At Long Island, Bahamas

We left Warderick Wells after staying there one night. We went south to Cambridge Cay. We sat out a cold front there with winds in the 20-30 knot range. Once that past we explored some of the islands in the area and walked the beaches.

After six says at Cambridge we departed and headed down to Blackpoint to do laundry. Blackpoint has the best laundry facilities in the Exumas. On the way we made a quick pit stop at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club to fill our diesel tank. Filling with diesel took us about 30 minutes to get in, fill and get out. It took us another couple hours to then get down to Blackpoint where we anchored off the government dock. We loaded up the dinghy and headed over to the dinghy dock at the laundry. Sandy got that started and I headed over to Lorraine's cafe to check email. When I walked into Lorraine's it was like old home week. I knew about six couples that were there and had arrived at Blackpoint the day before. Once the emails were checked and the laundry was done we went over to happy hour at Scorpio's bar with Jerry and Barb from Kumbaya and had drinks and snacks.

We stayed a few more days at Blackpoint and went beach combing to find sea glass. Sea glass is broken glass that is washed and smoothed in the surf. When it looks frosty and is smooth it is ready to collect.

The next day we met with Jim and Bess on Destiny. They had been delayed coming across to the Bahamas from Florida do to engine problems but finally caught up to us. We left and had a great sail down to Rudder Cut Cay for an overnight anchorage before heading down to Georgetown.

The next morning we went out Rudder Cut Cay inlet at high tide for the 35 mile sail down to Georgetown. We pulled into Elizabeth Harbor and set anchor off Monument Beach on Stocking Island which is across the harbor from Georgetown.

I was hoping to find some facilities to get hydraulic parts for my auto pilot. No such luck on that one. While working on the auto pilot I discovered that the hydraulic ram arm is sucking in air so it needs to be rebuilt and have new seals put in. That won't happen until we get back to Florida.

We stayed at Georgetown for a week and then sailed the 38 miles down to Thompson Bay, Long Island. We are anchored out in the bay which has good wind protection from all but the southwest. We pln to stay here a while and if the weather is right go out to Conception Island for a few days and then return here.