Monday 8th March, Georgetown to Black Point

The Bahamas Gods finally gave us a break from high winds and seas, or so we thought, so we left Georgetown at 7.30 this morning exactly 4 weeks after arriving there. We motored out of Elizabeth Harbor with 20 or so other sail boats. Once out past the reefs in the deeper water of Exuma Sound we were able to sail in 15 to 20k winds and seas of 3 to 4ft. The wave angle was good and we were able to use full sails, reefing only on a few occasions for 20+k gusts. We decided to head as far north as we could get in a day. Our destination was Black Point Settlement on Great Guana Cay in the central Exuma island chain. Our trip was approximately 56nm and we traveled it in just about 8 hours. The most difficult part of the trip was the last mile or so. We had to pass through a cut which was only a couple of hundred feet wide with opposing tides. It was like a maelstrom passing through with 6 ft waves throwing us from side to side. We surfed the last 100 yards of the passage and entered a completely different enviroment than we just left in Exuma sound. It is calm, quiet, and we just finished a wonderful dinner of grilled steaks, salad & potatoes.
Tomorrow we are hoping to make it back to the Exuma Land & Sea park, a place we loved on our way south 5 or 6 weeks ago. The moorings are assigned daily to boats on a wait list. We will know tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock if we have a mooring. The park makes daily announcements on the VHF radio each morning and inform boats of their assigned moorings, if they are lucky enough to get one. At the park you have to be self sufficient. Ther are no stores, trash disposal, or other services. You need to have plenty of fuel, power, and food. Our water maker has been going 2 times a week and is working great. Our freezer is still half full of meats from home so we are in good shape. Peter makes Irish Brown Bread from mixes we vacuum packed, Jane packed plenty of canned tuna, salmon, crabmeat and chicken. We have discovered that canned chicken is really good for salad, stir fry, and curry. We still have a stock of Parmalat Milk when we cant get fresh milk and it is good on cereal, baking or even drinking in a pinch. If we run out of half & half we have evaporated milk which again we can use in a pinch. It is amazing how you can cope when all the essentials we take for granted at home are not available. We have found however that we can find many items in the stores on the islands that we can buy in Ireland. Some of these are Kerry Gold butter, crackers, wheatabix, Chivers jams and marmalade, cookies and Cadbury candy and boxes of chocolates. Peter is in Heaven!!! Most regular items such as paper towels($3.02), Milk($4.77), Qt cream($5.99) etc, etc are very expensive and you leave the store with shell shock most of the time. If you cruise the Bahamas bring lots of provisions!!