Monday, February 28, 2011

Breezin' on Long Island...

Monday, 28 February, 2011

Scott and I are now anchored off lovely Long Island,  due east of George Town.  We motor-sailed over here Wednesday along with our friends on Skedaddle, Spartina, and Messenger, to name a few of the boats.  This is a wonderful anchorage, made even more special because of the existence of the Long Island Breeze resort here.  Run by Mike from Britain and Jackie from Louisiana, it is a beautiful facility with a restaurant, pool and huge deck overlooking the bay and fast, free wi-fi.  We have thoroughly enjoyed hanging out at the Breeze, meeting other cruisers, playing cards and just loving the setting and great food there.  Much to our delight, on Thursday we were treated to a talk by Monty and Sara Lewis, the founders of Explorer Charts.  They talked of their travels to the Turks and Caicos and about Long Island and all there is to do here.  We enjoyed their sharing and knowledge very much and it was great meeting them.

Thursday, Scott and trekked to one of the beautiful beaches here and he found another sea bean!  These transit the Atlantic from Africa and land on the eastern beaches here and are *very* hard to find.  So now we have 2 heart beans and one hamburger bean.  There is a wonderful weathered limestone rock formation just off the beach and it's very dramatic standing watch over the point.

On Friday, we rented a van along with Sarah and Ken from Skedaddle and Sarah and Phil from Spartina.  We had a great time exploring alot of the island and went over most of the 80 miles from north to south.  We stopped at the Stella Maris resort up north and had coffee for awhile and then walked around the property then we headed south.  Lunch was at "Rowdy Boys" in Clarence Town....a beautiful facility with excellent food and great cottages for rent and an adorable, sweet Boston bull terrier who loved having his tummy scratched.

Later, we stopped off at a roadside straw goods shop and made some good purchases from the lovely lady there.  Then we went in search of the local flamingoes, slogging through mangrove mud until we all agreed it was too much trouble to continue given that we didn't even know if the flamingoes were currently in residence.  We had some good laughs though as we got mired in the mud.  Spartina Sarah had thoughtfully brought along a gallon of water for washing off the mud and some paper towels but our shoes all ended up in a trash bag since they smelled pretty yucky from the mud.  Fun times!!

Today, we're catching up on internet and will go to the local grocery (very nice and well-stocked) for some more provisions.  Tonight we're all heading for the local buffet put on by Trifina at Thompson Bay Club.  We're told it's quite the Bahamian feast so we're looking forward to it.


Glad to hear the weather at home is warming up and March will hopefully be lovely.  Take good care and we'll blog again soon.

Monty and Sara Lewis, talking about the Turks and Caicos and their Explorer Charts of the area.


The Long Island Breeze resort from the pool deck.
 View of the anchorage from the pool deck.  Amazing views!!
 Mike, the friendly owner of the resort.  He does a "cruiser's net" on the VHF every morning, complete with humorous readings at the end with his wonderful British accent.

This is a tidal pool at the Stella Maris resort where you can swim in salt water.  There's an opening at either end for the tidal surge.

The view from the balcony of the Breeze resort.

Inside the Breeze.  Co-owner Jackie is in the pink-and-white striped top.

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