Hooked on George Town! 2-18/3-14/10


We left you having arrived after a bit of a lumpy, but exhilarating, 44-hour
ride from Marsh Harbour, Abaco to George Town, Exumas. We anchored in about
12 feet of water, putting out our usual 7-1 scope. As we have a 5' rise
over the waterline to the bow roller, the critical point of measure then
being about 17' (12' depth plus 5' rise), that meant that we put out 125' of
chain. Our actual practice is to stretch the line and count chain in the
water, so that 125' was a bit of overkill, as the catenary (the shape of the
stretched chain due to the weight resulting in a curve rather than a
straight line) put well over 100' in the water as opposed to the needed 84
feet. So, effectively, we had more like an 8-1 scope, always comforting.

Being somewhat tired after a little-sleep (due to the exaggerated motion of
the boat on most of the way over) passage, after being secure in our
anchorage, we headed to bed for a welcome nap. Surprisingly, we slept like
the dead for 4 hours :{)) After our nap, we got up and surveyed the
situation, which was very much more settled than our trip outside.
Reassured, we had our Zone Bar lunch as we always do, finding it a filling
and diet-happy, low-calorie, complete-nutrition meal. Afterward, enjoying
the settled conditions, we put out the dinghy and headed to shore.

A stop into Chat'n'Chill, the famous drink-and-eatery on Stocking Island,
the barrier island outside Great Exuma, home of George Town, revealed that
Kendall, the guy behind the bar, remembered Flying Pig well, and, in
particular, asked after Lydia's mother, who'd been with us for 6 months last
year, including our entire time in George Town (well, technically, a week in
Monument Beach, and the rest of the time at Volleyball Beach, on Stocking
Island). Later enounters with nearly any boat's crew which had been here
last year also generated questions as to whether Louise was with us again
this year. Obviously, she was a great hit with all she encountered!

Once we'd made the rounds of those we recognized, Lydia settled into reading
on the beach, and I again hit the volleyball courts. KB (for Kenneth
Bowles), the owner of Chat'n'Chill, graciously provides a host of amenities
for visiting cruisers and other vacationing folks who may come from hotels
here or on Great Exuma Island. His only qualification for the use of all
the amenities is that you buy your drinks and food from him, rather than
cart it in like picnic-bent folks might usually do.

As his marvelous burgers are only $4, ditto the grilled chicken sandwiches
and the $3 hot dogs, along with a large meal (meaning entrée and sides) menu
being similarly affordable, that's a very small price to pay for the
amenities.

"What amenities?" you may well ask, if you've not had the pleasure before.
Well, there's the hundred or so beach chairs that get taken up each evening,
and then set out again in the morning, after the beaches and the walkways
have been groomed by his staff. Then there's all the (VERY hefty, being made
from 2x6 and 4x4 pressure treaded lumber) picnic tables and benches, many
with large folding umbrellas. If that's not enough, there are three
immaculately groomed and maintained sand volleyball courts, with many balls
available (those are stuck in the top of the signboard which announces
cruiser-related events) if one of the cruisers hasn't brought their personal
favorite ball. In the event of too much of a crowd, there are two overflow
courts as well.

Of morbid interest to cruisers, the posts for the volleyball courts are made
from sections of masts, no doubt from dismasted boats, set far into the sand
so as to be entirely stable against the very-tight pulls needed to keep the
(also supplied by KB) nets firm and straight. And, in case you're not into
physically-oriented activities as such, he also hosts the Beach Church (an
organized church run by and for cruisers every Sunday morning), providing
seating for the over-100 (and usually closer to 150) weekly attendees. I
got my singing fix by being part of the choir and, this year, also part of
"Opening Night" - the beginning of the 2-week cruiser's regatta activities -
where I and a couple of dozen other folks accompanied a singer in Barry
Manilow's "One Voice." Unfortunately, despite there having been about 8
other male voices, time and events conspired against me and those who showed
an interest in doing some Barbershopping (very close harmony in a quartet),
and we never were able to get a group together for that...

When there's not something going on directly at the volleyball courts, or on
the tables for the beach church, there's Bocce, basket weaving (don't
laugh - the local materials make for some VERY beautiful and functional
baskets, including some which are watertight), Scrabble, and, on the
beaches, classes and seminars galore. All hosted, free to cruisers and
townspeople alike, by our benefactor KB.

Anyway, I digress, as the thought of the volleyball courts got me
sidetracked. Many who have never been here deprecatingly describe George
Town (the experience, not the actual town) as summer camp for geriatrics or
seniors (the bulk of cruisers are, shall we say, "mature"). While that's
true in the event you want to become part of the many organized and regular
happenings, it's also entirely easy to be totally alone in an island
environment, enjoying the other beaches, birdwatching walks, nature walks,
the ocean side, accessible by many paths from the Elizabeth Harbour (the
water between Stocking Island and Great Exuma) side, and on and on. So, if
the "reputation" of George Town puts you off, be sure to talk to those who
have actually been here. It's anything you'd want in a remote island, but
easily accessible to town for the airport, groceries, parts, supplies, and
local events (of which there are also many) in addition to all the
activities on Volleyball beach.

Included in those activities is YogaLates, a combination of yoga and
pilates. Last year, yoga was held, by an experienced cruiser, on Sand
Dollar Beach, about a mile south of Volleyball Beach, but this year's
sessions were done right out in front of us. This year's instructor has a
studio in which she has taught for many years in her home in Toronto, so she
really put us through our paces. By "our" I include myself, never having had
the first bit of yoga in my life, and Lydia, a regular last year. She had
told me that it was a good workout, and my experience this year proved her
correct.

Those of you who've followed us regularly recall that Lydia and I both lost
a substantial amount of weight during our refit in Saint Simons Island last
summer, thanks to the prodigious effort expended and the blistering heat.
Wanting to make sure it stayed off, I decided that I'd get even more
excercise than I usually do here (more on that later), and went off to learn
how to be a pretzel (or so I thought).

Surprise, yoga isn't about twisting yourself into knots, but mostly
stretching and passive-resistance type of exercise, done at a pace which
elevates the heart rate and tones the muscles. The pilates part is a bit
more strenuous, but I welcomed the opportunity to become somewhat less of a
computer-chair potato than I might have otherwise have been. So, over the
last month, depending on availability (some days were not held either due to
weather or conflict with the instructor), I've put myself through 20 or more
sessions and am more flexible for the experience.

My major exercise, however, comes on the volleyball court. Volleyball here
at Stocking Island is very relaxed - in fact, it's called "fun volleyball."
There are 9 to a team, no overhand serves or spikes, and all ages and both
sexes, from 15 up, are invited and encouraged to play. Needless to say,
there are widely varying skill levels in any game, and with 9 to the court,
nobody has to be all that energetic in getting to the ball if they don't
want to. In fact, to prevent collisions, most are a bit reticent to move
outside their "position" - which makes for a fair number of untouched balls.
Of course, you get the level of exercise you wish, and I made sure I worked
up a good sweat each day.

However, it's fun, as the label describes, and chatter on the court is
another reason sometimes balls don't get returned. It's also the reason that
one is required to send the ball to the other side during a serve change by
throwing it UNDER the net. Over the net, you're likely to bonk someone who's
not paying attention :{)) One (well, two, really) other difference from
"regulation" volleyball is that the poles (masts, recall, lovely big
flat-sided ovals) are considered players. Thus, if a ball hits a pole, it's
still in play; if it was intended as a return but wide, and the rebound puts
it in the other-side court, it's in play. If YOU hit the ball, and it comes
back to you, you can play it again, as it's come off another "player," just
as if someone had set it to you. The net, however, isn't a player, so, if
it goes into the net when you hit it during a return, someone else has to
play it before you can hit it again. There have been some exchanges where
the ball alternates off the net for many repetitions before someone finally
gets it high and back enough for someone to return it properly. Which brings
me to the other major differences in fun volleyball and regulation
volleyball...

On a serve, the returning team has to hit it at least once before the
return. And, as long as it doesn't hit the ground, it can be played for as
many hits as it takes to either return or fail-to-return the ball. Now, I
readily accept that if you're a serious volleyball player, this doesn't
sound much like the game you play - and, of course it isn't. Not to
worry...

For the hard-chargers, there are two more courts where it's 4-on-4, and all
the normal rules apply. Overhand serves, spikes, and a bump-set-spike
return is the norm, with a maximum of 3 hits on the return. With sand as the
base, getting a good pushoff for a dive is tough, but the sand is forgiving
on the landing :{))

Last year, Lydia swam to and from Volleyball Beach, as seen in the news
pictures which featured our boat at anchor, with her head visible as she
returned to the boat, about halfway there. Once again, regular readers of
our log know that picture showed up as a result of a search-and-rescue
mission launched by the USCG when it appeared we might be missing, and the
resultant news coverage of that event. Of course, that wasn't the case, and
as soon as our SPOT (tinyurl.com/FlyingPigSpot, if you'd care to follow us
when we're on the move) signal returned, the search was called off, but we
sure did "enjoy" a lot of notoriety (if we weren't already notorious
enough!) during that period. Anyway, back to the story, this year has been
the coldest winter that anyone in the Bahamas can remember, and there's not
been the first swim for either of us.

For much of the time here, we slept under blankets, and, on the normally
sunny and hot volleyball courts, there were frequent occasions where the
players wore full sweats. The fronts marched through with great regularity,
but little rain, so most of the vessels in the harbor are salt encrusted
from the lack of fresh water coming from the sky. Those regular fronts
caused us to reanchor several times, in order to allow the appropriate scope
for the wind direction. Those boats less hardy than we decamped to the town
side of the harbor to gain some protection from the wind and waves, only to
return in a couple of days, again, which made for much adjusting of scope so
as to not run into the "crowds" (on which, more, later) which redeveloped
each time.

We'd been blessed to be close to shore, including one instance, when the
wind was in the right direction, where we could nearly have stepped ashore
from our transom's platform. That's because the lovely beach out in front
of Chat'n'Chill extends into the water only a few feet past the low-water
mark, after which it falls off very directly to about 12 feet deep. Our
final reanchor was this morning, as we had lots of scope out when the wind
was parallel to the beach, but the wind directly toward the beach, as it was
forecast to move later in the morning, would have required us to shorten
scope to avoid the possibility of our rudder finding that shelf, not a happy
thought.

As there were rather high winds forecast for the day, including some nasty
squalls possible, I didn't feel comfortable with the only-125' which would
have resulted from our shortening our rode sufficiently to avoid contact
with the beach. Accordingly, we moved very far out (for us - there's a few
other boats out this far), anchoring in about 20' of water. Because of the
available swing room, and my preference for not having to deal with any
potential for reanchoring in nasty conditions, we put out 200 feet this
time. As the wind was already close to 20 knots, with my intended eventual
scope, we were able to pay out substantial line in each segment. (I anchor
by letting the anchor bite, and then letting out segments which allow the
line to tug firmly on each segment, gently digging the anchor further with
each yank). With 200 feet as the eventual destination, I let about 25 feet
out each time after the first 50, and was rewarded with a very substantial
jerk on the bow (no, not ME!) as we started going sideways to the wind and
the slack caught up, straightening us again. Secure in our position and
scope, I came below to write this :{))

Back to the anchorage and the harbor, for all that description of "crowds,"
this year, with only a mid-200 count, has been lighter than last year's 327,
which was lighter than the typical 500 boats in Elizabeth Harbour in past
peak years, and, as well, there has been little of the excitement of
dragging anchors as there was last year. In fact, aside from one boat which
had a mooring line (as opposed to an anchor line) break today, I'm not aware
of any dragging incidents this year. By comparison, last year had frequent
bursts of activity as the cruising community sprang into action in their
dinghies to fend off boats which were dragging down on another, or to grab
another anchor to kedge out some extra security on a boat which had come
adrift with nobody aboard (HEY!! I resemble that remark! [Flying Pig and
the boat behind us both did that while we were ashore during one of the
sudden wind shifts which allowed slack chain to gain momentum, and the
anchor pull out]), or just generally lend a hand to others in distress.

That was my only experience with dragging here, but last year I jumped in my
dinghy a couple of times to assist others, and, in a reanchoring nailbiter,
as the moving boat started to slide toward another, I and another dinghy
jumped out and played tugboat for the singlehander who was struggling to
simultaneously get his anchor up by hand (bless our windlass!) and avoid the
other boat's rode, shoving him sideways away from the other's rode until he
was clear. All was well in a couple of minutes, but the experience is very
typical of the cruiser community here. None of us knew the other, but it
was instant-reaction to a viewed potentially difficult situation, followed
by a wave and a thank-you, as everyone returned to what they'd been doing 5
minutes before...

As there were plenty of periods of high winds this year, I suspect that part
of it may be that with the smaller boat population, folks felt comfortable
with putting out more scope, a great deterrent to dragging anchor in any
conditions. Certainly, last year, we were lucky to have 75' out in 10-12'
of water. As I type this, we have an approaching front with boats which are
currently in it reporting 40 knots, so we're very glad for our extended
scope. I popped upstairs to look at our chartplotter, which we turned on,
with the track enabled, and, after the event, we had a huge pile of
higgledy-pigglety marks followed by a nearly straight line to the SSE as the
wind shifted. Fortunately, the bulk of the squall passed us by, resulting
in only a high of just over 30 knots of wind (35MPH) and a very small
shower. That slight wetting helped with the exterior salt, but didn't
really wash it off :{/) Fortunately, as it turned out later, there was a
slight drizzle for most of the afternoon, and we're well rinsed!

You'll recall that our wind generator took flight in Marsh Harbour, only to
be retrieved and stripped to useful parts before returning the balance to
the sea bed. As usual, we've continued our boat 1-2-3's (the name for
regular and continuing chores aboard given by a dear friend of ours from St.
Pete, now in the Dominican Republic), and verifying those parts as suitable
for reuse, we're about to order the needed housing and bearings to restore
our wind generator to its place on the arch pole.

After fishing a plastic part out of the power-plug hole in Lydia's laptop, I
also managed to return the plastic parts, thanks to SuperGlue, to a usable
condition. Once that was finished, I cut away the power cord's hard
rubber housing until I could get to the point of being able to, first,
superglue the plastic interior to the remainder in the cord-end, and then
solder the barrel portion to the electrical ground on the power supply.
Success! It's fragile, no longer having the reinforcing hard rubber around
it, but ok to power her up until we go, again, for the month of July, to the
states to give Lydia her grandson fix and for me to visit with my kids and
grandkids. When I'm ashore, I'll, again, order boat parts and spares, shop
for replenishments in our food stores, and find another properly-sized
barrel connector with a pigtail to splice on to the power supply line, thus
making her barrel-end secure.

Other boat chores happened, as well, of course, but those were the most
critical. I also did a repeat of my on-beach seminar on Wireless
Communications for Cruisers, attended by about 60 folks, of whom a
half-dozen were new owners of the same setup I have, a result of having
attended last year's seminars. As was the case last year, data throughput
has been spotty, due to the available bandwidth provided for all the users
in the harbor and ashore not equipped with their own satellite reception
services. However, unlike last year, other than the last week of our stay
in '09, we've been entirely free in our connections, enjoying the unusual
reach of our system.

I also did a repeat of my on-air seminar on the Honda eu2000i generators so
popular among cruisers, but bedeviled by what I can only assume is a
make-standard-parts-fit-non-standar-applications policy at Honda which has
nearly every 2000 eventually break their starter pull-cord due to a non-fair
exit in the rewind mechanism. Fixing that (well, making do on a relatively
permanent basis - there's no fix without boring into the crankcase and
relocating the mounting bolts) is very simple, but getting to the part
isn't! As I'd done a great deal of phoning around to distributors, I
eventually was able to find a service company who had a tech willing to walk
me through the procedure, which I shared. It's tedious, but not difficult.

That on-air session also included many tweaks I'd learned from the Honda2000
mailing list on yahoogroups (go to groups.yahoo.com and search for
Honda2000). Fortunately for those who came last year and took notes, even
though they'd not yet had the problem, they (as several ashore had told me)
were able to repair their broken cords successfully. Better yet, for the
future, NonLinear, a boat here in the harbor, recorded the session, and has
put it up on the cruiseheimers web site. As I'm not familiar with that
group, I don't have a link for you, but if you'd like to hear that session,
it's available there on a wave file.

Today we're winding down as we prepare to go to Long Island for a visit
there. As usual, weather dominates our planning, and, as has been the case
throughout our recent travels, our departure date kept being pushed back.
Other than the persistent cold weather, we've enjoyed our time here, and
helping other cruisers with our second outboard (we didn't launch the
PortaBote this year since we didn't have guests), one for a day while they
worked out a fuel problem on theirs, and the other for 10 days while they
had guests aboard and an engineless second dinghy, along with passing along
hard-earned (by making mistakes, usually!) tips to cruisers who'd not yet
encountered some of the challenges we've overcome..

We'll continue our saga with our log on our trip to Long Island and
environs, but for now, we'll leave you, content and exterior-shampooed.

Until next time, Stay Tuned!

L8R

Skip and crew

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
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"You are never given a wish without also being given the power to
make it come true. You may have to work for it however."
(and)
"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in
its hand
(Richard Bach)