Long Island back to George Town and Staniel Cay

One of our last "treats" before we left Long Island, was to go have dinner at Chez Pierre Restaurant on Millers Bay in Long Island. Pierre is a French-style chef trained in Montreal, Canada. We find his food the best we have had in the Bahamas and look forward to having a meal there.

The road to the restaurant is a rutted difficult road and we have found the best way to get there is by boat. Pierre runs a very small, 6 cottage resort with the restaurant. So, we weighed anchor and went with Bettye and Dennis on Miss Bettye, Grant and Donna on Moxie, and Tom and Cathie on Interlude. We all arrived by lunch time and after lunch, met on our boat for a game of Texas Hold'Em (of course), before all cleaning up and heading to the restaurant.

The guys - Grant, Dennis, Bob and Tom - don't they clean up nice?

View of Pretty Penny from the restaurant.

The gals - Cathie, Bettye, Donna and Penny

Bob and Penny

The group waiting for dinner.

I wish I had taken a photo of the Gorgonzola Salad that comes in a bowl the size of a washbasin and fed 4 for dinner salads, or two for entrees.

The next day Interlude and Moxie moved on North to meet up with some friends in Joes Sound on Long Island and we moved with Miss Bettye back to Thompson Bay so they could get fuel and water before we crossed back to George Town.

Miss Bettye anchoring taken from the deck of the Long Island Breeze Resort

That evening Dennis and Bettye had us over for dinner - Dennis is cooking our steaks!

Fuel boat coming in to Long Island. Long Island Breeze in the background.

A Long Island Expat's new puppy visiting the Breeze with his owner. Too cute.

Miss Bettye crossed back over with us to George Town the next day. We spent a few days there playing poker at St. francis and on the boat and visiting with the few friends that were left there. Each day, we said goodbye to more of our friends as they started their trek back to the US. Most will be back in the US by June 1st.

Get-together with Brian and Sharlene on Tonga Time and Bettye and Dennis on Miss Bettye before we played some variations on Texas Hold'em for the evening. I really liked "Omaha" as it results in hands that are usually higher on the poker hierarchy and can change drastically before the end of the betting.


Our last night in George Town we went "bar hopping" from the Exuma Yacht Club to Palm Bay Resort. At the resort, they had a live band that was really great! One of the guitarists used to play with Jimmy Hendricks and another is a brother to James Taylor. We had a great time listening with Dennis and Bettye and Cathie and Tom, among other friends we knew there as well.

Our great band for the evening at the Palm Bay Resort.

The next day, we left with Miss Bettye and headed North out of George Town. Our first night we stopped at Emerald Bay for the night in order to see our friends Rita-Kay and Clay on Carleigh before we moved North. It was great catching up with them. We had appetizers in the Crew Lounge and got to watch the NCAA semi-finals.

Our second night North of George Town, we rafted up with Miss Bettye by Musha Cay. Musha Cay is an island that had been owned by David Copperfield, although we heard he sold it this year. We watched two small passenger airplanes do touch and goes from the small airfield for the island.


We had to pass a spot that gave us some concern as Peppa II, a sailboat that had left George Town just a week or two previously, had hit something and sunk within 20 minutes. We were on hyper alert in that area. (Two miles off of Galliut Cut in 2,000 feet of water). The owners of the boat said it rode up on something and ripped such a hole in the boat they only had time to crab a few things and through them in their dinghy, make an SOS call, and get in the dinghy before the boat sank. We spent some time talking about what was important to take and who would get it if we had a similar emergency.


Next day we made it back to Staniel Cay and anchored near our friends Pirate, No Agenda, Exodus, and Windemere. Pirate had limped back to Staniel earlier as their generator died and they had a portable replacement shipped in via Watermaker Air. They had been getting by with the portable generator and a solar shower (since they do not have hot water) until they can get back to the US and have a new generator installed. Jim said it was too old to be fixed again. At least they were able to get by and not have to do a crossing earlier than planned.


We were also able to see friends Butch and Sarah, friends that live on Staniel that we have met a couple of years ago. They had been back in the US when we were at Staniel on the way south and had finally returned. Sarah was the one who got me interested in making jewelry!

Butch and Sarah on their deck

Butch's head became "home" to this little lizard for a short time. It just didn't want to leave him!

This is the collection of glass float balls that Butch and Sarah have collected over many years. Their prize ball is one of lavender glass that was broken, but the growth from the sea had "resealed" it. They had another one that had water sealed inside with no visible sign of entry.

Butch and Sarah let me go through their huge jar of sea glass and look for pieces I could use in making sea glass jewelry. Thanks!

We experienced three mechanical problems while at Staniel that thanks to Dyrk on Renegade, Roger on RolsDoc, and our Ann our mechanics wife back in the states, we were able to get the parts needed for us to get back underway. Thanks so much to them all!

In the meantime, Dennis and Bettye (since they needed to get to Hope Town in the Abacos for a friends wedding) had to leave us when they had a weather window. Our plans are to catch up with them in Spanish Wells. Since mechanical problems slowed us down, we decided to not do all of Eleuthera, but go farther North and cross to Spanish Wells instead.

While at Staniel, we spent our afternoons enjoying happy hour on the beach each afternoon with friends.

Also enjoying happy hour on the beach were a number of chickens that grow wild on the island.

Max, Pirate's parrot spent the afternoon on the beach too!

The Captain enjoying Happy Hour!

One of the famous "swimming pigs" on Big Major came by land through the island from the beach they hang out on to spend Happy Hour with us one day.

One afternoon, two float planes came and landed in the anchorage and taxied up to Pig Beach and then took off heading over our heads right through the anchorage. Glad they made it!

One day we went to "Pig Beach" to feed the piggies. They weren't in the mood to swim out to us that day.

Sunset by Big Majors. That is Windemere to the left.

Good night!