Back with Bum's Rest in Staniel Cay; No Georgetown

We met up with Bum's Rest again in Staniel Cay. No Georgetown this trip. But first, here's two days catchup:

Saturday, March 6:
We had planned to head to Georgetown this morning, but with the high winds, we decided to spend the day in Little Farmer’s Cay. What a neat little island.

We managed to find a hot spot and posted yesterday’s blog this morning, then put the motor back on the dinghy, left Jazzy on the boat and headed for shore.

At noon, we went to Ocean Cabin, paid Terry for another day’s mooring and ordered lobster salad sandwiches and fries for lunch. Ernestine, his wife, was out, so he said she would call on ch. 16 when lunch was ready.

We walked the road that circled around the island and took pictures. We saw a few cotton bushes (see photo at right).

It is a tiny community, with only 40 people living on this island, including the children. The All-Age School has a husband and wife team as teachers. She teaches the little ones, he teaches the older ones. All their supplies are delivered by boat and they take the mailboat to Georgetown to buy their clothing, shoes, etc.

When we realized we would probably need cash for lunch, Chuck took the dinghy back to the boat and I stayed and talked to the locals. Brenda was baking homemade potato bread and macaroni and cheese. So I ordered some for dinner.

About 2 p.m. our lunch was ready and we walked back to the Ocean Cabin. It was delicious and plentiful. Then we went to the Lil Harbour grocery store, attached to Brenda’s Kitchen, and bought a few things and talked to the locals. We picked up our order from Brenda and headed back to the dinghy dock where we met a group of boaters who are heading to Georgetown tomorrow: Andiamo, Southern Vectis and Naut Again. We’re going to travel with them.

Sunday, March 7:
Mother Nature wouldn’t cooperate and it looks like we’re not going to make it to Georgetown. With a three-day front coming next Friday-Sunday, we’ll liable to get stuck in Georgetown for a week or more before being able to get back to Bum’s Rest and we didn’t think it was fair to ask them to wait for us that long, so we decided to go back up north.

Winds were a steady 22 knots with higher gusts. Seas were 3-6 feet, with 2-3 feet higher swells. Andiamo decided to make a run for Georgetown. The others decided to wait another day. Andiamo is much bigger than us and we weren’t comfortable going. We decided to wait until later in the morning and head to Black Point. Around 10 a.m. we undid the mooring lines and bid farewell to Terry, Larry and our new friends on Southern Vectis.

The seas were rough, three feet and choppy. We had a reefed jib and were motor sailing. Shortly thereafter, we heard Andiamo on the radio. It was too rough for them and they only made it five miles and decided to throw the anchor and spend the night. At 22 rpms we were going 6.5 knots. It was rough, so we reefed the jib again and pulled the main about halfway. We lost speed to 5.7 knots, but it was a little smoother. Very little. I took half a Dramamine and was sipping ginger ale.

We had to pull in the jib. It was just too rough. It has a belly in it and won’t wrap right because it is stretched. Can't wait to get our new head sail when we return to the states. We couldn’t take a direct route because it was too rough and waves were splashing over the bow.

Chuck went up to wrap the jib tighter and put a line around it and a wave soaked him. Where’s the camera when I need it? Darn!

Around 11:30 a.m., we heard a faint transmission from Bum’s Rest to another boat. They were on their way to Staniel Cay, so we decided meet them at Staniel Cay Yacht Club. We called for a reservation and dockage was available.

Our waypoints were Little Farmer’s Cay, White Point, Black Point, Harvey Cay and Staniel Cay. There was a more direct, but shallow VPR route (Visual Piloting Rules) from Black Point to South Staniel Cay to Staniel Cay, but it was too windy and choppy to get a good reading on the water, so we decided to go around Harvey Cay to play it safe.

We arrived at SCYC at 1:45 p.m. and circled in the harbor for nearly 50 minutes waiting for space at the fuel dock. We finally gave up and called for a slip assignment. We are on the opposite side of the pier from Bum’s Rest. We’ll fill the jerry cans tomorrow and top off the fuel tank. We only went 15 or so miles since emptying our jerry jugs into the tank.

We took Jazzy for a walk around the island and went to the Isles General Store, but it is closed on Sundays. We’ll go back tomorrow. They have marine supplies, groceries, gifts and a little bit of everything. There are two other grocery stores on the island: the pink store and the blue store. We walked our way around to the pink store and bought a few groceries to hold us over, including a small loaf of coconut bread.

I made pork chops with peaches in a sweet sauce over stuffing for dinner. Wayne and Patti made reservations and went up to the restaurant here. We watched Sailor while they went to dinner. Tomorrow, we may rent a golf cart to explore around the island and Wayne is snorkeling at Thunderball Cave with us. Internet is $10 for 24 hours, so I bought one pass. I’ll try to upload some photos for my Facebook friends to see.