3/12/00 | Regatta week

this must be the place

Just about every cruiser in the Bahamas spends some time in George Town. Those continuing south to the Caribbean provision here and wait for good weather to start along the "thorny path"; those going back north make this their turnaround point. Some cruisers just come here directly, and spend the entire winter. George Town has groceries and liquor stores, an airport, a few restaurants and hotels, a hardware store, a laundromat, even a marina. Why go anywhere else?

The harbor itself is huge, basically just the mile-wide roadstead gap between Great Exuma Island and Stocking Island, plus a few little "harbor holes". George Town itself is on Great Exuma, but most cruisers anchor along the shore of Stocking Island, close to the beaches where a lot of the events take place. Don't want to deal with the long dinghy ride to town? Move the big boat over to the other side for a day or two. During the day, the profusion of masts looks like the aftermath of a forest fire -- nothing but sticks as far as the eye can see. At night, the anchor lights rival the stars for sheer quantity.

The steady flow of boaters to George Town culminates in the cruising regatta, which is to cruisers what Sturgis is to Harley riders. We got here on the second day of this week-long parade of events and immediately got sucked in. Most of the friends we'd made had beaten us here, so we did a lot of catching up and socializing. Then there were the regatta events:  there were potlucks to attend and sand sculptures to admire, and of course we had to cheer on our friends (and their kids) who competed in various contests.

I used to do triathlons, so I signed up for the only two semi-serious events in a morning full of swimming competitions: the 50-meter freestyle and a "biathlon" consisting of a 100-meter beach run followed by a 100-meter swim. I managed to place first in the swim and a photo-finish second in the biathlon, leaving me so exhausted from this mighty effort that I spent most of the afternoon napping. But the prizes made it all worthwhile -- a bottle of rum for the first, and a six-pack of Kalik beer for the second! With the relative prices here of rum and beer, these prizes are of roughly equal value. (Thanks to Penelope on Odyssey for the photo!)

The other swimming events were more entertaining. Most of them were for children, in separate age-group divisions, but a few were open to adults. One was a sort of bobbing for apples race, where the kids had to swim out to the apples, bite into one and then carry it back in their teeth back onto the beach and across the finish line. Other races involved creative use of snorkel gear, and one required participants to carry their clothes in a bucket while swimming a course, then dress at the finish line.

The variety show on Saturday night was a hoot. Both cruisers and locals performed, and it seemed like the whole of George Town was out to watch, so it really felt like a community event. The local musicians tended toward religious songs, and the cruisers tended toward song parodies poking fun at the cruising life; in between there were a few dance numbers, and the evening ended with a perfectly hilarious parody of a beauty contest (the contestants all male cruisers in unbelievably campy drag). All told, there were a few real standout performances, and nobody was embarrassingly bad. It felt like the last night of summer camp, which in a way it was, as the cruisers will begin to disperse as soon as regatta week is over.

life in the fast lane

The highlight of regatta week (at least theoretically) is the actual racing. There are two races: a round-the-harbor race on a triangular course, and a round-the-island race of about 18 miles, circumnavigating Stocking Island. When we learned that our friends on Effie had entered both races, we immediately signed up to crew despite (or perhaps because of) our complete lack of racing experience. Paul and Lise's 15-year old son Ian would be crewing on another boat, but our team would be rounded out by Keith and Sheryl from Colleen, and Paul had also volunteered to take a Bahamian high school student with us.

An hour before the harbor race's 9 a.m. start, Effie weighed anchor and came over to raft on Windom's side. We transferred a bunch of heavy cruising junk from their boat to ours, including crates of canned food, Ian's algebra books, and their primary anchor and several hundred feet of chain, then tied their dinghies behind our boat and cast off for the start.

The race had an unusual starting arrangement. Boats were arranged in waves by class, and each wave had a line marked by buoys at each end where competitors were required to be anchored before the start. The actual starting line was between an orange buoy and the committee boat; boaters could motor up to the line, but had to cut the engine before actually crossing it. While we waited on our "pre-starting" line, a chase boat came up and delivered our Bahamian crewmember, a boy of 14 or so named Dimitri.

Effie, an Alberg 35, was in the third wave with boats of similar size and speed. We crossed the line in good form and headed in the general direction of the first mark. Britt handled the mainsheet, I had the jib sheets, Lise and Keith called sail trim, and Sheryl watched for boats and natural hazards. (Fortunately, the regatta rules stated that a boat trying to avoid hitting a coral head has right of way.) Dimitri helped me and Britt -- Effie's winches aren't self-tailing, so trimming the jib is a two-person job -- but his best asset turned out to be his eyes, because he was able to spot the marks long before any of us could see them. Paul proved to be a shrewd tactician as he directed us this way and that, sliding out from other boats' bad air, squeezing in at the mark, and so on. One leg of the triangle sliced right through the anchorage; fortunately Keith and Sheryl managed to keep us from hitting anyone, as spectators cheered us on from their front-row boats. At least, I think they were yelling cheers. We felt pretty good as we crossed the finish line, deciding that "we didn't suck too bad!" As it turned out, our time was good enough for second place in our class -- not too shabby for a bunch of cruisers!

The race around Stocking Island a few days later incorporated a fishing contest, with a prize for the biggest edible fish caught. The radio buzz during the race was full of, well, fish stories:

"Race committee, this is [boat name omitted to protect the guilty]. Is a 12-foot hammerhead considered edible?"

"You bring it in, we'll consider it."

"Ok, but you'll have to adjust our rating for the handicap of towing it for the rest of the race."

Britt jumped ship (as it were) and raced on Whish (a CS 36) that day, where the crew caught two barracuda, 27 and 35 inches long. (The fish prize went to a 42-incher.) Effie didn't catch any fish, but we did hook another sailboat (catch and release, of course); after talking to other boaters, it sounded like that was the most common catch. The start was staggered in reverse handicap lineup, so that theoretically every boat, if perfectly sailed, would cross the finish line together. Needless to say, we did not sail perfectly, and although early on we passed a few boats that had started ahead of us, a lot of boats slipped by us by a better tacking strategy during the long upwind leg around the backside of Stocking Island. Despite our midpack position and lack of fish, it was a great day to be out on the water.

In addition to being fun, the race events taught us quite a bit. We had never before been quite as attentive to sail trim, and even though the boats we raced on are quite different from Windom, it was good practice for us. The cuts in and out of the harbor are wide but relatively intricate, the sort of thing we always motor through, so sailing them instead gave us confidence that if something happened to our engine, we could still cope.

in other news

We'd hardly finished the fish and lobster we'd brought back from Rat Cay before the guys on Odyssey and Whish talked Britt into going fish hunting again. The nearby reefs are largely fished out, so they had to do a lot of fairly deep and challenging diving, but Britt restocked the larder with a ten-pound grouper.

This was the largest fish he's gotten so far, and he spent a few anxious hours quizzing everyone we knew on ciguatera poisoning risk before deciding it was -- probably -- okay to eat. It passed the test which we got from a cruising cookbook; he put a bit of the fish's liver on the inner part of his lower lip, which is supposed to make it tingle or go numb if the fish is ciguatoxic. As a final test, we gave a bit to Colleen to test out on their cat (hey, they offered!), and kitty gave it the thumbs up, so we cooked it up with some onions, lime and coconut. It tasted superb, and we're all still alive (including the cat).