Friday, April 4, continued — A little bit north of where we were anchored was a line of small bungalows along the shore. We were told that they were restaurants, and most were only open for dinner. One of the cruisers went to check, and was told that the restaurants opened at 1730. Just about all the families agreed to meet onshore for dinner. At 1730, we were the first in a long line of dinghies that pulled up onshore.
However, there was only one restaurant open, a sandwich shop that looked like it was open all day. The sandwich shop was overwhelmed by the number of people and simply could not serve everyone.
The sandwich shop had creative chairs.
Those who couldn’t get food waited for more restaurants to open. The kids played and the parents talked.
Yesterday, the families agreed to moved to New Bight — the northern part of The Bight Bay — where there were more activities and amenities within easy dinghy/walking distance. Eric had been reluctant to move because we’d heard it was less comfortable in the northern part of the bay, but we couldn’t resist the appeal of more activities/restaurants.
Since we were only moving about 3.5 miles within protected waters, we didn’t do a great job of securing things for sea. We did bring up the dinghy, though. With our dinghy being so lightweight, we didn’t want to take the chance of it flipping it during towing.
We pulled up anchor at about 0830 and by 0915, we were anchored in our new location. As anticipated, up here, the swell and waves came from different directions and it was rolly. We immediately put out the flopper stoppers. With the flopper stoppers out, it was still a tad lurchy, but the motion was fine overall.
In the early afternoon, the families went for a walk to Father Jerome’s Hermitage. Father Jerome was an Anglican missionary in the Bahamas for over 10 years. He then converted to Catholicism and continued missionary work in Australia. Prior to becoming a missionary, he’d been an architect, and he used his architecture knowledge to build simple, yet beautiful churches. Upon retirement, Father Jerome moved back to the Bahamas and built the Hermitage on the tallest hill in the country, Mt. Alvernia, at 207 feet. He passed away in 1956.
After lunch, we dinghies to shore near the dock. Since the dock was in disrepair, we all beached our dinghies.
Thursday, April 3 — In the morning, Eric hitched a ride with two other cruisers Taylor and Brenda, to make a bakery run. They dinghied 1/2 mile north to a road, then walked another mile to Alnor’s Bake shop. Here were some photos from the walk.
Looking back at the anchorage from where they landed the dinghy. Yes, those are two Nordhavns off to the right. They landed the dinghies near a cemetaryContinue reading →
On Wednesday morning, as predicted, the wind picked up and moved to the southeast, but the anchorage was still comfortable and it was pleasant to be onboard. This was just before sunrise.
The nice thing about the cooler water was that it slowed down the growth on the bottom and waterline (compared to the warmer waters in Panama), but it still needed to be regularly done. Eric donned a full wetsuit and did water line with our battery operated waterproof scrubber tool.
We normally put our dinghy up in inclement weather because a plethora of things could go wrong. Since our dinghy was light weight, it could easily flip in the bigger, choppy waves. Lines could fray or loosen, and then the dinghy could float away. Or, the waves could push the dinghy up against Kosmos, causing damage to the dinghy and/or to Kosmos. This week, there had been at least seven announcements on the radio that dinghies had blown away. Some were recovered by fellow cruisers or locals; some were just gone.
Today’s forecast was still very windy with a chance of scattered showers. But we were so tired of being uncomfortable onboard that we decided it was worth the risk to get the dinghy down. When we went out on the deck, we were surprised at how salty it was. Our guess was the waves have stirred up a lot of salty moisture that has settled onboard.
Getting the dinghy down in the heavy winds used to be tough when it was only Eric and Christi. But now that Keith is a full fledged crew member, having his third set of hands makes it relatively easy, even in the wind.
We decided to try a new place for lunch, called The Coconut Club, located a little farther north up Stocking Island in an area called Monument (red dot on the map below). The ratings all said it had a great ambience, but the food was expensive and mediocre, and the service was slow. Truth be told, every place we’d eaten at in the Bahamas has been expensive with slow service, and, while the food at most of the places has been good, we hadn’t had anything fantastic as of yet. We figured it was worth a try.
We were delighted to see that our friends from Baja, Oceananigans, were anchored near the restaurant. On the way to the restaurant, we stopped by and asked if they want to join us. They said they had guests coming and the majority of the crew needed to stay onboard to get the boat ready for guests, but one of the crew Ryan, would come with the two younger kids.
