(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

We and George Town have what you might call a love-hate relationship. For hundreds of cruisers it's a destination, the "sailor park" where they plunk down their anchor, join the social whirl, and party until it's time to turn around and head north again. There are hardware stores and laundromats and the best grocery between Nassau and the Dominican Republic. On the other hand, it can be a pain to enter or leave the harbor in rough conditions, town is a very long dink ride from the best anchorages,
and there's no snorkeling or fishing nearby.

But here's always something happening, even now after most of the cruisers have either headed back to the US or down to the Caribbean. Last night, Britt and I went to poker night at the new St. Francis resortlet on Stocking Island - the skinny island that forms the northeast side of the harbor. I would like to say that my fourth-place finish (just out of the money, alas!) was because of my finely-honed poker skills, but actually I've never played Texas Hold-em before and I suspect it was just beginner's
luck. (Britt made it to the final table as well, but went out a few places before I did.)

At my starting table, by the way, were Ed and Bea of the boat Joybells. If you have been a long-time reader of sailing sites on the internet, you might recognize the name: Ed was one of the first out there with his "liveaboard cruising" website, and that was one that fed our imaginations back when we started dreaming about cruising over ten years ago. I always get a little thrill when someone we meet says, "Oh, I know you, I read your website!" - this time I got to say it to someone else!

This is more or less a landlocked harbor, but it's a huge one, so in most places, at least one possible wind direction will be across an awful lot of (shallow) open water. This equals big waves if the wind happens to shift, such as in a frontal passage or squall.

And man, do we have some squally weather. It started back at Conception, when we dodged squalls on our way to Rum; sitting at Flamingo Bay we had two nights of flashing sky and thunderboomers, with one night so active that the sky was nearly white, lit up by constant lightning. Our original plan was to go from Rum to the little anchorage under Cape Santa Maria on Long Island on Sunday, and then to George Town on Sunday - about 30 miles each day - but the weather turned so nasty on Sunday afternoon
that we went straight to George Town in a marathon day.

To our north was a squall line, a solid wall of cloud hovering above the water. At intervals, incipient tornados poked down from the cloud, a whole line of waterspouts trying to happen. It was exciting to watch - from a distance! Although we didn't get hit by any of the storm, it changed the winds around us, so that one minute we were motoring in a near calm on a flat sea, the next charging into steep choppy waves and a headwind. We got to actually sail for all of half an hour. Hey, we needed
to charge our batteries and make water anyway...

At the moment, the weather is, well, horrible. It's been windy and gray all day, but the squall only started in earnest late this afternoon. Rain is lashing us and the wind is howling in the rigging; even though we're in a relatively protected part of the harbor, we're still bouncing up and down a bit.

And it's supposed to get even worse. The winds are supposed to die off a little and then come back with a vengeance from the southwest as a nasty low coming off Cuba passes to our west, a low which has the potential to become the second named storm of this PRE-hurricane season! The atmosphere as a whole is unstable, with potential for lots of squalls over the next two weeks. The problem - in addition to, you know, being rained on and not having pleasant sunshine and the possibility of getting
hit by lightning - is that the wind can howl from any direction in a squall. So unless you're in an anchorage that's protected from most directions, there's a good chance things will get uncomfortable.

So we're not quite sure what happens next. Our guests arrive on Friday - hopefully we'll be able to go SOMEWHERE, and have a decent time.

[*] "a lousy spell of weather"
- posted by S/V Windom @ 5/15/2007 [link]