you need it most. Some people seem to think that more anchors are better, but we believe that as the boat swings, it will always be on only one anchor and when that is your second or third best anchor your security decreases. At least that's our anchoring philosophy and so far it has worked.PLANS
We plan on leaving for Cat Island, Eleuthera then the Abacos in a few days. We will be sailing with our friends on Barefoot'n.PRICE EXAMPLES:
Produce
Apples - red - .50 ea.Broccoli/Carrots Stir Fry (Mann's) package 16 oz. $5.70
Broccoli Fresh bunch: $3.50
Belgium Endives: $4.98/lb
Banana: local .75/lb Chiquita: 1.35/lb
Celery: $1.95 ea.
Garlic -fresh: $3.25/lb
Ginger -fresh: $4.95
Lettuce-iceberg: $1.95 ea. -romaine:$3.98 ea.
Lemon: .40 ea
Lime: .10 ea.
Mushroom 8 oz. $2.95 box
Onion reg. .95/lb
Green Peppers: $2.25/lb
Potatoes- reg. .65/lb red: .95/lb baking: .98/lb
Tomatoes: $1.98/lb
Turnip: $1.50/lb
Eggs: x large - $1.42 doz. large - $1.36doz.
Milk - homogenized 1.89 liters: $3.73
Butter (New Zealand) ½ lb .92c
Parmalat UHT Milk: $2.07/ litre (Ultra High Temperature - keeps 6 months without refrigeration)
Raisin Bran- 15 oz. Kellogg $4.21
Corn Flakes: Kellogg - 12 oz. $3.52
Jell-O Gelatin 3 oz. .96 ea.
Planters Cocktail peanuts 12 oz jar: $3.73
Maxwell House Coffee 13 oz can - reg. grind only $3.06
Wheat Thins (Nabisco) 9 oz. $5.45
Nabisco unsalted cracker Premium: 1 lb - $4.27
Honey Graham Cracker - 16 oz. $2.89
Smuckers Orange Marmalade: 1 lb - $2.99
Peter pan creamy Peanut butter: lb - $3.66
Kleenex - 2 ply - family size - 250 tissues: $3.50
Charmin: 12 single rolls - 1 ply - 300 sq ft. $8.14
Bounty - Big Roll - 96 - 2 ply sheets: $3.38
Angus Beef - Strip beefsteak: $11.95/lb
Rib Roast: $12.50/lb
Canned Food:
V8 - 46 fl oz. $4.45Clamato Tomato Cocktail - 32 oz. $3.68
Orange juice (Bluebird) 100% juice - 11.5 fl. oz. tin : .95 ea
Apple juice (Bluebird)46 fl. oz. $3.45
DelMonte Peach Halves - 15oz. $2.25 ea
Star Kist Chunk light tuna in veg. oil: 6 oz. can: .96 ea.
Hunts Ketchup: $2.57 (24 oz.)
Miracle Whip: 8 oz. $1.95
Campbell cream of mushroom soup : $1.32
Green Giant cut green beans 15 oz. $1.37
Hunts Whole Tomato: 28 oz. can: $2.82
Wesson Veg. Oil - 38 fl.oz. $3.02
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Roland) 1 qt. $7.448
All Purpose Flour: 5 Roses - 2.21 lb - $1.52
Uncle Bens Rice - 3 lbs - $2.66
Sugar: 2 klg. $2.14
Frozen Food:,
Green Peas - 16 oz. - $2.45Green Giant Broccoli florets - 14 oz. - $3.05
Oscar Myers bacon: 16 oz. $4.35
KALIK Beer: $3.00 ea at the liquor store
White Wine at the Peace and Plenty bar: $2.50 -Rum & Coke: $3.00
RESTAURANTS MEALS:
Lunch at Eddy's Edge Water (Georgetown): Fried Fish, cold slaw, rice & peas: $8.00Dinner at "Peace and Plenty Resort"(Georgetown) - Grouper, rice & peas, broccoli: $17.00
Dinner at "Sams"(Georgetown) - Grouper, rice & peas, mix vegetables: $16.00
Spare ribs at Chat & Chill (Volleyball Beach): $9.00
Hamburger at Peace and Plenty on Hamburger Beach: $6.00 with fries
Film processing-
one roll of 24 - 35 mm film: $25.00 - They have to send it to Nassau. At that price we decided to have it developed after returning to the USA. Current photos on the web pages are from the digital camera of Steve and Val of Barefoot'n.Approximately 10 gal. gas + 5 gal. diesel - total $38.50 top
