Lee Stocking

Lee Stocking was an interesting place.  It was like us going through Jurassic Park and waiting to find velociraptors just around the corner!  It was also like walking the streets of an armeggedan movie and we were the last 2 people alive on the planet!

This used to be the Perry Marine Life Research Center.  About 4 years ago the Bahamian Government stopped their funding and everyone left the island.  The amazing thing was they left everything behind - computers, furniture, their research, etc.  It has deteriorated a lot in such a short time!

At the present time, most of the buildings have been gutted out and there is "junk" in heaps around the property.  Some stuff still remains and it's eerie to walk in these buildings and see remnants of a past life.  There was a lobster research room and it still had a dozen or so aquariums (minus the water and lobsters) and there was a white board with their scientific notes still written on it.   The copper wiring was taken out of all the structures. 

There were some empty houses, a dormitory, a social hall and a commissary around the area.  It did look like there was starting to be some renovation, there was some fresh paint on the walls of a structure.  Rumor has it that all of this is going to be knocked down and something will be developed there - all speculation though.  Ed and I are guessing that maybe a resort will be put there.  We figure that the sprucing up of some of the buildings will be for the workers on the new project.  Time will tell!

Lobster Research Room

Small House with Furniture left

One of the Piles of "Junk"

The flora of the area......

 I was fascinated by this very large Yucca looking plant!  The leaves, as you can see from this photo, were as tall as me!  In the picture below you can see what grows from the middle of this plant.  A very, very tall stem with leaves at the top.  I was wondering if it flowers.
 

Animal life.........

Night Heron

Every island we were on had lizards - some large some, like this one, small!

























Some of the Landscape.......

It was a fairly scenic
island, but the dilapidated buildings and the piles of "junk" detracted from it's natural beauty.

Old Runway

I thought this was so neat - a light pattern on the water

Next adventure.........Little Farmer's Cay........

Bye, Georgetown.........

After 1 week past our "planned' departure from Georgetown, we left it all behind and motored on our trek back North.  Georgetown was our stopping point in the Great Exumas.  Ed and I have been in the Bahamas for 7 weeks now and are still amazed that we made it here and that it's been that long a time!  

We spent our last day there doing a lot of prepping for the next leg of our journey.  We moved the boat on Wednesday afternoon (we have gotten the anchoring down to a fine art now) closer to the entrance to Georgetown.  This way we wouldn't have a long dinghy ride carrying supplies back and forth to the boat.  Being in a dinghy in strong current is a very wet ride!  So on Thursday, we loaded up our 2 - 5 gal. water jugs and 3 small ones in the dinghy leaving just enough room for us, and off we went under the bridge to the dinghy dock.  In this direction, we don't get as wet.  We had to wait behind other people in their dinghies to get water.  It's a nice place to chat with others!  Brought the jugs back to the boat, emptied them in the boat's tanks and repeated this process.  This time though, while Ed was filling up the water jugs, I went to the market and re-provisioned with some fresh veggies and eggs.  This time we had all the jugs and a large dry bag backpack full of food to dinghy back!  With this chore done, it was time to put all the food away, eat lunch, and this time load up all the jerry jugs for gas on the dinghy.  This time we had 3 large containers.  This only required 1 trip, fortunately!  The dinghy was so overloaded that Ed was stuck in the dinghy and couldn't get out with all the gas jugs on him!  I "rescued" him quickly!  This took the morning and part of the afternoon.  I've been wanting to strengthen my arm muscles - and all of this gave me a good workout!  

Our time to play came next.  We went back to town and met a couple of friends we ran into in Georgetown whom we first met at Warderick Wells. 

Phoebe (Her husband took the pic)

Now that the Cruising Regatta is over, the next activity planned is the Music Fest.  Saturday night is the big night with their big bands coming, and lots of good food!  We did stop in to get an order of Conch Fritters.  Very tasty - not too many conch in it though.  We took a bit of a hike around the town and then back to our respective boats.  It was nice getting together with Ron and Phoebe.  We had them over for dinner the night before and really enjoyed their company.

We were originally going to go North by exploring Cat Cay, the Eleuthera and the Abaco Islands - the Out Islands of the Bahamas.  For the sake of time we decided to turn back around and see some of the islands that we missed due to the weather.  Down the line we will go North to the Abacos and then back to the States.  If all goes as "planned" we will go back to Ft. Pierce, Fl and then up the ICW to home.  Our goal is to be home by June 1.

We are in Lee Stocking Island now.  There used to be a research center here - Perry Institute for Marine Science.  At some point the Government stopped the funding of the research, so everyone in the center left leaving everything behind!  We will take the dinghy in tomorrow morning and explore the remains of the buildings on the island.  

The area is absolutely beautiful (guess you figured out that I think everywhere here is beautiful!).  I am looking forward to seeing where a good place to snorkel is, and I just may bring my spear and try my hand at fishing with it. People have told me that there is conch to be had around here.  The only place I have seen enough conch was in Warderick Wells where there was a no hunting rule - being it's in the Exuma Land and Sea Park!  

 

These are just a couple of photos for now of the surrounding area at Lee Stocking.  







Tomorrow.............wonder what we'll see?...........stay tune!

Georgetown #2 - WIND......and lots of it!!!!

I am sitting at our Dining Room table sitting out a series of squalls and high winds. It is absolutely amazing listening to all the broadcasts for boaters on the condition of the weather. The beauty of it is their accuracy. I know of at least 3 different ones around and I am sure there are more. One in-particular one that we listen to faithfully tends to be very cautious. For example, he predicted about 40 knot winds today and it didn't go over 30-35 knots at the highest. It's better to be cautious. We weathered out this mornings squalls beautifully and I pray that this hold up through the rest of the afternoon and tonight. The wind is supposed to increase again tonight.

There were a few emergencies this morning around the harbour. One woman, who was alone on her boat, was on the radio asking for help when her stacile broke and she was about to lose her sail. Several people went over to her boat to help her out. There were several boats who's anchors let loose and their boats started moving and were in danger of bumping into other boats. Fortunately, they were able to reset their anchors. One of the dragging boats didn't even have anyone on board and was moving on it's own.  Right now all is set and hopefully will remain so! I love how the giving and caring spirit is all around us! People are always willing to help those in need! The other day I did watch someone's anchor break loose and was freely moving on it's own with no one on board and the owners could not be reached. Several people got on their dinghy's and surrounded the boat keeping it from hitting other boats and someone went on board and reset the anchor. All ended well. I had never seen this happen before. I was glad to see what needed to be done.

Our boat is very sturdy and I feel safe on it. It was kind of scary, though, this morning hearing all the wind roaring, the emergencies around us, the rocking from side to side, and the ever present thought and awareness that our anchor could let loose. Ed has an app on his phone that will sound off if it does let loose and we'll be able to handle the problem quickly.  Hopefully, we will weather the storm well through the night!

This is what our water looked liked all day Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday.  Saturday night turned out to be a wild and windy night.  About 35 knot winds causing lots of noise, rolling and rocking of the boat and the need to an anchor watch through the night. 

At one point, our GPS displayed that we had dragged our anchor.  We ran out of the cabin and let out more scope which proceeded to alarm the boat next to us because we got way too close to it.  It turned out that our GPS "fooled" us and was inaccurate in it's reading - our anchor did not drag at all.  Ed reset the GPS and it showed we hadn't moved at all!  My heart was almost beating out of my chest!  My body was on high alert after this, and during our
anchor watch of getting up every hour to check the anchor I just couldn't sleep in-between the checks.   Ed was able to sleep in-between - not fair!  So, needless to say, I was a sleepy sailor on Sunday!
There were quite a few boats who dragged.  There was one not too far from us that dragged and I watched the boat next to us flash lights at them, sound their air horn at them and tried to hail them on the radio.  It took a while to wake them up to let them know their anchor let loose.  They were successful.  That boat was anchored safely further up.  This morning they moved their boat somewhere else.

This weather is supposed to last for the next 3 days. We won't be leaving Georgetown before Thursday because of it. It's no fun or safe to sail in high choppy waves!

 

Georgetown, Bahamas #1

It is amazing to me that we have reached Georgetown already!  We are half way through our trip!  It's been a whirlwind of adventures, events, challenges, stress and sheer joy all wrapped up in one!  I am making a list of things I want to do differently when we make this trip again.  The biggest item on my list is a better dinghy.  Nothing fancy, just one that will take us further than our present dinghy.  We tried our hand at a scavenger hunt today, but the questions led us to other parts of the island that our dinghy just wasn't up to.  Needless to say, we came in last. (Too bad - 1st, 2nd, 3rd place won a bottle of rum!)

-

Very happy to have made it this far! 

 

This is what we saw when we arrived in the harbour  -  lots and lots of boats everywhere we looked!  The count, as of the 27th, was 307 boats-give or take!

This is monument beach where we anchored for a few nights.

 

This is about what it looks like at night - my phone camera couldn't quite capture the beauty of 307 mast lights!

We happened to arrive at the Regatta time of year.  It is a period of 2 weeks where there are several types of boat races and activities for those not in a race. Some of these activities are fun and regulation volleyball games, sand golf, bocce ball, games, painting coconuts and crafts, parties, costume contest, door prizes, and award ceremonies.  There is never a dull moment here!  All the activities and events are broadcast over the radio by a volunteer so everyone knows what is going on.

Bocce Ball - We did not get to Georgetown early enough to register to play.

The playoff game of Fun Volleyball

The costume contest was a great hit!  The theme was castaway, Robinson Cruso, Gilligan's Island, etc.

Gilligan

One of the Mary Ann's

2 "Ginger's"

The Professor

Most Creative!

Captain

Wilson

Mr. and Mrs. Howell

  There was a beach where a lot of activities happened.  It was called Chat 'N' Chill.  They had a bar there that served delicious food and drinks.  
                              

  Inside the Chat and Chill Bar 

Conch Bar

Outside View of the Bar

He just bought 3 large lobsters

Chat and Chill Beach towards Dusk

One of a few Rays that swim along the Chat and Chill beach looking for the fish man to throw them some food.  They come right up to your feet then quickly turn away when you don't have food for them.  I was able to pet them and they are so soft. 

 




A starfish found in the water where the rays are.







 The town of Georgetown.....

Public Library

Straw Market

Carving outside the Primary School - Given to the school by the Regatta 2014

Administration Office

Clothing and Bahama Crafts Shop

        Flora around town

Panoramic of the harbor from the town

Another view of the harbor from town

Lake Victoria - this is behind the harbor - To get there we needed to dinghy under a short bridge.  This was our only way to get to town.  Going into it, the tide was with us and we surfed through.  On the way back the tide was against us and it was like a flume ride at an amusement park - we got just as wet, if not more so!

Flora along the shoreline of Lake Victoria

Plaque outside the hotel Peace and Plenty.  This was where they had the awards ceremony for the sailboat races.  After the ceremony there was a Rake and Scrape session where they had music along with serving delicious dinners.

This has been a very interesting island.  Very different from all the rest.  Definitely the largest amount of boats in one place!  The journey to town was a long one by a small dinghy like ours, so we would move Dolce Vita to a part of the harbor that is closer to the bridge leading to town and then dinghy under the bridge and dock at the dinghy dock next to the Exuma Market.  

There has been a lot of moving of the boat and re-anchoring in different areas besides wanting to get closer to the other side.  We were trying to get closer to the Chat and Chill Beach today.  We did anchor there but it was only good for a short while.  It was too crowded to stay the night, especially with a storm coming tomorrow.  We couldn't let out enough of the anchor rhode to be safe, so we got the anchor out and tried further north.  With it now dark, it made the journey slow and uncertain!  We found a spot and as soon as the anchor dropped down the man on the boat next to us thought we were too close.  He didn't agree with Ed about 100' feet of rhode being enough!   So, we pulled anchor again went even further North.  We finally found a spot for the night and anchored.  We'll check to see how we like it in the morning!   We've never anchored and re-anchored as many times as we have tonight!  I usually drop the anchor and Ed pulls it up as it is heavier than I can handle.  I have found a way to pull it up without too much trouble, so I do this job if the anchor hasn't been set too deep.  Hope to develop some muscle power in my arms on this trip!

We will be here for another week it seems because there are strong winds coming tomorrow.