We came to Georgetown at the southern end of the Exumas after our short trip to Cat Island. Georgetown is one of the most popular destinations in the Bahamas. Many Americans and Canadians make this their port to spend the winter months in the Bahamas. We mostly motored but it was a pleasant day and easy entrance to the mooring field where we rented a mooring for our first few days in Georgetown.
We arrived during the regatta, which was great timing because there were hundreds of boats there to look at and a lot of regatta activities, some sailing and some just for fun. Within days of our arrival Douglas and I became the blind dingy rowing champions of the harbor! We developed a strategy that involved him rowing, with me sitting backwards at the bow shouting either port or starboard to tell him which way to pull harder. We even practiced the night before and we smoked the competition! It was just a silly regatta game, but we won a big bottle of rum, a regatta flag and bragging rights for the rest of our lives!
The town in Georgetown was pretty basic, and the groceries were expensive and not the best quality a lot of the time. However, we did find a lot of fun things to do including renting scooters and snorkeling a lot of afternoons for an hour or two. We also went to a little cove that had many sea turtles that local tour companies feed. They were unnaturally friendly and would swim right up to your face underwater. It was cool to see them but I couldn’t help but feel like in the long run this is not the best thing for the turtles. Best of all we hung out with friends including Kathy and Larry who we had met on the river system months before!
Given the prevalent trade winds preventing us from continuing east we ended up staying in Georgetown for about a month. Georgetown is nicknamed “chicken harbor” because so many people end up getting scared off of continuing east because of those trade winds and end up never going further. We were determined to keep living the dream and continuing on, even as we said goodbye to Tony and Michelle who headed back to the US. It was so sad leaving them, they were great friends and boat buddies and I know we will be forever friends!
