Days 88, 89 & 90: Back to Black Point

Black Point Settlement to near Big Farmers Cay back to Black Point (anchored)

April 13-15, 2022

Black Point has been home base for a while – there’s a very small settlement here that seems very cruiser-friendly.  The few restaurants have good food, there’s a laundromat, and a place to dispose of trash. We also have a small group of boat buddies here.

I have been able to find strong enough internet on the island to allow me to complete a few Zoom calls.  It’s not strong enough on Lailia and we’re not able to get a sim card for the other internet provider – the stores are closed for Good Friday and are not open on the weekends.

Yesterday we met up with our boat buddies for happy hour and dinner.  The guys talk about a lot of mechanical stuff (gotta fix what broken) along with whatever guys always talk about.  The women talk about washing our hair in the sink and the things we miss about living at home (and whatever else women talk about).  We’ve come to the conclusion that, for us at least, the men are living their adventure dreams while we women are along for the ride.

We have been planning to go to Georgetown which is a large area off Grand Exuma.  It’s a very popular place for cruisers as well as vacationers who fly in.  Our hope was to anchor there so I can get good wifi and so we can reprovision Lailia.  We have heard that it can be very busy and crowded there but that cruisers will spend entire seasons there. 

We headed out today at 1:00, which is much later that usual.  While the waves were about a foot there were some that were higher.  We also had the wind on our face so we were motoring against wind and waves. 

One of our boat buddies left a few hours before we did and we planned to meet them at a marina about 15 miles from here.  We knew we would have to to carefully find our way through some shallow water to get to that marina but we were happy to be heading south.

Our boat buddies let us know they were having engine issues – they eventually just dropped anchor because the issue was not easily repairable.  We could actually see their boat BUT we couldn’t get to them because there wasn’t enough water depth.

The tide wasn’t at it lowest, in fact it was rising, but there was just no easy way to go three miles to the marina – we didn’t want to wait for high tide to find out there still wasn’t enough depth.  We dropped anchor for a bit and decided our best bet was to return to Black Point.  We know that anchorage is pretty protected and we know the depth and currents.

With a following wind (are our back) we were able to move much more quickly.  We also had our own electronic tracks to follow back.

So, we’re back to Black Point. The winds won’t make crossing over to the deeper (eastern) side of the islands comfortable for a bit and I have a three-day visit Monday through Wednesday, so we’ll make due here.  I’ll ask the cafe owner of I can pay her to use her internet for a few days. 

High winds are forecast for the end of the week.  We’re hoping we can get a slip in a marina just north of here to ride it out.

To remind us that stuff is always breaking, John will be working on fixing our windlass again.  It stopped working as we pulled anchor here today (so John had to pull up the anchor and about 80 feet of chain at our temporary anchorage this afternoon).

Our boat friends whose cooling pump seized were towed by a boat buddy of theirs so they’re in a marina.  They may have to get replacement parts flown in but everyone is safe