Georgetown, Exumas, Bahamas

0 nm
Wind: E-SE 10-15 knots

Our families called the Royal Bahamian Defense Force. I guess they thought we were dead, or something. I feel more than a little guilty. Maybe we shouldn’t have told them it would only take us two weeks to get to Georgetown. Or we need a better way of getting in touch with them. Karl called the Bahamian Defense Force and let them know we were alive, on the cell phone that is suddently and mysteriously working.

We had a great day, though--I did laundry, which is always a great way to meet friendly Bahamian women, and Karl filled up our water tanks. We’ve also run into two groups of friends here, which is really how people get stuck in Georgetown. Our friend Adam on Eve, who we last saw in Bimini, and a couple from Arizona on a beautiful 42-foot Fountaine Pajoit catamaran named Plan B. We first heard of them on the radio when someone said, “We’re going to go to Plan B,” and we thought to ourselves, plan B? What was plan A? But we met them for the first time on Normans Cay, and now I feel like the life of the party. We have friends to hang out with, food to eat, water to drink. Life’s good. And Pegasus is due to arrive tomorrow. They ended up staying at their marina for two weeks. Even at 70 cents a foot, two weeks is an expensive marina stay. I’m glad we didn’t leave Galliot after all.

The best part of the day was hanging out at the Peace and Plenty Inn, poolside and dockside, with all our friends, and then moving to Eddie’s Edgewater, where we had a beautiful grouper finger and crack-conch dinner with french fries and a green salad. I wolfed down my salad. I never thought something would taste better than french fries, but I think that salad did. As did the conch, which tasted--I swear--as good as New England lobster. After our conch debacle the other day, I was incredulous. Those Bahamians know what to do with conch, that’s for sure.

We also have our SSB receiver in the mail, thank God, so soon we should be able to have good weather forecasting. Karl’s poking around to farmers, to find out where we can buy 100 pounds each of onions and potatoes, as well as ten dozen eggs. We’ll be set by the time we leave here. The market here is fantastic--I was in awe, wandering around, staring at the Bounty and the portabellos and the truffle oil. A real grocery store! We tried to convince Adam to come back to our boat for the night--he ended up breaking his rudder post, fixing it himself in the harbor, but then having the boat hauled by the local marina. He’s going to leave it here for the season and head back to New York to work for the man. We’re hoping he’ll return and head farther south next year. Life is good. Karl and I had a long discussion and cleared the air this morning. My claustrophobia has dissipated, and I feel happy to be in the Bahamas, happy to be alive.