We have a northerly coming into George Town and riding out the cycling winds where we are is not a particularly good idea. Mom’s flight is early so at 5 am we get up to say goodbye only to find we can’t turn our lights on. The batteries are completely dead, does this sound familiar? Since we were only running on Bank 2, we only drained Bank 2. We switched it over to both banks and the engine starts. After two hours of charging we are back up to full battery power. We head over to the Red Shanks, an area of island just off of the shore of Great Exuma Island. Unfortunately when we pulled in I misread our latitude and longitude and pushed Dad to go into the wrong swatch of water and soon we were hovering over 2 feet in depth. Whoops. After this mistake we get into our hurricane hole which seems to be very shallow so we putt around until we find a nice deep spot. We lay down our Bruce anchor and are now ready to ride out this big northerly. As we know we will be bound to our boat for the next few days we spend our first day taking the dinghy through all of the little inlets of the Red Shanks. It was basically impossible to find the little bar of Cheaters (to find out about Sunday football). We ran aground, in our dinghy, at least two or three times before we ask some locals fishing – where do we go? You will see in the map below all of the nice places we ran aground and why it was so complex to find this darn bar!
The next two days are continuous 20-25 knot winds clocking from the SE to the SW and finally resting in the NW on Sunday morning. Day 1 of being boat bound is fine. We cook, we read, we do a few things around the boat. I had a McGuiver moment when I created a fruit basket for the boat out of netting, screws, a bungee cord, electrical tape, and cable ties. Day 2 starts at about 3 am when the wind violently switches from the SE to the SW at about 30 knots with a lot of rain. We close all the hatches and wait to see if our Bruce anchor has flipped and let go… which it didn’t. This day is a bit more boring. We fix a clock, rearrange some things, but with only two people we don’t really have any games to play. Our neighboring Canadians who are delivering a 34’ sailboat Utopia, who followed us over from Stocking Island, spend most of the day on our boat where we play GOLF and Texas Hold ‘Em.
After these past two and a half days of being sequestered on our boat the Sabbath is very welcomed. Unfortunately right now we have three days of nice northerlies which we should use for sailing, but my dedication to football makes us wait until tomorrow to take our northerly out. It is a late game, again at 8:20 pm – that is beginning to become a bit of a pain. Even though Cheater (the owner of Cheater’s) promised us he would be around for football the bar was locked. I could hear the football games being played on the TV inside, but no one was around. So Dad and I plus Hieno and Mike leave the dinghys parked in front of Cheater’s and hop a ride (jump on a back of a truck) to go into Fish Fry Village and back to the Big Twelve, where we watched last week’s game. Upon arrival though, Dad decides we need to call Mom, which means we must walk back to town. As we are walking back, Cheater drives by and hails us down – told us he saw our dinghy and had been looking for us. What a guy! He lets me use his phone for free at his bar to call Grandma – couldn’t get a hold of Mom. He then decides to spend the day with us watching football at Big Twelve and will give us a ride to our dinghy later. Perfect. We snack at Tino’s, get a pizza from Charlie’s, and just drink beer at the Big Twelve while watching the Miami game, then the Packers/Steelers game. I realized that Cheater was at the bar last week, man, he is scary when he watched the Dolphins.
Finally, my game starts. I have had far too many beers and Les, the bar owner, has started to give me free drinks. Then I decide it is a good idea to go shot for shot of Hennessey with Cheater. Word to the wise – do not go shot for shot with Hennessey against a 300 pound Bahamian man. But I have never been one to shy away from a drinking contest just ask Nik’s brother, Fat Pants Lance (I also lost that drinking contest, but not as bad as Nik did). The game is slow and I am waiting for my boys to JUMP into action, but nothing. What are they doing? Come on Vikes! I can’t continue. I refuse to write or pay any more attention. So I cry. Yes you heard me. I cry. I cry in the bar, the ride home, in the dinghy (until we run into the mangroves at night, whoops), then on the boat – all the while blubbering about how the Vikings aren’t acting like my team anymore. They don’t need to win; they just need to have a few glory moments every game, but not this game. The next day Dad gives me a lecture about how sports aren’t that important. We have been here far too long. It is time to get the heck out of Georgetown, so here we go!
For your appreciation – we did not love Georgetown, but there were points of beauty. Including the native hummingbirds that would buzz you or the large manta rays that would jump in front of your boat and the beaches, here is a shot Mom took in front of Chat ‘n’ Chill.
Hope the weather becomes more cooperative and you can soon move on to the Turk islands
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