34. Cat Island

On Sunday March 16, we left George Town at 7:00 in the morning and sailed to New Bight on Cat Island. It was a great feeling to be sailing again after staying in the same place for three weeks. We had great companions and when we arrived at New Bight we had a pot luck dinner on Just Imagine, just one of many that we had.
Here Roman is trying to blow a conch. It is much more enjoyable to eat in good company and to combine our resources and knowledge. The six of us played a game of farkel which is a funny fast-moving dice game.

Cat Island is a different from the rest of the islands we had experienced.
There are lots of tall trees and lush vegetation. The homes are well looked after and painted with soft pastel colours. We walked everywhere and as everything is quite far apart, we walked a lot!

The highest point in the Bahamas is on Cat Island.
We hiked up the 206 feet to the Hermitage of Father Jerome. Father Jerome was first an Anglican priest and then a Catholic one.
He built many churches on Cat Island and lived the last years of his life in the Hermitage which has the Stations of the Cross as you climb higher and higher.

The hermitage was modelled after the chapels in Europe and was very Spartan. I believe that Father Jerome died in the late 1950’s in his eighties. He is well remembered in the islands.

My hip was fine going up and down the mountain (really a hill) but gave up on the two mile walk to the local grocery store. The people were very friendly and welcoming. On the way to the store, we stopped at a small building and talked with the people there. Several men were cleaning conch they had just caught. They not only showed us how to clean them but also told us about male and female conch.


The male has an appendage that he stretches to the female who opens up to receive the male. Sound familiar? These men had a great sense of humour as did everyone in our group. The conch has a pistol which is a thin straw like transparent tube about 8-10 inches long. Males who eat them are supposed to become more virile. The men were the grandsons of Marguerite who had 18 children and too many grand and great grandchildren to count, she told us. So maybe there was something about those pistols. All the men in our group tried them and they found them flavourless. Marguerite, at 80, still ran a restaurant and had come for these conch. She took a shopping bag full of conch with her. She offered to drive us to the grocery store but only I took her up on the offer while everyone else walked.

During our stay on Cat Island we found papaya trees, coconuts trees and some kind of fruit that looks like a large kiwi fruit. Roman showed us how to tell if a coconut or papaya was ripe. On the dock near where we had pulled our dinghies up on the sand, the guys used machetes to clean the coconuts, which we took on board.Vegetables and fruit and food, in general, are very expensive. Although there are no taxes in the Bahamas, anything that comes into the country is taxed at a hefty 30%, we were told. So that makes food much more expensive as most everything is imported in spite of the fact that there are places to grow things.

Our next stop was Little San Salvador which has been purchased by Holland America Cruise Line ads is a stop for the cruise ships. Here the beaches are well-groomed and everything is picture perfect, with deck chairs, umbrellas, cabanas and even paddle boats. Unfortunately the weather was far from perfect with winds and rain so we sang Happy Birthday to Robin over the VHF radio and decided to continue to Eleuthera Island the next day. Fortunately there were no cruise ships in the harbour and it was easy anchoring.

33. Georgetown

The next we had a brisk sail on the Exuma Sound to Conch Cay Cut where we entered Elizabeth harbour and made our way to George Town. The sailing community is spread on both sides of the harbour with some 200 to 300 boats.

On the town side is Kidd Cove. George Town is spread around a small lake, Lake Victoria and you enter the lake through a narrow passage cut out of the rock.

There is a large dingy dock where you can get R/O water (reverse/osmosis) for free. About a 1 ¼ across the harbour are the anchorages of Volleyball Beach, Hamburger Beach and Sand Dollar Beach where most boaters anchor. Our friend, Gerald, from Katie had been in George Town for several weeks and he came out to meet us and guide us to an anchorage right in Volleyball Beach which is close to where all the “action” is. Unfortunately every time we went across the harbour we got soaked and ended up wearing clothes that dried quickly.

Below Gerald and I are in front of the dinghy dock on Lake Victoria in George Town.

George Town is an organized boating community with a boaters’ net broadcast every morning at 8:00 over the VHF. This net informed everyone of all the events that were scheduled for that day and for several days to come. I attended Pilates and yoga sessions, learned how to play Man Jhan (I am not sure how to spell it) and how to weave a basket. Roman attended fishing and dingy repair workshops as well as played volleyball. We both relaxed in the hammocks
under the casseria trees which are very tall trees reminiscent of a large maple tree with its branches but possessing the weepy soft needles similar to a white pine. They make great climbing trees and children climbed up and jumped off holding onto swinging ropes.

In George Town, in the community centre, Roman and I attended an all day weather seminar held by Chris Parker, the Bahamas and Carribean weather guru. I even bought his book.

Many of the boaters are musicians and held sing-alongs and impromptu concerts on the beach.

On Sundays we attended Beach Church which is a non denominational service run by boaters (none of whom are ministers or priests).

I sang in the Beach Choir which was led by a very talented boater, Bill, (off Charisma).
He had a Masters in Vocal Music and was one of the best choir directors that I have ever sang with. One Sunday I did an opening prayer which I had heard at one of my retreats at Mount Mary’s in Ancaster. I amended to fit in with the boater’s community.

We climbed the highest point of Lee Stocking Island which has a monument with no plaques or signs. No one seems to know what it stands for.
We walked along the seashore, picked seashells and swam on the other side of the island where there were no boats anchored. Unfortunately there are no pump outs in the Bahamas and boaters expel their raw sewage straight into the water. We fill our tank and everything goes through a macerator before our sewage is let out but some boats jump dump straight from their toilets into the water. That is why we swam only on the Exuma Sound side as shown below.

Since our antenna went swimming in the salt water, we have not been able to get WIFI from any distance at all. While most boaters could get the Harbour WIFI form George Town for a weekly rate of $15.00, we had to pay $2.00/ hour or any part of an hour. The internet service would not support Skype; the service was intermittent and we both wished for our WIFI antennae. Roman hopes to fix it when we get back to the States. Next year, I would like to make sure that our family have both Skype and a web cam so we could not only talk to them, but also see them.

We arrived just in time for the George Town Annual Cruisers’ Regatta which is a week of racing, games and festivities. We crewed on Just Imagine in the around Stocking Island Race. There were eight of us on board and we had a blast. Roman had the hardest task of looking after the head sail or jib. Cheyl entered the baking contest with her beer bread. I actually baked bread on board as well but not during the race.

One of our photos won the best “people” category photo contest.

Here we accept the trophy-a bottle of rum.

We also got mention of our “action” shot.

The Coconut Race was hilarious with teams of four, wearing a life jacket on any part of their body, in a motorless dingy with only fins for paddles trying to collect as many coconuts as possible.

The second part of the game was balancing coconuts with different parts of the body. I would have liked to participate in the Coconut Race but my hip and back were sore.

It was hard work watching!

We were part of a Scavenger Hunt team of six and although we won nothing, we had a fabulous time and went all around the islands, our boats and even into George Town across the bay for the Scavenger Hunt items.

Every year, for the Cruiser's Regatta, there is a theme and this year it was black and white. We made masks for the masquerade and many of the boaters had elaborate costumes.

Elizabeth from Viking Angel modelled her coconut outfit.

while I was one of leaders in the I Love Regatta Racing number in the Opening Night festivities. Then we danced away until boaters 1:00 a.m. which is really only 10:00. All boaters tend to follow the “early to bed and early to rise” routine. And no, that is not me dancing!

Here we are, the party group -Robin and Cheryl from Just Imagine, Morris and Elizabeth from Viking Angel and of course, Roman and Olha from Moya Mreeya.

There was a Pet Parade held during Regatta. Cruisers make a great deal about their pets. Many have dogs of all sizes and shapes and many have cats. Shadow from Just Imagine has a personality all his own.

We met so many boaters that I have no more room for boat cards in my holder. I’ll have to get another one when we get back to the States. One of the most delightful and talented people we got to know was a young lady named, named Angel, on the boat Fawkes. She played the electric keyboard and was part of a very talented group of boaters “White Folks on Boats” who played and sang in the Heritage Island Music Festival. which took place the last weekend of Regatta. We attended the festival which featured “rake and shake” Bahamian music. “White Folks on Boats” also gave a concert for all the boaters on a large catamaran while all the dinghies rafted around it. People danced to Black Magic Woman in their dinghies and surprisingly no one fell into the water.

You have to be very careful with maintenance on the boat. In the picture below, on the boat anchored just in front of us, the clamps on the thruhall rusted away and the hose came off and the boat took on water to a point where he had to call for help. He was very lucky that this happened in the anchorage. Many came to help bringing pumps. He had sunk down about six inches as you can see in the photos. If this had happened when he was out on the ocean, he would have sunk!

All good things come to an end and on Saturday, March 15, we made arrangements to leave at first light for Cat Island. Here is our last night in the harbour off Volleyball Beach at sunset.