Making Waves - Living the Dream on S/V BETULA: George Town Bahamas

We have been in George Town for a couple of weeks now. This is as far as we had planned on cruising this season, and we are not sorry we came here. George Town is a very easy place to hang out, the days just fly by, and you don't know where the time went. There is a great grocery store, liquor store, free water, gas and diesel, restaurants, a hardware store, a barber (more about THAT later) and an extensive cruisers network, here to make your every day life easy and enjoyable. No wonder many of the cruisers sail down here as quickly as possible, throw down the hook (anchor), and never move all winter until it's time to return back north. Some cruisers are very protective of "their spots", and don't even go for day sails or short trips, in fear of loosing "their spots". We heard this story (not sure if it is true), where a long time GT cruiser left his spot for a bit, and a little while later, another cruiser, unaware of the situation, dared to move into this very spot. Well, apparently some boats around that spot hailed this poor guy on the radio to inform him he could not anchor there, because this was "soandso's spot"!!! Hilarious!!!

Anyways, we don't mind giving up "our" spot, so we have gone out for day sails, to try our luck at fishing. GT is so big, you can always find another spot to anchor. And besides, we can always use the extra practise.

I promised you the story about the barber. Well, I needed a bit of a trim, so we went "to town" in search of a hair salon. First one we saw said barber and beauty salon. We go in to inquire, the hair salon lady was out but the barber was in. I agreed to let him cut my hair, big mistake. I walked out of there looking like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, thank god for baseball caps!

The big event down here is the George Town Cruisers Regatta, held at the end of Feb/early March. We won't be here to watch as we will be on our way back to Nassau to pick up my mom, who's going to join us for the rest of the trip. But it is fun listening in on the daily 8AM cruisers net, where they announce all the many things that go on here in the harbour: water aerobics, yoga, volleyball, conch horn making and blowing, baseball, lectures by a local on Bahamas history, AA, poker tournaments, trivia contests, Ukulele practice, Sunday morning beach church, bridge games, the list goes on ad on and then of course all things Regatta. So far we've only gone to listen to the lecture on the history of Bahamas, but I am sure if I stayed here long enough, I would get involved in some of the other activities.

Another thing I really think is cool: everybody is always ready to give a helping hand (unless of course, you pissed them off by stealing "their" spot, LOL) - On the morning net, you can ask for help if you need something specific, and some other cruiser might have just the part or expertise on something that broke on your boat. Another One thing that happened recently still stands out in my mind (and it has a happy ending): during the net, this cruiser comes on, and you could hear the panic in her voice: our cat, we can't find her, we looked everywhere, we think she fell in to the water, please everyone who's anchored at Monument Beach, have a look out by your boats, if you can help us find her. I am telling you, before she was done talking on the radio, I could see at least 20 dinghies in the water, scouring the whole anchorage, looking for this cat. (we were anchored at Monument Beach) They did find her later, she was hidden somewhere on the boat, but this shows the support and help available, if anything goes wrong.

We did go a bit further than George Town, but that's for my next post...

George Town, Elizabeth Harbour, Monument Beach Anchorage. There are various places to anchor, the most popular one is called Chat N'Chill, then there is Sand Dollar, and Kidd's Cove named after Captain Kidd the Pirate, to name a few. When we first arrived, they counted around 198 cruising boats, but by now, there are over 300 boats. We are told, that back before the big financial crisis (2008) there were over 700 boats down here ...

Downtown George Town, famous dinghy dock. It is difficult to find a spot to tie up your dinghy, everybody is getting groceries or doing laundry or buying beer (very important).

The building you see there is THE grocery store most cruisers shop at.

We spot the "Beauty Salon"! I only just saw the name of the store now ...

And here is the artist at work!!! I am still smiling at this point ...

To cheer me up, I do retail therapy! Proceeds from the sale of Cruising Regatta shirts, hats and bags, goes towards supporting the local youth sailing club and other Exuma Island Charities. I am keeping the hat on for a bit :)

It's not all fun and games, people! Sometimes, we do work, like here, at the local laundromat. This is the morning after the wind blew pretty hard for a few days and nobody could go anywhere. First opportunity, and everybody is out and about. It took a couple of hours to get my 3 loads done, we all had to wait our turn. Very organized.

The next few pictures are buildings around George Town, I like all the signs and colours ...

Here we have the all important 700 wines & spirits...

Another beauty salon, but too late for me, damage was done...

Local hardware store, got everything under the sun...

and of course, the PINK police headquarters

The most famous dish in the Bahamas is of course Conch Salad, every town or even the smallest settlement will have a Conch Stand ...

If you are tired of all the hubub in town, you take your dinghy, and within 5 minutes, you can get to deserted beaches like the ones below...

Warren made friends with a local youth, and the two of them have gone out fishing several times. This is the catch they brought back last time...

Warren and I fell in love with this boat. (It's a Vagabond 47)

So we went there to ask the owners about it and tell them how much we loved their boat, next thing we know, they invited us for a sundowner party the next day, and oh what fun we had ...