The Hamilton Cave Tour, Long Island, The Bahamas

Saturday February 7 — Tiki Tour and Zimovia were also in the anchorage. Diane from Tiki organized a family outing to Dean’s Blue Hole. Diane arranged for us to rent minivans. The people renting out the vehicles met the group at Tiny’s to collect the money and hand over the keys. Tiki and Zimovia shared a minivan, and Kosmos shared one with Blue Heeler.

Kosmos and Blue Heeler took full advantage of the vehicle to do some shopping and sightseeing. The first stop was a farmer’s market, which was not far from the anchorage by car, but too far to walk. The market wasn’t all that big, with a small selection of produce, eggs, and some artisan goods. Eric wasn’t sure if it was normally small or if they’d just come too late and the majority of goods were already sold. But he was relieved to have finally found eggs.

Next was the Hamilton Cave Tour, which was a privately owned limestone cave in Clarencetown. The owner had a small storefront on the road. Eric called a number listed on No Foreign Land, and thankfully the owner said there was a tour starting in a few minutes. They went to the store, then followed the owner about 1/4 mile or so to his property (which would have been hard to find on their own). There was a fee for the tour, but Eric couldn’t remember what it cost. They joined some other tourists, and the group went down a staircase to the mouth of the cave.

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Keith’s Perspective on Riding Out the Storm in Elizabeth Harbour and Long Island/Le point de vue de Keith sur la façon de traverser la tempête à Elizabeth Harbour et à Long Island

Friday, January 31 – Saturday, February 6: This week has been fun. On Saturday, more boats shuffled. On Sunday, nothing bad happened to us, but the strong winds caused a few boats to drag. 

Cette semaine était amusante. Samedi, plus de bateaux ont  bougé. Dimanche, il ne nous est rien arrivé, mais des bateaux ont dérivé parce que le vent était fort.

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Moving to Thompson Bay, Long Island, The Bahamas

Thursday, February 5 – In the early morning, Eric moved Kosmos to the anchorage in front of Georgetown (on Great Exuma Island) so they could go to the grocery store. This was the view of the anchorage.

Much to their frustration (but of no surprise), the grocery store was still out of stock on the items that they’d wanted to buy. It reinforced that we’d made the right decision to stock up on groceries in Nassau instead of gambling on being able to find groceries in Georgetown. After the grocery store, they got the dinghy up, raised anchor and did a passage to Thompson Bay on Long Island.

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Hanging Out in Elizabeth Harbour, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

Tuesday, February 3 – The weather forecast for today indicated that it would finally be calm enough to move from the very protected nook in Crab Cay to the main anchorage area in Elizabeth Harbour. He anchored by the Peace and Plenty resort on Stocking Island (which was owned by the same company that owns the Peace and Plenty hotel and restaurant in Georgetown).

When Kosmos arrived, there was lots of space in the anchorage, but as the day progressed, more boats arrived and the anchorage area filled in.

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Riding Out the Storm in Crab Cay, Elizabeth Harbour, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

Friday Jan 30 – Eric woke up at 0500 to help coordinate the group re-anchoring. It began, as planned, at 0700. By 0900, the shuffle was mostly done. Everyone agreed to put out 7:1 scope so that all the boats would swing the same. Here was the new positioning on the radar. 65 was where Kosmos was and 66 was where Kosmos moved.

Deeper-draft boats in the darker blue part of the cove on the map we’d posted.

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