Pinballing Through the Bahamas, Post #25-9
- Jimmy Lee
- Mar 2
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 29
Saturday, February 22 to Thursday, February 27, 2025
Long Island (Thompson Bay) to George Town and back to Long Island (Calibash Bay)
62 nautical miles (71 statute miles)
On Saturday we stayed on the boat and did chores since the wind was remarkably high and we didn’t want to get swamped with an extra wet dinghy rides.
Sunday morning we had an open schedule, and we planned to walk to the Atlantic side of island. Just before dropping the dinghy into the water from the davits, we made a spontaneous decision to head back to George Town one day early. We needed to find protection from a west wind system forecasted for Tuesday and planned to leave the lovely Long Island Monday morning. When we noticed a few boats leaving the anchorage, it prompted us to go ahead with the move on now since this would allow us all day Monday to do any provisioning and desperately needed laundry.
George Town, Exuma
Sunday To Wednesday
So less than an hour later we were moving through the anchorage and back to George Town. The trip started out with a pleasant sail, followed by light winds then rain, which diminished in time to set the anchor. We hit a squall coming into the pass at George Town, so we had a bit of excitement right before our arrival. Over the next 24 hours we saw many boats working their way into the harbor seeking shelter from the upcoming system.
Arriving a day early allowed us to tackle the typical errands (laundry, trash disposal, dinghy fuel and groceries) in calm conditions on Monday. The dinghy & fuel docks were extremely crowded and so was the laundromat. Each Sunday a census of boats in the harbor is conducted, and this week’s count was 383 boats! Nearly up 100 from a week ago. And that count probably did not account for all the boats trickling in to take shelter from the incoming front.
While sitting in the cockpit Monday after the chores were completed, we heard a large crashing sound. Looking up we saw a construction barge sitting still in the harbor. I saw and exclaimed to Sondra “The backhoe is gone and there is someone in the water!” Two dinghies arrived quickly; however, the man was able to get back up on the barge without their assistance. I think he just had to climb up the backhoe he had been sitting inside of to get out of the water and back onto the barge. From looking at the front of the barge, watching hand gestures and some posts on social media we believe that the backhoe was resting on the loading gate at the front of the barge. The gate failed and swung down into the water and abruptly halted the barge’s forward progress. It would seem the backhoe kept its momentum and took its occupant down with it into the water. Eventually the push boat was able to free to the barge, and the crew left a fender tied to the backhoe. So now there is a pretty large hazard to navigation in the middle of the channel in the form of a backhoe. Not sure what the ultimate outcome of that will be.
The Tuesday front and winds did not disappoint. We ended up getting many 35 knot gusts and some places hit 40s in the George Town area. During the storm we were on anchor watch to make sure we didn’t drag. We also had the radio on to listen to the chatter with all the other 400 boats. There were several boats that did drag, and they were normally notified by other boats nearby. One boat did wind up on the beach but fortunately was able to get off the beach later and re-anchored. We chose to be anchored nearer to town since we knew the high winds were from the west and that would reduce the amount of open water that the wind would travel over (i.e., more distance = bigger waves aka "fetch"). Our western side seemed to have fewer issues than the Stocking Island side. We even overheard some concerns about an anchored boat getting getting too close to boats in the mooring field since an anchored boat swings in a larger arc than those on the mooring balls.
Calabash Bay near Cape Santa Maria, Long Island
Wednesday 2/26/2025 to Friday, 2/28
We never intended to spend much time during our second visit to George Town and we decided to leave on Wednesday. After the big winds of Tuesday, Wednesday was pretty much windless with glassy seas. That’s great for a motorboat but no sailing was achieved that day. We ended up dropping the anchor in Calabash Bay (20 miles north from our last Long Island anchorage) around lunchtime and ended up doing a dinghy ride and went to Happy Hour and food at the Cape Santa Maria Resort which welcomed cruisers to their restaurant.
On Thursday we went on another dingy ride to a beaching spot and ended up taking a 4-mile walk to the Columbus Monument at the northern tip of Long Island. Columbus made one of his landing locations here. Although the landing in the Bahamas is not disputed the “first“ designation is. Most texts indicate Columbus landed in the Bahamas first but there are a few defensible texts that indicate it was the Turks and Caicos. I’ll give the Bahamas credit on this one. Regardless, this was a great walk with some nice views of the Atlantic and some cool history to boot.
So, if all goes to plan, we will leave for Conception Island tomorrow (spoiler alert...we made it!) but more on that next week.
Post # 25-9 (See below for link to prior post, # 25-8 about Long Island and the next post # 25-10 as we head back up north)
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