One night Amber Isle had us, Pirate, First Look, Orega, and Bob on Barefootin’ over for Happy Hour. The food was “heavy hor dourves” and it was certainly that! A good time was had by all as Valt of Amber Isle welcomed us to “Fantasy Island” as we arrived.
Valt and Sandy our hosts on Amber Isle
Bob and Vicky of First Look visiting Amber Isle
Sandy of Amber Isle, Janie on the Conch Horn, and Jim of Pirate
Chris and Irena of Orega
Bob, Bob on First Look, Bob on Barefootin', Valt on Amber Isle, Chris on Orega, and Jim on Pirate in front all on Amber Isle.
Sunset on Amber Isle
On Easter, we had Victoria Gaye, Gigi’s Island, Aly Cat, and Cary on Moonbeam (his wife is still back in the states), over for a wonderful dinner. We supplied the ham from the Exuma Market and it was a really nice one, others provided green beans, mac and cheese, salad with all sorts of fixings, and potato salad. For desert, Vic brought homemade ice cream, Vicki brought a pecan pie she made and Bob did a cheesecake. No one left hungry for sure!
Gigi, Penny, and Vicki on Easter Sunday
Caroline, daughter of Lew and Allison on Aly Cat
We watched all the boats arrive for the regatta, some coming by mail boat, while some being towed by fishing boats. The Staniel Cay boats are towed in by “Amazing Grace” a salvage boat from Sampson Cay, a neighboring island.
Mail boat arriving loaded with boats for the regatta from other islands.
Close up for the passengers on the mail boat.
Lady Sonya practicing in the harbor a day before the race.
The races start on Wednesday with the Governor’s Cup, Commodore’s Cup races for the three classes of boats. There are three classes of boats, A (largest boat at 28 feet), then slightly smaller B class and the smallest boats or C/D classes. Because we get around to many of the islands that have boats that race in the regatta, we have gotten to know many of the boat captains and crews. That certainly makes it more interesting, but it also makes it hard to know who to root for!
Start of the C Class race on Wednesday. The strongest racer on each boat is assigned to pull up the anchor while the next strongest racer pulls up the sails to get underway.
Lady Sonya rounding the mark in the B Class Race
The main races occur on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The first two days rain squalls ruined watching the races close up, as well as made it more difficult for the racers! One race I spend tucked into a women’s rest room avoiding the downpour we had and missed the race.
View of the rain from the women's rest room
Friday, Pirate anchored near the windward mark and invited us several boaters to come aboard and watch the race from their fly bridge. Sandals Resort has purchased a resort on Great Exuma and they had sponsored the A Class Race. They brought their company boat down and anchored right next to Pirate for the A Class Race on Friday.
Lady Sandals from the fly bridge of Pirate
Tida Wave and Lady Muriel (both from Staniel Cay) rounding the mark.
Tida Wave rounding the mark
The guys watching the race - Bob with Bob from First Look, Jim from Pirate, Bob from Barefootin', and Vic from Gigi's Island all showing a little leg
Midway through the A Class race on Friday, the wind died to almost nothing and the race slowed to a crawl. The key is to catch whatever wind you can and keep the boat moving. We had some excitement as the low wind resulted in the boats going farther from the mark into the area where all the boats were anchored. Since the race boats have no engines, or way to stop other than dumping their sail, that meant a mad rush of boats pulling anchor to move out of the way of the race boats. Luckily, Pirate did not have to move. As Pirate is a 60 foot Hatteras, it would have been difficult to get that out of the way quickly.
You can see the sailing cat hustling to get underway and out of the way of the race boat. If they had been moving fast - there would have been a collision.
Vicki of Victoria Gaye with the Lauren Knowles, patriarch of the Knowles family that have built and raced most of the racing boats from Long Island. Lauren no longer races and leaves that up to his 6 sons to do. We enjoyed his commentary on the race and his wealth of information.
Lady Sonya (a B class boat that I had painted the name on two years ago) won the B Class race. This boat is owned by Buzzy Rolle and is a local Exuma island boat. The C Class race was won by Whitty K, a boat from Long Island, Termite came in second, a boat from Black Point captained by a young woman, Nioshi Rolle, The A Class race was dominated by two boats from Staniel Cay, Tida Wave and Lady Muriel, with Red Stripe, a Black Point boat coming in third. The junior class C Race was won by the Black Point boat Termite.
We had been watching the weather, and it appeared that if we did not leave on Saturday and miss the final day of the race, (and the parade and party Saturday night), we would not be able to leave George Town until Wednesday. Since we had planned to go to Cat Island and Eleuthera, we were running short of time, so we left Saturday morning following many of our friends out of the harbor.
As it turned out, we were in Staniel Cay when the “victors” returned to Staniel and the town turned out to help welcome them home and celebrate! What fun we had!
Amazing Grace, pulling Tida Wave and Lady Muriel back to Staniel - The Victor's Return!
Captain Brooks Miller on Tida Wave as she is pulled in and tied up to the Government Dock at Staniel Cay.
Junior's Cup Winner
Brooks Miller winner of A Class Race on Tida Wave
Nioshi, Second Place winner on Termite of C Class Race
No trip to Staniel is complete without stopping to visit the swimming pigs on the island of Big Major. They really do swim out for food.
We enjoyed the company of Pirate who had anchored near us and spend our last evening together by the fire pit on the beach. Jim and Janie on Pirate had spent more time at Staniel earlier in the season and had decorated the beach with some driftwood that everyone put their boat name on and had built a nice “permanent” fire pit. Luckily, it was all still in tact when they returned.
Janie starting our evening fire
New to Big Major this year, besides the swimming pigs and goats, is a family of chickens. There are always plenty of cracker crumbs left over from the cruiser's evening Happy Hours to keep them fed.
Bob fighting off the chickens to keep them out of the crackers!
Last sunset at Big Major
Bob counted up the days we had left and made a determination that we will have to put off Cat Island and Eleuthera for yet another year in order to meet the requirements of our insurance company (to be north of Cape Hatteras by June 15th).
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