Pretty Penny: Visit to Long Island

We had seventeen sailboats arrive from George Town on Long Island as part of a cruiser’s race. Forty boats had been expected, but many apparently decided that they did not want to tack all the way (because they were going into the wind most of the way) and did not come.

Several events were planned for the cruisers’s while they were in Long Island. One night there was a banquet at the Thompson Bay Inn by Trifinna. She held it in the courtyard instead of inside and a great time was had by all. All cruisers in the area were invited, so we attended as well. Trifinna puts on a great Bahamian food spread as you can see from the photos.

The folks on Nocturne and their guests aboard from Australia won third place in the rally. Because they were leaving the next day, they received their award at Trifinnis dinner instead.

The fine spread Trifinna put out for the group.

The next day, they had arranged for a bus tour from 9 to 2. Rather strange hours until you realize that it was on a school bus and the bus needed to bet back to take the kids home from school. We didn’t go on the trip because we will be renting a car when our friends arrive later in the month and we have done a pretty extensive exploration of the island in past years as well.

That night the they held the awards dinner at the Long Island Breeze. Ron, (the music man and organizer of the rally), was the disc jockey for the evening and played all our favorite oldies. Everybody was up dancing and having a great time. Mike, co-owner of the Breeze, said that this was the Breeze’s first “Conga line.” Jackie, the other co-owner was taking photos and we had her up on the bar dancing!
(It was also the first time Jackie danced on the bar!) What a great time.

Bob and I in our "St. Patty's Day Green" at the Rally Dinner at Long Island Breeze

Sunset from the deck of the Breeze

Sharon and Jim off Insatiable took Third Place in the sailing cat class

Rally Dinner Dance

Jackie, one of the co-owners of the Breeze dancing on the bar!

Bob took this picture of the "Super Moon" as seen in Long island

Pretty Penny and Outlandish (think it should be named "Off-landish" instead) taken from the Long Island Regatta site

Saturday, the Royal Nassau Police Band (actually not all, but a portion of the whole band), came to Long Island and did a “parade” and show. You have to understand that I use the term “parade” loosely. They did not block the main north/south road on the island, but a short one block road off that road. So that meant that they marched a block toward the water, turned around, marched back, turned around, marched back several times for an hour show.

The Royal Nassau Police Band

Band doing a turnaround maneuver

Trombone player in the band.

Drummers doing a routine where they pass their sticks while keeping the beats.

Late afternoon photo from the regatta site.

Little boys having a rock skipping contest. (Notice - no video games.)

Local woman dancing with the Band Soloist.

Following the parade, a smaller subset of the group known as their “Pop Band” did a presentation on an old basketball court. Most of the islanders turned out, as well as all the cruisers in the anchorage for the show. They did a fundraiser by selling steak, chicken, or rib dinners to all in attendance. A moon bounce was set up for the kids making it a great family outing as well. Several of the local Bahamians just could not resist the mood and danced their heart away providing us with a great floor show as well!

Sunday is a very quiet day on Long Island as the groceries close by 10:30 and the natives are all in church for the morning. Church buses travel up and down the island picking up their parishioners who do not have cars and taking them to church. The Long Island Breeze is closed as well on Sunday and Monday, giving Mike and Jackie a needed rest (although they still have guests in the cottages to take care of.) The Breeze has one building with an apartment on the top floor with two bedrooms, two units downstairs and now a new one story building with four units that seem to be booked pretty steadily. Mike and Jackie have said it is proving to be a good money-maker.

One thing we have noticed this year is some long awaited infrastructure improvements have been done, or are in the process of being completed. The government dock next to the Breeze had finally reached a point last year that it was unusable and the mailboat no longer made a stop there. They instead went to the dock at Simms, even though they had just built a new building across the street to house the material that came in until it was picked up. Most folks have to have someone ready on the dock to receive goods. There does not seem to be any theft of material left on the dock, but if it is produce or frozen items, picking up immediately is critical. Mike told us that even though the mailboat has freezers on board, they don’t use them, except to just hold the cold and frozen foods!

So now Salt Pond on Long Island has a new government dock. There is still some work to be done, along with some dredging before mailboats can use it. The Rowdy Boys Construction Company did the work and “Rowdy” is their last name.

George Town has signed a contract for a new government dock, repair of the bridge from Greater Exuma to Little Exuma (this bridge has been down to one lane for years now), and a by-pass road around George Town. Interestingly, the projects on Exuma are to be done completely by a Chinese company. The Chinese are also building a new resort on Nassau, proposed to be as big, or bigger than Atlantis on Paradise Island.

George Town is also getting a sewage plant, something they have not had and are requiring all boaters staying for the winter, to use their pump-out boat for the first time this year. Also, George Town has started a recycling program for metal and glass. Not sure what their plans are for recycling as there is no facility on island to handle it.

Sunday, we saw the exodus of most of the sailing boats that came for the rally as they head back to George Town before winds pick up on Monday. We had moved down in front of the Breeze away from main anchorage so we could make water (that part of the anchorage has fine silt that clogs the filters of watermakers). In the process, we had tried to move to reset our anchor and found that the port engine would not re-start and Bob has determined that we need a new starter. Our mechanic and his wife, Annie, jumped through hoops to get a starter to G & G Shipping before Thursday so that it would make the boat to Long Island expected to arrive on Tuesday this week. Removing the old one was quite a challenge for Bob and he is not looking forward to installing the new one. So, until we have a new starter, we are going to be anchored off the Long Island Breeze.