Thompson Bay, Stella Maris

Stella Maris dinning room to ourselves

 

This morning we take the car north to Stella Maris a resort for breakfast. This time of year is their slow season and this is our third time here for breakfast. They seem to have less and less guests each time. 7 years ago they had a full buffet breakfast and a fair amount of guests. This time we are the only costumers insight when we arrive, although another group had breakfast before we showed up. 

 

Their busy season is around the holidays and late Fall. They have the only airfield on this end of the island. They also have a small, but decrepit marina on the west side on the island. We order off the menu and have a very good breakfast.

An interesting change from our last visit 4 years ago to the Bahamas is the acceptance of credit cards everywhere without charging extra. I think the government has prevented businesses from charging extra. I assume since cash was an easy way to avoid paying the VAT taxes. Some places only accept credit cards, I assume to prevent cash going into employee pockets.

 

After breakfast we drive to the Columbus monument on the north end of Long Island. Since our last visit the Government paved the road to the monument parking lot, paved that too and also put in cement stairways and rails up to the top of the cliff where the monument is. “This monument is dedicated to the gentle peaceful and happy aboriginal people” and “arrival of Christopher Columbus”. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our way south we stop at the Tropic of Cancer, parallel. Gee, Mark and Karen look so much taller than Linda and I.

 

 

We do a short hike to the “Shrimp Hole” a small pool in a open cave. We see one shrimp. On the way back to the car rental place we fill our water jugs and fill the car gas tank.

We relax on the boat in the afternoon. I go for a swim and wash and shower off the back of the boat. Linda reads and snoozes. We then head into shore to met up with Gayle and Bruce, who are past cruisers, who we first meet on their boat “Acquarelle”, who built a house at Thompson Bay and no longer sail. We meet them for dinner at “The South side”. We get back to the boat shortly after sunset.

 

Bruce and Gayle

 

Genie and Brad with Karen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunset from South Side

 

 

 

Thompson Bay, Cave

We all dinghy in to Basil’s dock, a private dock that the owner kindly lets cruisers use. Just before we get to the dock a small dinghy with a “center console” comes racing pass us to the dock creating a large wake that soaks me. I guess he thought he was going to get a better spot. Once at the dock, I yell over to him about his wake this close to a dinghy dock and all I get from him is a blank stare, not a sorry or comment. His dinghy has no markings or numbers on the hull, so I can’t even tell where it is from. Although he does reinforce my negative view of someone who has to have a center console with a steering wheel in a little dinghy. Long on money, short on common sense. Definitely a “Walter Mitty” type.

We walk to the Hill Top Grocery store, one of the best stocked groceries stores outside of Nassau. I arrange for a one day car rental from 1PM to 1PM. This afternoon we head south to go to Hamilton's Cave, for a private cave tour that we missed the last two times we were here.

After lunch on the boat we take the car south to Hamilton’s Cave. We stop at the house that has a sign "Hamilton's Cave Tour" and then follow Leonard Cartwright in his car about 1 mile to the cave on private land with a gate.  The cave has been in Leonard's family a long time. His ancestors were British Loyalists who left America after the Revolutionary War.

 

Entrance to Hamilton's Cave, Mark, Linda, Karen and Leonard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that we visit the Flying Fish Marina at Clarencetown.  We were told that there was a flock of Flamingos in one of the ponds couple days ago and there was one pair that might still be there. No luck this was the best we could do.

 On our way back north stop at Lloyd’s a restaurant near Deans Blue hole.

 

 

 

 

Long Island, Thompson Bay

Long Island, Bahamas Video
("lower right zoom")

 

We leave around 8:00 am for Thompson Bay, Long Island. The wind is on our nose south we have to motor the 40 miles or so there. 4 years ago we have a beautiful sail there from Georgetown. We relaxed the rest of the day and have Rum & Cokes for our happy hour.

 

Today's trip, east to Long Island

Leaving Sand Dollar beach, Georgetown

Mr. Autopilot

 

Georgetown, Monument

Linda spends much of the morning catching up with friends, making phone calls. We talk with our son, Dana, who just had gallbladder surgery, while doing a surprise visit to friends in Oregon. It was a surprise alright. They were “stuck” with him for another two weeks, before he was OK’d to fly home to Maine. His wife Lori had to fly home ahead of him. She could of worked remotely if she had previously planned on staying longer.

After lunch, Mark, Karen and I ride up to Monument Beach to hike up to the Monument the beach is named after. 

In the late afternoon we make one last run into town to fuel up the dinghy fuel tank and the spare gas rail tank. Linda picks up a few more items at the grocery store while I am at the gas station.

Monument Hike Video

(On PC full screen "lower right zoom")
(On phone/tablet full screen "pinch-zoom")

 

Monument Beach

View North

The Monument

Georgetown Harbor to the south

Georgetown, Peace & Plenty

Work on figuring out why Linda’s phone does not make phone calls in WiFi mode. She has been having to use my phone. I finally figure out what the problem is and her phone now works fine.

My second Tech problem today is to call Verizon and find out why we had a phone bill of $350 for the month of January. Turns out we have automatic international calling, which comes in handy when we go to Montreal for the day or weekend. It gets switched off when we return to Vermont. We have 4 devices on our Verizon plan, two phones and two iPads. I missed turning the cell off on my iPad and a soon as we passed the Cell Tower at Bimini they started charging us $10 a day. It was a couple weeks before we find out they were charging us so much, since Verizon doesn’t let you see you current month charges. Of course they see that no data has been used, but they politely tell me we are SOL, assholes !

Once we finish with that, I ask why our basic monthly rate has gone up $15. I am told that is because our new iPhones that we got in October are 5G capable. Even though we do not need 5G, we get charged for it anyways. That maybe the reason our data rate dropped to near zero after we bought new phones. After dealing with multiple techs it was over a month, last Fall, with no success, we found a smart enough tech to fix it. What he did not tell us was the fix was fixing the 5G issue on their end, but never mentioned the price increase, with zero benefit to me. Again, Assholes !

I install our new impeller in the watermaker.

In the afternoon we head to “Peace and Plenty” hotel and restaurant for Tourism Bureau’s visitor appreciation free dinner. We get there early and play dominoes with Mark and Karen. The free dinner is very good.

 Facebook slideshow

 

Peace & Plenty, Tourism Bureau Appreciation Dinner

 

Georgetown, Water

Spend most of the day puttering around on the boat. Made a run to fill our water jugs, while Linda cleans the rugs. I don’t want to use the Rainman watermaker in this busy harbor. Granted the pre-filter will remove most of the crap in the water, but it may clog up faster than in clearer water. In the afternoon Linda and I make another trip into town for a few more items that we hoped arrived on the Mail-boat yesterday.

Georgetown, Great Exuma

We are up at 6:00 for an early breakfast to get to town by 7:00 to catch a taxi to the Airport to get a rental car. Unfortunately the Exuma Airport is a 20 minute ride, so that will make this an expensive car rental. We drive to the northern end of Great Exuma to the Barraterre Settlement, the northernmost town. From there we can see our Lee Stocking anchorage where we were, 6 miles to the north. A lot of the day fast boats that take tourists up the Exuma Island chain leave from here. We arrive after they have all left.

We then head south to Coco Plum Beach which has been a recommend stop. The one mile or so road out to the beach is very rough. A jeep would have been more appropriate. We get to the beach and Mark gets out his drone, which he has been itching to play with. At Great Harbour the close proximity of the airport kept the Drone from flying. Gee these things are smart. Anyways no problem here. From here we head south to the Marina at Emerald Bay where we have stayed before. On the way there we stop at Eva’s Place, a “bakery” that was recommended by our taxi cab drive. I’m looking for coffee and pastry. The Bahamians view cake a pastry. Eva has a couple good ones, Linda and I split a large piece of coconut cake and Mark and Karen split a pineapple upside down cake.

We stop by the Emerald Bay Marina and are surprised to see a lot more boats there than our last visit 4 years ago. Still a lot of surge. A very protected marina, but the ocean swells come down channel and constantly move the boats tied to the docks back and forth. No waves, just a back and forth current.

From here we head to the south end of the island and stop at Browns marina and purchase a few items. Then we head to Santanas Grill on the water in Williams Town on the far southeast end of Great Exuma. Have a very nice lunch overlooking the area we sail through one mile off shore on our way to Long Island. On our way back north we stop at Tropic of Cancer Beach. 

 

Mango daiquiris at Santanas Grill

Tropic of Cancer Beach

 Back in Georgetown we head to another market north of town and buy number of items we could not get at the Exuma Market. We make a dinghy run back out to our boats to unload and then return the car to the Airport. We had planned to full the gas tank at the gas station by the Airport, but our Taxi cab driver tells us it will be closed when we get there around 5:00. The line at the gas station in town is very long, so we don’t bother going back and refilling. We pay the penalty for not returning it full.

Eddie's Edgewater

We go to dinner at Eddie’s Edgewater and are pleasantly surprised to have a very good diner. Both couples split a dinner, because they give you so much. Linda and I have curry chicken, not something Linda normally would not pick, but it is very good. We head back to the boat in the dark. Before we left I have turned on the mast light, not particularly helpful when there are a couple 100 other boats. What I do is take two low power flashing bike lights that go on handle bars, turn them on and aim them towards the direction we will be coming from and hope the wind direction does not change since these little lights are very directional. We can see these lights over a mile away, as long as they are not blocked by another boats, which does happen, but not for long as we move towards our boat.

A long day. I fall asleep watching TV.