Sailing Little Farmers Cay to George Town

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This satellite photo shows our course today, most of it in water over 1500 feet deep. The turquoise waters are the shallow areas and the "wrinkles" are enormous sand bars. At 0815, we anchored up with Sharon and Craig of IP38 Bonavista, for a fantastic sailing day of 43 nautical miles. Our 45 minutes of engine time included getting off anchor on the Little Farmer's sand bar, raising the main sail and motoring out Farmer's Cut from the banks to the ocean. We immediately shut down the engine and rolled out the jib, setting a course for George Town 40 nm south east. Winds were steady at 13 - 16 knots from the NNE, giving us a beautiful beam reach. As we approached Conch Cut, the entrance to George Town, we were able to sail straight into the cut and then reach all the way into the harbor. It was fun sailing directly to Chat 'n Chill. We dropped sails, started the engine and motored up towards the beach, setting our anchor at 1600 in 10 feet of water. The 55 lb Rocna set quickly into the sand, concluding a great day of sailing. Now we can take in some of the activities here and visit with cruising buddies. George Town looks like there are far more boats here that we have seen in our 3 previous visits. We heard there may be over 400 yachts here for the Regatta that starts Saturday. We plan to ride out the next weather system here on Wednesday/Thursday and then possibly Friday/Saturday sail to Cat Island and discover something new. For now, welcome to George Town, Exuma!

Here are the sailing photos of the day.

Radeen as we motor back out to the boat from Little Farmer's Yacht Club

Setting sail for George Town.

The ocean is THIS BLUE when the sun is out

Sailing into the morning sun

Beautiful beam reaching, heading south

We love to see the flag flying to the side, this means beam winds

Again, the water is so blue, so beautiful

Our new B&G custom screen displaying the 3 apps that I chose.
L to R: Sailsteer, Autopilot and Instruments. Sorry it is not more clear.
On this screen, winds show 14.3 knots, SOG was 6.4 knots, and autopilot was holding a 106 degree wind angle

There it is, Chat 'n Chill, out the porthole.

Blue water and palm trees from our boat.

Our next thoughts are about the weather. Our professional weather man, Chris Parker, has presented several options for Wednesday/Thursday ranging from a full blown low developing with clocking winds to 35 knots and squalls to 50 knots or possibly only SE winds at 20 knots. We will have to deal with this on anchor with all 400 boats. We will move out to where we can lay out more chain and have plenty of room to swing. For tonite and tomorrow, there is only 15-20 knots of wind, so we have time for some fun!