Georgetown is more or less the most popular destination for cruisers in the Exumas and arguably the most popular destination in all the Bahamas.  So much so that our weather guy pretty much always was giving us advice based on when we'd be able to get to Georgetown even when we were a long, long way away.  Note that I say the most popular, I'm not yet sure I would call it the best destination.  There are a lot of things going for it.  The Elizabeth Harbor area has a number of things going for it, chief amongst them that it is genuinely massive.  At one point this season there were nearly 400 boats anchored in there.  Additionally, it is what passes for a big city in the Exumas.  There are 3 grocery stores where most islands have either zero or one.  There are hardware stores, boat supply stores, pretty much every kind of shopping that you can find in the Bahamas.  The down side is that it can feel like you are i...

    Life on a sailboat demands careful attention to the weather.  The winds dictate most everything.  Too much wind from any direction and you'd like to be finding a nice place to hide away from the wind.  Too little wind and you are trying to be as open to the wind as possible to capture what breeze you can so that you stay cool.  When the wind is in that desirable middle range, you are looking to see if it might blow in the right direction so that you can hoist the sails and move for free in the direction the wind carries you.  Georgetown is pretty much the most popular place in all of the Exumas for cruising sailboats.  The past few weeks, the "official" count has been between 350 and 400 sailboats in the harbors there.  We have some enthusiasm for the idea of being in a place where there is a lot of support and have some anxiety about being crowded in since our goal is sort of getting away from all that drama.  Love it or hate i...

     Once the weather shifted, we decided to move away from our hidey-hole in Pipe Creek and into the relatively crowded anchorage on the west side of Big Majors.  The path to make it out of Pipe Creek would be another shallow path, winding our way past Overyyonder Cay, Sampson Cay and circling around the back side of Rat Cay (we started out on the east side of Rat Cay and would end up skirting the west side on our way out).  However, now that we had a correctly reporting depth gauge and some experience with this "water reading" stuff, we felt semi-confident.  This, of course, normally precedes some terrible screw up.  We still wanted to do the trip near high tide to give ourselves the best chance of success.  We ended up with some good fortune, because as we rounded Overyonder (an excellent island name), there was another boat in front of us clearly on the same route.  This allowed me to slow down and just follow him.  He looked li...

           A cold front was fast approaching and we needed to be in a special location when it came.  Normally, the Bahamas have very consistent winds called tradewinds that blow from the east around 15-20 knots.  This is the default pattern if there is no other weather and it is very convenient because the west side of the Exumas are in a relatively shallow wide body of water knows as the Great Bahama Bank.  More or less every island in the chain has a nice sandy bottom where you can anchor and be protected from easterly blowing winds.  Even when these winds pick up and blow more strongly, finding shelter from them is easy.  Cold fronts passing over the Bahamas are a different problem altogether.  They are a common feature of winter and they are surrounded by winds that blow counter-clockwise around the low pressure system.  The winds are often the strongest near the center as the front passes overhead...

      Unfortunately, we had to consider our trip to Wardrick Wells more of a scouting mission than an actual stop.  We were extremely eager to spend time here in what many consider to be the jewel of the Exuma Land and Sea Park, a nature reserve spanning 176 square miles and consisting of innumerable islands, mostly unspoiled and off limits to development.  The history of the Bahamas suggests that protecting land from development has not often been a success, so we are big advocates of supporting the sea park.  We made a donation that qualifies us as "support fleet" and offers a few advantages like the ability to reserve a mooring ball in advance.  Normally, you have to participate in a radio lottery first thing in the morning and we find that the spaces tend to vanish before the requests have even slowed down when they open the process at 9am.  The mooring field is absolutely stunning!   The mooring balls are scattered in a line ar...

     So, if you have been reading these posts and saying we are in Shroud Key like the thing that opens a lock, award yourself 5 imaginary internet points.  If you have been saying Shroud Kay, like the letter K you must receive a demerit in your permanent file.  I don't make the rules, this is just the way it is.  I've tried to figure out why it is spelled Key in the US like Key West and Cay in the Bahamas.  I'm pretty sure it can be blamed on the Brits, like maths and bonnet and the like.   All the cool billionaires now have a bonus boat for carrying around their toys.        You may remember I introduced you to the idea of "lazy sailing" where one doesn't bother to put up the main sail because its a pain in the neck and might not be worth the time.  Well, this trip took lazy sailing to new heights because it was about 20 minutes out of 1 anchorage, 20 minutes into the next and 20 minutes of actual travel.  Ther...