I think it was night three of our five and a half day ocean passage from the BVI to the Bahamas that we were hailed by a tugboat.

Tugboat Defender’s captain wanted to know our intentions (if we were planning on changing course or anything as he passed us a few miles off our port side). It was important because between the tug boat, the barge being towed and the line that connected them, there were about 2 km of stuff for us to worry about. We told him our course, speed and that we’d maintain our heading for the foreseeable future.

Once business was done, he and Phill just shot the breeze for a while. The tugboat had left San Juan PR two days before and was headed for Jacksonville FL. When he asked where we were going, Phill said “Long Island”.

“Whoooooeeee. You gotta long boat ride aheada ya!!” He thought we were headed to Long Island, New York.

“Oh, sorry. Not that Long Island – we’re going to Long Island, Bahamas”.

We’ve never been to Long Island, New York, but we really like the one in the Bahamas. It was originally known by the Lucayan name “Yuma”, then renamed “Fernandina” by Christopher Columbus (believed to be his third stop on the 1492 voyage to the new world), then once again renamed, unimaginatively, “Long Island” supposedly after Loyalist settlers observed how long it took to sail the length of it (the island is 128 km long and 6 km at it’s widest).

We spent six days there, getting rested up from the passage, replenishing our water, and touring around.

Here are a few pictures from the beach at Calabash Bay (where we were anchored) on the west side of the island, just south of Cape Santa Maria.

The day after we arrived, we rented a car from Omar’s Car Rental at the Cape Santa Maria Resort, and drove to customs to clear in. We were pretty hungry after that, so we stopped at the Stella Maris Resort for lunch a couple of Kaliks.

We toured around the resort. The grounds and ocean side waterfront were very extensive. The resort was founded by a German guy and is still very popular among Germans today.

Then we got busy hauling water, fuel and groceries (the fun was over for a while).

We decided to reward ourselves for the successful passage and all the hard work hauling heavy stuff with dinner out at the Cape Santa Maria Club.

We kept the car a second day so we could do some sight-seeing the next day. We drove to Morris Plantation, built by John & Susanna Morris in 1780’s. They lost their four year old daughter to some sort of fever, and built this pyramid tomb for her.

The Morris Blue Hole was about a quarter mile down the road from the tomb…

We kept driving south, and saw an interesting roadside tiki hut in Deadman’s Cay, where we stopped for lunch.

Gary (the “Max” in Max Conch Bar) makes a great conch salad.

We chatted with Gary & Shannon for a while, then got back on the road to Clarence Town, Long Island’s capital. There are two twin-tower churches there, each built on its own hill. They were both designed by the same guy, John Hawes. He built the first one while he was an Anglican…

Then built another one after he converted to Catholicism.

Gary from Max Conch Bar told us about a nice natural swimming pool on the windward side of the island, and gave us directions for how to get there. We stopped in as we left Clarence Town.

We picked up a few more provisions, then made our way back to Calabash Bay and the boat.

The next day we decided to have a beach day (very rare for us). So we packed up a cooler, a beach blanket and some reading material and found a spot under some casuarina pines. Phill went foraging for coconuts, found three and made us some Coco Locos (maybe I’ll tell you about Coco Locos later – let’s just say it’s an aptly-named drink).

Not long after we were settled, a guy from one of the boats anchored nearby swam over and introduced himself. We spent a good chunk of the afternoon with Ben, a retired mathematician, originally from Boston, who spends his winters single-handing his way through the Caribbean & Bahamas, and his summers back home in New Jersey where he and his wife own a gym. Very interesting guy.

Between Bill the Kentucky Toxicologist and Ben the Boston Mathematician, we’ve gained some great seamanhip and passage-making advice from single-handers.

Long Island was a fun stop for us, and we left somewhat reluctantly on April 17th to make our way over to Georgetown, Great Exuma. The 60th annual National Family Island Regatta starts tomorrow, so we’ll probably stick around for another day or two to see a few of the races.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know we’d be staying a few more days when I was walking here a couple of hours ago. Linton, a skipper who has three boats competing in the regatta (two in class C and one in class B) said “Hey lady!. You live on a sailboat?” (I think it was the Sea Line dry bag I was carrying that gave it away). I said “Yep, we’re just anchored out in the harbour.”, then he said “So you sail?”, I said “Yes”, and he said “You want to crew on one of my boats tomorrow?”.

I was pretty excited about the idea, but I really thought we’d be leaving, so I said, thanks, but we’re leaving tomorrow, and he said “WHAT! You’re less than a day away from the National Family Island Regatta and you’re leaving tomorrow??? That’s crazy. How can you miss it when it starts tomorrow?”

Anyhow, I blew my chance to crew on one of the boats (boo!), but it turns out we’re staying for the race (yay!). To be honest, I’m a bit relieved I’m not going to crew…check out these boats! I woudn’t know what to do, and I’m pretty clumsy at the best of times. I’d probably fall in or something.

Maybe we’ll take some kite cam pics of the race – I’ll tell you all about it next time…

‘Til then.