06Mar

George Town Cruisers Regatta

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These last 2 weeks have been the highlight of the adventure so far. We signed up for 2 races, the coconut challenge, and we watched a lot of the other events during the 10 days of this Regatta. I think I mentioned that every morning we have the net, it’s a VHF radio show hosted by Herman, a cruiser who has been here in GT at least 6 months, he starts the morning with the weather, then opens it up for local businesses to advertise their daily specials, then we have the daily activities such a bocce ball, yoga, volley ball the list goes on. If you need help fixing something or information about all most anything you can chat with the community and folks will bend over backwards to help. It seems it’s the let’s-try-that events are really the most fun. On the net someone suggested a dinghy raftup around 4-ish bring something to share. By 5 o’clock out in the middle of Elizabeth Harbour we had 46 dinghies tied together with over 100 people sharing stories, telling jokes, introducing each other and just having a grand old time. Then there was the softball game under the lights, locals against the cruisers, what a hoot, several times the ump had to take time out to get another beer, it was a very loop-sided victory for the Bahamians 33 to 10, the game ended when all the softballs were knocked out of the park!

We signed up for the Coconut Challenge which sounded like fun but was actually hard work. You and your crew of 3 (total of 4) had to propel  your dinghy with single flipper each, they dumped hundreds of coconuts into the water and you had to paddle out fending off the other boats and scoop up the coconuts from the water and place them in the bottom. After about half an hour all the coconuts were recovered, everyone was exhausted and our team did not win but we had a great day. The next day was the around Stocking Island sailboat race, we crewed for Dan and Melissa on Slow Dancing. What a beautiful sail, perfect winds, and great friends unfortunately we did not win our class but Dan caught 2 Barracuda on Exuma Sound. We were in communication with the race committee giving them all the details and they were relaying this and other stories and experiences other crew were having, this was broadcast to anyone who wanted to hear who was winning etc. After that race we wanted to go the awards ceremony and dinner at St Francis Resort but by 5 o’clock the winds were blowing 25 knots and climbing we did not feel comfortable leaving the boat in these big winds, not to mention the dinghy ride back to the boat after.  Someone said they clocked gusts to 38, that’s about what we experienced in Hurricane Sandy not so long ago, only during Sandy we were securely tied to a dock out here we were on anchor along with 300 other boats!

Yesterday we did the in harbor race on Shadowfax with Dan and Melissa as crew. I think we enjoyed the other race better, this was pretty light winds and we did not do as well as I would have liked, but a Tartan 37 just like Shadowfax won their class and came in 2nd overall. Not bad for a 30 plus year old boat. A great party again at St Francis and of course the winners and runners up were celebrating big time.

Now the regatta is over and people are starting to leave, some starting their return to Florida and north; others heading south for more new adventures.  We will head to Long Island (not New York), there is a rally to there after the weather settles down a little maybe next week.

Pictures to follow.

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