Friends onboard

There’s just something about meeting friends along an adventure, or in this case picking them up at the airport to join you. All experiences are bast enjoyed when shared, and sharing the great ones with great friends simply raises the bar to levels i’m just not sure would be possible otherwise.

We planned this trip a while back, at least the dates… and then let our friends know a few weeks ago where they should get their connecting flights into. In this case, Georgetown, Bahamas.

We spent the last few days prepping the boat, fixing some issues that have arisen over the last couple weeks and filling the cabinets with food and drinks in anticipation of their stay. We hadnt seen Ben for several months since he joined us to help make the final push in finishing out the vans last summer and hadnt seen Jim since he and Ben joined us in Mexico for our return drive to the states and an epic experience with the whales in Ojo De Liebre. We couldn’t wait to be reunited!

The morning of their arrival we moved the boat over to anchor as close to town as we could get. Obviously they’ll be arriving with bags (in fact, we begged each to bring some much-needed items from the states, so their bags will actually be larger/heavier because of us), and the dinghy ride across the bay here is notoriously rocky. We hoped that by anchoring close to town we might actually get them aboard dry… but that might have been a bit of wishful thinking. ;)

Within what had to be less than 5 minus ofd being aboard, both guys had jumped overboard and were swimming and laughing behind the boat. This is going to go just fine we thought to ourselves before jumping into the ocean after them and beginning the process of enjoying and catching up after all too long.

After plenty of time in the water we decided to move the boat back to flip flop beach, which had a far better view and we hoped would make our friends at least feel like they were in a remote anchorage… even if at least 100 other boats were just around the corner sprinkled throughout the bay. At least we were the only boat at this beach… and we hoped that the whole experience might feel removed enough for them that the emphasis on “remote” and “only boat” might be more important to us than to them.

The next day we dinghied ashore to the beach and later did a bit of snorkeling off the back of the boat. While Jim’s floating in the water I notice a small shark swimming not far way and make a joke about how “we’ll know how comfortable Jim is in the water by how fast he swims (or walks on water) back to the boat if he sees that shark”. A few minutes later he spots the shark and stays in the water, watching and following it around. Again… this is clearly going to go very very indeed.

The following day we sail north to Black Cay. Its not a terrifically long sail, but Ben has more sailing experience than both of us combined, so I let him manage the lines and trim the sails hoping to pick up a few tips (and hoping he’d enjoy himself in the process) while I focused on fishing. Sadly, not luck with the fish but Ben did successfully get us to our destination.

Black Bay provided the solitude we had hoped as we were the only boat there. We enjoyed the beautiful beach, had a lovely peaceful afternoon and evening catching up. The following day we did a short hop over to Sugar Cay hoping to snorkel the blue hole there and enjoyed most of the day in the water with the fish, rays, etc around the hole(s).

We had been watching some potential weather coming in, so we headed to Williams Bay, which provided a bit more protection from the wind/waves for whatever might come. It wasn’t horrible, but the winds picked up quite a bit and we basically hung out on the boat for the majority of the next two days. Not exactly the adventure we had planned for our guests and we felt bad for not being able to hop to a few more islands north and show our friends a few of our favorite places, but the weather pretty much trumps all other plans… friends onboard or not - so we waited it out until the weather calmed a bit and we could make safer passages.

When there was a break in the clouds we dinghy’d to shore and enjoyed a private beach and then hiked up to the highest point on the island (which also happens to be the highest point in the Bahamas… but at 123’ that isn’t saying much). Was a great chance to stretch our legs and also has a couple awesome views back down to the bay and the boat hanging out in those epic blue waters.

The next day we once again returned to shore and hung out on a different beach a bit further south - this time ferrying karma over with the boys and then returning to the big boat for the rest of us and the provisions for our beach day. The island at this section where this beach lies is made out of a small strip of land and we hiked (for only a few minutes) up to see over the other side of the island. It was nice to get off the boat and explore again, but it also happened to be a very telling experience because after a few days of sitting in the bay it becomes easy to forget or make believe that the wind/weather isn’t really as strong as you had read or imagined.

As we all made our way up the steep trail and looked out over the cliffs that form the windward side of the island it was very apparent that the calm of the bay was extremely different than what had been happening (and was still happening) outside the bay and on the other side of the island. From this vantage point at the top we could easily see the “wild side” and our friends finally saw why we had been patiently waiting.

We snapped some photos of the giant waves breaking into the cliff walls, and them all watched as we saw a boat out in the rough waters and for a second felt bad for them… but also didn’t want to trade positions with them for a second (and assuming our friends didn’t either). We then hiked around a bit amidst the gusts of wind and eventually made our way back down to the protection of the bay before returning to the boat.

Once the winds died down we moved the boat over to Barreterre (on the same island as Georgetown but on the northern tip). Once again, this wasn’t in our plans before their arrival (we fully intended to take them back to the Georgetown and the airport), but the weather lasted longer than we would have liked, and while we wanted to sail them all the way back, we knew it was a safer jump over to Barreterre where we could rent a car for the day and could give them a ride back to the airport instead.

We snorkeled Hog Cay and went to bar on shore to celebrate the trip and give our friends a final send off. It was a quick walk through “town”, but a true small island experience for our guests as we regrettably said our goodbyes on their last night. Back at the boat we had a few more drinks (and I did my normal thing of opening up and saying possibly way too much while I had them here). Luckily/hopefully… an old friend knows my ways and hopefully his time onboard was worth having to put up with with my opinions/open mind.

We once again moved the big boat in closer to shore because the waves were so large that our friends (and their bags) would have been drenched by the time we got them to land, and in the morning we grabbed a rental car (clearly just someone personal car that they were willing to part with for the day), headed south to the airport and hugged them goodbye as they made their way back home.

We took the rare opportunity with ground transportation to reprovision… and then drove back to the north end of the island so we could get back to the boat and continue on… but spent another night where we were because it was both safe and easy.