Laying low and hanging out

We can’t believe it’s almost been a month since we last posted anything. Rest assured, all has been going well on board Eos. Diane and I have definitely slipped into ‘Island Time’ or ‘Cruising Time’. We kept meaning to write and post something, but sailing, swimming, hiking, or visiting with friends just kept side tracking us. So now that we find ourselves with a quiet afternoon we figured now is as good a time as any to get a quick update out there.

Right after the kids left in late February, we ran into one of our cruising buddies from the 2021 season in Staniel Cay. After a quick reunion, we made plans to meet up again later over on Cat Island and then spend a week or so cruising the Out Islands together.

It’s over a 40 mile ocean sail from the Exumas over to Cat Island so we needed to make sure we had good weather for crossing prior to heading over.

After checking several sources, it didn’t look like there would be much wind for sailing across for several days, but if we were willing to do some motoring the seas would be flat and we could have an easy crossing leaving sooner. We elected to take advantage of the light winds and smooth seas and motor across, while our friends decided to wait a few days so that they could primarily sail across. Waiting would mean higher winds and seas than Diane liked.

We actually ended up with several hours of great sailing, then a few hours of nice motor sailing and finished it off with several hours of motoring only. While it would have been ideal to sail the entire way across, crossing 40 miles of open ocean in calm seas was very nice!

While waiting for the other boats in our flotilla to arrive in Cat Island, we met some new friends. We had actually first seen this boat and couple when we arrived in the Bahamas back in January but didn’t have an opportunity to spend much time with them.

They are from my home town and it turns out that even though we didn’t know each other before, we actually went to the same high school at the same time – just ran in different groups I guess. So anyway, it was fun spending time with them and getting to know them.

Our other friends arrived a few days later and we spent a few days on the beach and in town with them.

After a few days of just hanging out, we all started making plans to move a little further south and hopefully connect with two other boats we sailed with in 2021.

The weather and longer range plans weren’t aligning for reunion. Two of the boats were intending to move much further south than we were going this season and needed to sail on the east side of Long Island. Our plans had us sailing along the west coast of the island so that we could easily move west at the end of the month. What to do?

We had a big fair well dinner at a local restaurant, told a few sea stories, wished each other safe travels and agreed to keep in touch!

The following morning we set sail for Calabash Bay on the north end of Long Island and they headed east to Rum Cay and then on to Clarencetown on the east coast of Long Island for a few days.

We had a nice sail and the two other boats we were meeting arrived at about the same time. So we were able to have a mini-reunion.

When we were in Calabash Bay back in 2021, it was right in the middle of Covid and not many people were traveling. Consequently, most of the resorts and businesses were happy to see any tourist regardless of how they arrived. Back in 2021, the resort in Calabash welcomed all cruisers, hosted happy hours with free food every evening. Free conch fritters- what more could you want?

Fast forward two years with everyone traveling again, the resorts are full of guests and need to make sure they are taking care of them. So when we went ashore for happy hour and some free fritters we saw signs around informing us that while we were welcome On the beach and could walk around, happy hour and dinner service was for resort guests only. They weren’t rude about it, just upfront that they intended to take care of paying guests before cruisers.

We did enjoy a nice lunch there the following day before heading a little further south to Thompson Bay (about 20 miles south).

While in Thompson Bay we decided to rent a car for the day, do some sightseeing and drive down to Clarencetown for the afternoon so that we could have a full reunion with our friends, even if it was only for a few hours.

After several days in Long Island, we needed to make plans for positioning ourselves in a good spot to move back west to the Exumas in a week as we have guests joining us the end of the month.

We had hoped to be able to get to the Ragged Islands for a few days this season but the weather wasn’t cooperating. The fishing and snorkeling there is supposed to be really good as most of the islands are uninhabited.

The wind and sea state forecast was marginal for getting there and questionable for returning so rather than chance it, we elected to return north to Cat Island for one more visit this season and will move over to Georgetown later this week.