Blue Heaven Rendezvous: Moving on from George Town

This is 2017 tee shirt design.

Well, winning wasn't in the cards for me (no pun intended) at the Texas Hold'em tournament, but I held my own for the longest time getting down to the last three tables when they started with seven. It was fun and that is what counts! Also, my tee shirt designs did not win either. A fourteen year old girl's design won.

Some of the other entries.

There were 24 entrants which is probably one of the most they ever had. People also said it was very hard to choose just one because so many were so good.

I got a certificate for a free ice cream cone at Trinity's for entering. That was as good as winning the gold here in George Town because ice cream is very hard to come by!

Jeannie, chair of Regatta, handing out awards.

The regatta ended with a luncheon at the Peace 'n Plenty, a local resort. The awards of various flags were given out and lots of door prizes. Once again our luck was not with us and came away empty handed but had a good time with friends having lunch and listening to the Bahamian music around the pool.

Pool at Peace 'n Plenty

We usually leave George Town right after regatta, but it wasn't meant to be this year either because it was a week of 20+ knot winds. We stayed put at Sand Dollar Beach hiking the south end of the island once more, walking the beautiful beach on the ocean side with George and Joann on Bristol Cream and hunting sand dollars for which we were rewarded.

George, Joann and us.

Most afternoons we went over to Volleyball Beach to meet up with friends and I would work on my pine needle basket. Prue on Exhuberant who got me started in Vero Beach at Thanksgiving finally made it across to George Town from Marathon. So she helped me with the finishing of my basket.

My pine needle basket creation.

She also showed me some new stitches and how to wrap and add beads so that I could be more creative. Her baskets are just beautiful and have given me much inspiration to do more!

She has been at it a few years!

Prue with her creations.

Finally, on Friday we took Blue Heaven across to the town side so that we could prepare for leaving the next day. We got water, liquor, groceries, meat from meat market and fuel.

Passing by the monument, early in the morn to leave George Town.

We left the next day with George and Joann with winds 18 to 20 knots to head north to Black Point. It was an aggressive sail (that means all I can do is read and not much else), and tried fishing once again, only to get nothing! Dotham cut to get into Black Point, was a bit frisky but not too bad compared to some past experiences there.

While underway, I called ahead to Lorraine's to order her mother's coconut cinnamon bread and a regular loaf of bread. Her bread is delicious and such a treat. We got in around 4 pm and quickly went to the laundry to get some loads done, only to find out it was so busy all day that the water level was too low to start. Ida, the owner, said to come back at 6pm which we did. We ate an early dinner and came in to the laundry with our after dinner drink which we enjoyed from the deck watching the sun go down while our clothes and bed linens got washed. Things don't often go smoothly in the Bahamas, and with that tradition, when I put my second load in the dryer, put my token in and turned it on, the lights dimmed and I started smelling burning wires. So now Joann and I have two loads of wet wash with no more tokens! We walked to the local restaurant that sells tokens when Ida isn't around and asked if they would call and tell her our situation. About 10 minutes later her husband came by and gave us more tokens and finished our laundry with different dryers that worked. A happy ending to a busy day!

Leaving the next morning, the cut was quite calm and once out we were able to sail until about noon when the motor came on so that we could keep going at least 5 knots. We had 55 miles to go to get to Rock Sound in Eleuthera and it is a long day. Fishing lines were out again on Bristol Cream and Blue Heaven. Two mahi for George, nothing for Al! We are going to be buying some more lures for Al when we can! We had a delicious mahi dinner on Bristol Cream.

The next day we were ashore by 9:45am. We walked to the Ocean Hole which is famous for all the fish that come in from the ocean to this spot. They are well trained for visitors and come to the surface as soon as they see the shadow of people on shore. They also go into a feeding frenzy when people feed them bread which some land tourist did while there. Unfortunately, we did not get to see many colorful fish, but interesting to watch.

Fish enjoying the bread.

After visiting the Ocean Hole, we decided to walk across the island to the ocean side. We thought it was probably 2 miles but seemed a lot longer to the Northside Restaurant where you could cross. It was well worth the view!

Rosie's Northside Restaurant

Isn't it lovely!

The beach was lovely although not great for finding treasures. We enjoyed a cold one on the deck at Rose's Northside Restaurant while chatting with the owner. She is a lovely women who suggested she would drive us back to visit the cave which was next on our list. We were very grateful not to have to walk back because it was one of our first very hot days for the winter.

The cave is considered a Heritage Site in the Bahamas. You first come upon another pretty little pond or hole, with some open caves at one end.

The start to the caves.

You can see how large they are compared to people.

However, they are not the neat caves. Continue on the path and you get to a spot where there is a ladder going down into the ground where the big caves are.

We set the timer on the camera for this shot.

They were really interesting with roots from some of the trees going down through and opening from above that send shafts of light that show the beauty of the cave. It was a “cool”experience in more ways than one!

Later that day, we had Happy Hour on Bristol Cream, with a few other boats who we knew from George Town. Andrew from Andante, Mark and Karen from Sea Vu Play and Jim and Nina from Agape shared a good time with us. It went later than normal, but we have to get used to the daylight savings time!

Smooth as glass at Rock Sound.

We awoke to very flat water and left to motor the to the glass window bridge located in north Eleuthra. However, the winds picked up to 10 knots and so we had a nice motor sail off the coast of the island as we went.

Getting an unexpected nice motor sail up the coast.

The Glass Window Bridge once was a natural arched bridge between the waters on the sound side of Eleuthera and the Atlantic on the other side. However, some violent storms wiped it out and so a man-made bridge was constructed.


This is the bridge with Blue Heaven anchored in cove. Doesn't look like much.

But take a few steps back and now you see the comparisons of the blues!

It is so beautiful to see the turquoise waters of the sound and the deep blue of the ocean all at the same time if you get at the correct angle.

A panoramic taken of the Glass Window Bridge.

Also the two huge boulders south of the bridge are called the Bull and the Cow. They also were deposited there during another violent storm. Oh, the power of mother nature!