D82: Trip to Thompson Bay (1/21/2020)

On Tuesday, 1/21/2020, we finally left George Town to travel over to Long Island, Bahamas with our sister ship, another Beneteau 473 named Endurance owned by Joe and Beverly. We encountered almost no wind and it was all going the same direction we were. We had to use the engine the entire trip.

We left by heading out the southern harbor exit by North Channel Rocks. Once we worked our way around all of the reefs, we turned south toward Pigeon Cay, to Hog Cay, and gradually worked our way around White Cay Bank and down to Indian Hole Point and into Thompson Bay at Long Island. We found several other boats in the anchorage, but there was plenty of room.

The water was almost glassy calm and once past Hog Cay, the depth was steady at about 11-14 feet. During the trip we also crossed the Tropic of Cancer at Williams Town on Little Exuma Island, see the Stone Beacon marking the Tropic of Cancer in the photo below.

We took a quick trip ashore with Joe and Beverly to check out the scene. They had been here two times before. We had a beer and a sandwich at the local café (Sou' Side Bar and Grill) and checked out the grocery store, which was amazing. Unfortunately, we found out that there are no laundry facilities within 20 miles now, so that may alter our long term plans.

Note that Long Island is southeast of the Exumas. From here we can take exploratory trips out to a few other cays and islands of interest.

Click on the photos below to see a larger image.