Day 239   Sunday, February 16^th – a busy day

We wake up, yes, to another beautiful day and it is even better as we learn something right off.  We are anchored in Thompson Bay, Long Island and are scheduled to listen to the local cruiser net, which is on channel 18.  The only problem is that we can hear the call on 16 for the start of the net but cannot hear anything on boat’s VHF ch 18.  Dawson grabs the hand held and we listen that way.  After the show we look to see what the issue is, it turns out that there is a ch 18A and ch 18D dependent if you use international or US channels.  Well all this time we have been on international as we had assumed we are international being in the Bahamas but not so, everyone is on US.  This makes for an excellent start today as we have learned something.

After the net we do some planning for the day and come up with a full agenda, all to start after lunch.   Before lunch Julie does her French lessons and cleans up the boat while Dawson heads to shore for a run.  The cruisers guide recommended a run along the road to Indian Hole Point, it is not a bad run (8 kms) but nothing to compared to the beach run Dawson has been doing along the Beach of Stocking Island.

After a quick lunch we head to shore to drop off our garbage, check out the local cave, do some snorkeling on the Atlantic side, and then check out the wrecks in the bay, a very busy agenda.  We land at the dinghy dock at Island Breeze the local resort, drop the garbage off at large bins provided for us cruisers and get the direction to the cave. 

Julie in front of cave entrance

Turns out access to the cave is best by dinghy so we move up to the cave. The cave is small consisting of one big room, although we did not do a full explore so there could be an opening to a deeper portion that we did not see.  Having no lights and not being a spelunker, we just duck in.  It is neat, worth the 5 min stop.  

View inside cave

Dawson en route to the Atlantic Beach

From here we head back to Island Breeze dock for the hike to the Atlantic side of the island and some snorkeling.  The walk was reported to be about 10 mins from the net but turns out to be more like 20 mins but is worth the walk.  The road for the 1^st part is partially paved; more gravel than paved but still provides a spot for two young girls to skate board.  We ask how the ride was and their reply is “good but lots of vibrations”.

The beach provides some excellent views and a small bay for a swim.  We go for a snorkel to see if there are any lobsters, Dawson now being the proud owner of a pole spear.  But the ocean is too rough to get to the outer reefs and there is nothing to see in the reef just off the beach.  Oh well it was a nice swim.  We speak to two other cruising couples who are enjoying the beach and realize that we had met one of the couples earlier in Hope Town in the Abacos.  The cruising world is a small community with everyone traveling the same route more or less.  We take a hike up the beach and find a small cave making it a two cave day, not very often that happens.

View south along beach

Julie in sea cave

Beach garbage and beach plant 

Sand Sculpture by wind and water

We hike back to the dinghy around 2:30 and go out to check out the wrecks in the harbour.  They are there but not too exciting, more like boats left to sink on their moorings than a “wreck”.  The largest one has an Osprey nest on the top of the loading arm.  

After a full afternoon we are back on the boat just in time to be informed by Sue and Dave that there is a Cruisers Sundowner meeting on the beach at 4:30.  We made it back from our adventures just in time as it is now 4:15.

Sundowner beach after the arrivals of the "bugs"

At 4:30 we are heading to shore drinks in hand and some pretzels and hummus for the snack table.  It is a large gathering as there are about 25 boats at anchor and most people attending.  There are a large contingency of Canadians.  One fellow Bill, boat AFTICA, we confirm that we had anchored beside him in Clapperton Harbour in the North Channel back in July of last year.  As I said earlier the cruising world is a small one.  Around 6 the mosquitoes and No Seems come out so that we are all driven back to the boats by ~6:45.

Back on board we cancel supper due to the excellent grazing that was at the get together, we spend the evening watching slide shows of our last years worth of adventure (as we have now been travelling over a year having departed Feb. 7^th for our Canadian west driving holiday),  coffee and a little reading and we are off to bed. 

another end of the day

Another excellent day on the adventure.

Cheers

Dawson and Julie