Georgetown, a fairly large settlement at the southern end of the Exuma island chain, attracts cruisers from all over the world. We have met sailors here from Croatia, Germany, Canada, from all over the US including the mid-west and Alaska and Hawaii, New Zealand, England, and Australia. And we have only been here for four days. This is a unique place in many ways. The beautiful water and many white sand beaches are found all over the Exumas, but Georgetown also has a large harbor with high hills that offers protection from wind in all directions except west. Luckily the wind doesn’t blow from the west for very long as it clocks around clockwise (hence the term “clocking”) prior to the arrival of a cold front. The prevailing wind in the Bahamas is easterly and it usually ranges from the NE to the SE. There is an excellent grocery store in town (IF you get there the day the mailboat comes in with fresh food from Nassau), a large laundromat, free water for cruisers to fill gerry cans and lug back to their boats, diesel fuel and gas easily accessible for filling gerry cans, a few restaurants and liquor stores…all the basic services cruisers need, but no fancy marinas. Well, no marinas at all actually.
Over the years, Georgetown has evolved into a winter destination for many cruisers. They cross over from FL in November or December and spend the whole season at anchor here until returning north in late March or April. Others just come for a few days to re-provision and escape a cold front. When we were here two years ago during the two weeks of the cruiser's regatta, there were something like 325 boats here which felt very crowded. The regatta is two packed weeks with fun activities like tug of war, coconut dinghy races, conch blowing contest (David was the winner in 2017!), and of course sailboat races. We missed the regatta this year (on purpose) and there are only about 275 boats here now. It still feels a bit crowded to us. We much prefer a deserted anchorage or one with just a few boats filled with our friends!
There are lots of good things that go on here. There is a cruisers net every morning at 8am with announcements about activities (Texas Hold ‘Em, kids yoga, water aerobics, Trivia Night tonight, pig roast on a beach, music festival in town, a six year old's birthday party on the beach), an opportunity for people to ask for help with something (today there were requests for help with a watermaker, starting battery, leaky dinghy and refrigerator), an opportunity for people to offer for trade or giveaway items they want to get off their boat (we picked up a free cruising guide to Turks & Caicos yesterday) and a welcome to newcomers and farewell to those leaving that day. We went on a loosely organized 3-1/2 hour hike a few days ago, went to beach church today, attended a medical safety onboard talk by a retired doctor, and attended a talk by an older Bahamian about the history of the Bahamas. You could stay busy doing activities all day if you liked and most of them are free or very inexpensive as they are run mostly by volunteers.
Beach church with about 100 cruisers attending
Pictures from our hike
We paused on this beach to have lunch and take a rest during our hike.
We took a detour to see "The Butt Tree"
The community is very supportive of each other so people feel safe here. There is really no crime, at least not on the boats or beaches (we leave the boat unlocked when we leave it). Kids have a lot of autonomy using dinghies to go visit friends, go snorkeling or some other activity. They call each other on the VHF radio using correct protocol. There are lots of adults keeping an eye out for them. The other day someone announced on the radio that there were some kids in a dinghy with apparent engine trouble. It was really blowing and they could have quickly gotten into trouble. Someone hopped in their dinghy and went and helped them. There are many families who cruise full time raising their kids on their boats. The kids all quickly find the other kid boats! The boat anchored next to us has two kids. The older one is always off in the dinghy. Sometimes the parents “drive them” and drop them off so they can still have a “car” for themselves.
The other day we went out in the dinghy in the middle of the afternoon to go pick up our free cruising guide from another boat. We ended up stopping by a friend’s boat to chat. He invited us aboard where we enjoyed some fresh guacamole, drinks and good conversation and before we knew it it was 8:30pm and very dark out. We hopped into our dinghy and motored through the waves in the dark looking for our boat. Of course our boat was at the opposite end of the harbor and the wind had kicked up and the water was pretty rough so we got very wet. Since we hadn’t planned on being out long, we hadn’t closed up the hatches in case of rain (luckily it didn’t) or turned on the anchor light or any lights to help us find our boat in the 200 boat field in the dark. Luckily our friend had gifted us with a small flashlight because we hadn’t brought one. We missed our boat the first time through the field and circled back looking for any of the boats near us that we might recognize. It was so dark that even when we were very close to our boat we had trouble seeing it, but we did eventually make it home wet and cold!
A view of part of the anchorage with boats as far as you can see.
If the wind is blowing hard, we don these lovely plastic ponchos to try to stay dry on our dinghy ride into town.