Georgetown on Great Exuma Island

On April 19, 2015 we departed for Georgetown on Great Exuma Island, a short 12.5 mile trip in the Atlantic Ocean to the entrance to Elizabeth Harbor.  Elizabeth Harbor is a waterway about 9 miles long and almost 2 miles wide which separates Great Exuma Island from Stocking Island providing good anchorages on both sides.  We anchored in Gaviota Bay near Volleyball Beach where cruisers and tourists gather daily for activities and socializing.  The 62^nd Family Island Regatta, the America’s Cup of all the classic Bahamian workboat races, and one of the few remaining old time “Camp Town Race” type of expositions in North America took place during our stay.  These boats and sails are hand made by the Bahamians and this race started in 1953.  Almost every island in the Bahamas is represented with boats loaded on ships and brought in to Georgetown just days before the first race.  Each race is started with the boat at anchor and when the gun goes off, the anchors are raised and the sails are raised.  There are long boards that can be switched from one side to the other for the crew to get out on the boards and act as ballast.  There were several times where the boats raced right through our boats at anchorage.  Quite different from sailboat racing in the United States.  On the last day is a parade with the Exuma Youth Marching Band and the Royal Bahamas Police Marching Band.  The celebration is also called a Bahamas Junkanoo with music and dancing and goes on most of the night till the very early hours in the morning.  We had a strong thunderstorm with amazing lightening and with 40 knot gusts.  We tried to capture this storm with our camera, but the pictures don’t really portray the beauty and severity of the storm.