Day 96-101

With our friends from home gone and the boat once more to ourselves, Pete and I spent five more days in Georgetown. Officially we were waiting for the weather to change but really we were just enjoying being sedentary for a while.


We relocated across the harbor from Kidd Cove to the lee side of Stocking Island, the northern barrier of the harbor. Here were the majority of the expatriate cruising community in Georgetown. Many had not moved anchorages in several months or more. Most were retired couples. A few were younger families with children. All spent their days on the beach, in the shade of its coconut trees, playing dominoes, reading, drinking, feeding the manta rays that congregated in the shallows with conch scraps. Volleyball began promptly at 2.


Pete and I carved ourselves out an anchorage among close neighbors and the days quickly began to slide by. We explored the island with its many hills and trails, wandered over its exposed northern beaches and coves, and joined in on some surprisingly competitive beach volleyball with our retiree fellow boaters.

We slept soundly and got up late, ate big meals, read, swam, and made only nominal attempts at productivity. Out on the ocean the headwinds howled but here the waters were calm and the breeze was light. It was a lazy, listless life.



After having been more than three months underway, Pete and I were tired and homesick. The Virgin Islands, where we'd planned to leave the boat for the summer, appeared increasingly out of reach. Time for a new plan. Instead of continuing southeast through the islands we would complete a circle southwest and back up to Florida. The prevailing east winds would make for excellent sailing south along Long Island over to the Ragged Islands in the Jumentos and then across to Cuba. From there we could run east along Cuba's north coast with the wind and the current and then turn north up to Florida and back to Ft. Lauderdale.


Rested and finally bored with Stocking Island, we were ready to be off again. The wind was predicted to swing northeast just enough to permit us to reach over to Indian Hole on Long Island on a port tack. Wednesday night we made our goodbyes and stowed our gear in preparation for an early departure Thursday.