National Family Island Regatta

One of the reasons that we decided to spend so much time in George Town was so that we could be here for the National Family Island Regatta. This regatta is like the Superbowl of the Bahamas. How awesome is that, a country that prizes sailing over football? This year was the 58th annual regatta and it was obvious that the Bahamians take their racing as seriously as they do their seafaring heritage. Boats came to compete from all of the major islands in the Bahamas and many of the smaller cays and communities as well.


Sloop sailing in the Bahamas was originally the principal means of transportation between the 700 islands that are spread out over 100,000 square miles of beautiful waters in every color of blue that you can imagine. The sloops were originally used by the fishing industry as well as for the transportation of passengers and cargo between the islands.

The sloops are all built in the unique Bahamian tradition. I never could find the exact specifications but the boats are beautiful and the amount of canvas that they fly is amazing compared to the size of the boat. The boom hangs out over the stern of the boat by about half the length of the entire boom. The races start by lining all the boats up in an anchored position. At the cannon blast the crew must weigh anchor and hoist the sails starting the race on a starboard tack, with the exception of the first boat, chosen by lottery. That boat may start the race on either a starboard or port tack. It is so much fun to watch this type of sail boat racing, as opposed to the typical race with each boat assigned ratings, it’s kind of like “what you see is what you get” and you can actually tell by watching who is winning the race. We took our dinghy out into the bay (along with almost every other cruiser and Bahamian with a power boat) and took lots of great photos of the races. It was difficult and exciting to get the shots and still pay attention to the racers and the other dinghies, power boats, kayaks, etc.

Since the boats are all built by the same specs it makes for some beautiful sailing and great pictures. I took so many that I had a really hard time deciding which ones to post.

Race Start (from an anchored position)

Sailing downwind - they look like butterflies

Hiked out on the PRY - one of our favorites - Anna Nicole!

Our favorite boat - Red Stripe (they took 3rd overall)

Red Stripe rounding the mark!

The regatta grounds were filled with these temporary booths selling food and drinks

Check out the length of the booms

Gigantamous speakers so everyone could enjoy the Rake N Scrape music

Local entertainment!

The cannon used for race starts - surprisingly loud

Race boats catching a ride back home

Christie and Matt are Running Tide fans

Matt, Troy, Christie, Deana and Rusty enjoying the race on Sea Yawl Later

Adderley's Plantation

We visited the ruins of Adderley's Plantation on Long Island.  It was a cotton and live stock (cattle, sheep, and horses) plantation established in 1790 on 700 acres by Abraham Adderley, a British born subject from Nassau, Bahamas.  By 1820 Abraham had enlarged the plantation to cover 2,500 acres.  The plantation was devastated in 1927 by a hurricane that cost 200 lives on the island.  Sadly, when the eye of the hurricane crossed over the island people collected stranded fish on the temporarily exposed sea bottom and were drowned when the sea suddenly returned. 

We were surprised that the living quarters seemed so small.  It's obvious that the plantation life was a difficult one.



St. Mary's Church

Some of the pictures that I took at St. Mary's Church.  It is actually the ruins of a church thought to have been built by the Spanish in the 17th century. It is the oldest church on Long Island.

Hamilton's Cave

One of the side trips that we made while we had the car was a tour of Hamilton's Cave.  The cave is the largest in the Bahamas and is owned by the Cartwright family.  Our tour was led by Leonard Cartwright, he told us that his family has owned the land that the cave is on since 1847.  They bought 90 acres from the crown for 27 pounds!  The cave is home to 5 species of bats and lots of termites and other creepy crawlies!  We spent about an hour with Leonard on our tour.  The cave has been used as hurricane shelter since the Lucayan Indian days around 500 A.D. through the present day.  In fact, Leonard told us that his family had weathered several hurricanes in the cave.  There is no electricity in the cave, no lights other than the flashlights that Leonard handed out before the tour, no handrails or paths to follow other than the one that Lenoard led us down by memory.  One other thing that I noticed:  there was no gift shop and no T-shirts to buy at the cave entrance!  It was just the 8 of us and we really enjoyed Leonard's tour. 

Modern carving (1980) done by Leonard's brother

Freediving Competition at Dean's Blue Hole

For the last couple of days we have shared a rental van with 3 other couples (Rene and Stacy, Terri and Ken, Stacy's parents, and L.A. and Susan) and we were able to watch the free diving competition today at Dean's Blue Hole.  As I mentioned the other day, Dean's Blue Hole is the deepest blue hole in the world.  It is 202 meters or 663 feet deep.  We watched Natalia Molchanova of Russia set a world record with a free dive to 100 meters (over 300 feet).  We could only see her descend to about 40 meters before she dropped out of site.  Her dive took 3:42 minutes.  It was incredible to be able to witness a world record.  We also watched while William Trubridge attempted to break a men's record for New Zealand.  He did not break the record today but he broke a world record last week by free diving unassisted (without the assistance of fins, using only breaststroke to descend) to 121 meters in 4:12 minutes, absolutely incredible!  I was so inspired that I am considering attempting to break my personal best which is approximately 4 meters at 20 seconds!

For more information on this crazy sport check out Vertical Blue's web site:  Vertical Blue



Dean's Blue Hole - Beautiful



Natalia with the judge showing a white card signaling a successful dive (WORLD RECORD!)



Natalia and William - both world record holders

Competition Site

I found a merman!  Check out the fins on that one!

 

Divers making preparations



Plantains are Yummy

 I love fried plantains.  Troy doesn't like them so much, but that just leaves more for me!  They are great when you fry them with a little olive oil.  They can be topped off with sea salt, nutmeg, powdered sugar. 

Green, almost ready, need to cook now

Yummy

Long Island Road Trip

We decided to share a car rental with Rene and Stacy and explore Long Island. The island is 80 miles long and about 4 miles wide at the widest point. I guess that’s why it’s called Long Island. We spent most of the day being chauffeured by Rene along most of the 80 miles. We all voted Rene as the driver because he was the only one that had experience driving on the left side of the road. It’s a little disconcerting to see cars coming at you on the wrong side of the road! (Especially when the fastest you’ve gone in the last three months is 5 or 6 knots, if you don’t count the dinghy rides)

Our first stop was at St. Mary’s Church. It is actually the ruins of a church thought to have been built by the Spanish in the 17th century. It is the oldest church on the island. We enjoyed exploring the tiny church and, although we weren’t there at the best time of day for photography, it was a really cool place to get some great shots.

Next we made our way to St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church. St Peter’s is a beautiful church with twin towers. Rene, Stacy and myself braved the narrow and rickety ladder to climb to the top. We were rewarded with a view that made the claustrophobic climb worthwhile.

Divers practicing



Dean's Blue Hole



Our next stop was Dean’s Blue Hole. At 663 feet, Dean’s is the deepest known sinkhole in the world with an entrance below sea level. We happened to arrive days before a free dive competition and there were several divers there practicing. At this site, in April 2010, William Trubridge dove 302 feet (92 meters) into the hole without fins, breaking a free diving world record. The divers that we saw were using fins so I can’t imagine what depths there were diving too. Seems just a crazy as mountain climbing to me!



Ruins of Dunmore Plantation



We tried to find the ruins of Dunmore Plantation. According to a local woman who pointed them out to us, we found them and they are now being used as a carport without a roof, and a goat playground! There are several plantation ruins on Long Island, but we didn’t manage to see any other than this one.

We made our way to the north end of the island and decided that we wanted to see the monument to Christopher Columbus. Little did we know that we would need to take our little rented Cavalier off roading for about 3 miles to get to the monument. Oh well, not a problem with Rene at the wheel. Rene is an excellent driver!

We had a great day exploring the island.



Road to the monument