George Town, Great Exuma Cay, Exuma, Bahamas to Long Island, Bahamas
KORKZcrew is the blue dot on the map.
Last night we anchored south of Stocking Island near Man O' War Cay so we'd be ready to take off for Long Island this morning. So for the first time in three weeks, it was time for KORKZcrew to hit the blue highway again! Happy day!!! I genuinely enjoyed the George Town area, an ideal home base for us during the battery ordeal, but I am realizing how much I love to keep moving and continue exploring these amazing places we're all seeing for the first time.
Long Island sits east/southeast of Great Exuma, and we decided to head for an anchorage around the center of the island so we can go north or south from there. Here's a look at where Long Island is situated relative to George Town:
Steve says he prefers to keep moving, too. 📷: Ron Hesmer
Ok, so when there's a long passage and decent depth, there's going to be a fishing line in the water. Ron has officially caught the bug. (I realize that what he needs to catch is fish, but you know what I mean). And when there's a fishing line in the water, you also KNOW there's gonna be a barracuda involved, especially when it's the EXACT thing we DON'T want to catch. And that's precisely what happened today. So we'll skip ahead to round TWO, when Ron caught a fish we couldn't identify. (Or put another way: if it isn't a barracuda or a mahi, we are at a complete loss 😂. Pathetic.) We were primarily wondering if it was edible, so I reached out to my brother-in-law Dan who promptly said GRILL IT UP, as the consensus was that we had caught an Almaco Jack. Now I know the names of THREE different types of fish. I'm on a roll. And it's a sushi roll apparently. 😜🙄
I wish I had a way with words that could adequately convey the richness of the scenery surrounding us as we got closer to Long Island, but luckily I have a few thousand pictures and videos that can. (And I feel sure that "lucky" is the exact sentiment that popped into your head right about now. 😂)
We made our way to Salt Pond Harbor at the settlement of Thompson Bay on Long Island, and anchored just offshore from a popular beach bar and restaurant we'd read about called Tiny's Hurricane Hole. It was even more charming than we'd expected, and we fell in love with the thatched-roof bar and laid back beachfront atmosphere. Tiny's has three cottages for rent, and they get very favorable reviews on Trip Advisor. It would be a neat spot to spend a vacation. You can learn more here. The cottages are also listed on airbnb.
Tiny's restaurant and bar are on the left, and you can also sit and eat at various tables right on the beach. We were told that Tiny's is owned by a man who is originally from North Carolina! It's a pristine spot, and you can tell they work hard to keep it that way.
When we found out it was ok to have a dog on the beach, Skeet went back to KORKZcrew (visible in the background) to fetch our buddy Steve.
The food and drinks were FABULOUS, and the only ones more excited than us to see the food delivered to the table were the BUGS. True confessions, they'd already started to bother us as the day wore on and the breeze died down, before we'd even ordered food, and Tiny's was prepared with cans of bug spray. I promise you this was the only "negative" of our whole experience there, and we finally surrendered and got the pizza boxed "to go". A truly minuscule inconvenience after such a peaceful afternoon. And my GOSH look what we had to look forward to — that pizza!!!! The appetizer — spicy shrimp — was equally delicious 😍. Fat and happy Kacky.
Skeet was given the honor of driving us all back to KORKZcrew. To end the day we moved our anchorage slightly as there are 30+ knot winds expected in the next few days, and we wanted to go ahead and claim a protected spot tucked more tightly into the harbor. KORKZcrew's shallow draft makes tucking in that much easier — a definite bonus when you're anticipating bad weather.
5.5 hours underway; 38 nautical miles traveled
