Crew Log for January 2nd – 5th, 2023
Grand Bahama Island is the third largest and most northern island in the Bahamas. It's capital, West End, is a popular crossing point with sailors given it is just 56 nautical miles from Palm Beach. In addition to it's popularity with cruisers, it’s proximity to the US made West End an ideal port for rum runners during prohibition times. Freeport is the largest city on Grand Bahama and serves as the center of commerce for the area while Lucaya, just to the west of Freeport on the southern coast, is a popular tourist destination with a number of beaches, hotels and seasonal homes.
The Grand Bahama Yacht Club is located in the Port of Lucaya and would serve as our base for the next several days while we waited for our sail repairs and a weather window that would allow us to head south to the Berry Islands. The Yacht Club is a full service facility that is beautifully maintained and includes dock side customs and immigration check in and a restaurant and pool area. There are also a number of condos here, including one that has a pet pig. We weren’t exactly sure where the pig lived, but Judy did see it coming down some stairs from an upper unit.
However, the most positive feature of the marina is the staff, who went above and beyond to make sure we had a positive experience. Whether is was arranging our repairs, lining up transportation or just offering up a friendly wave and a smile as they passed by, they certainly made us feel right at home.
Like so much of the Bahamas, Hurricane Dorian had a devastating impact on Grand Bahama, including Port Lucaya. It is difficult to appreciate the full impact of a sustained Category 5 hurricane, having never experienced it. However, I started to get a sense of Dorian looking at the damage to some of the concrete dock fingers at the Yacht Club. The Yacht Club’s sister marina, across the harbor is still on the charts despite there being no remnants left of it, another reminder of Dorian's impact.
Judy had decided to head for the pool to relax and cool off after the trip. That’s where she first met Corky who had just arrived from Fort Lauderdale. They had left earlier that morning and arrived before noon. Our trip to Lucaya from Palm Beach took about 30 hours from the time we lifted the anchor in North lake Worth, until we tied up at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club. In contrast, Corky and Alex made the crossing on their brand new 43 foot MJM motor yacht, mv Anodyne, in less than a tenth of the time.
Given New Year’s Day was on Sunday, all of the local businesses, including the phone store, were closed until Tuesday, which meant we had nothing to do for the entire day other than to rest from the crossing and explore the area. Ted and Evelyn on Sensai who we coordinated crossing plans with, left earlier in the day for Great Harbor in the Berry Islands, 60 nautical miles to the south east. Blue Jazz, who also made the crossing with us, decided to stay in Lucaya and finish some boat repairs before heading south.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of this adventure for us, is getting to meet new people. We cross paths frequently with people that we’ve met in an anchorage or heard on the radio. While often times the exchange is brief, there are other times where we make an instant connection. Meeting Corky and Alex was one of those encounters. It felt like we were reconnecting with old friends, despite meeting them for the first time in Lucaya. It turned out we shared many similar interests and life experiences, so maybe the familiarity of this new connection wasn’t so unusual.
The timing of our arrival in Lucaya / Freeport was ideal, given the Junkanoo Festival was scheduled for the day after New Years. The exact origin of the festival is unknown, but many believe it was the idea of John Canoe (hence Junkanoo), a legendary West African Prince, who became somewhat of a local hero. However, the most common belief is that it evolved from the days of slavery.
Loyalists who migrated to The Bahamas in the late 18th Century brought their African slaves with them. The slaves were given three days off during the Christmas season, which they used to celebrate by singing and dancing in colourful masks. The celebrations have evolved over time into a grand parade, celebrating the Bahamian culture. Participating groups spend the entire year working on costumes for the event and planning entertainment. In addition to the street parade, dozens of food and souvenir vendors line the route. We felt very fortunate to have had the opportunity to experience a very unique aspect of Bahamian culture and grateful the marina staff organizing transportation to and from the event.
Things slowly started to get back to normal the following day so we, along with the other cruisers in the marina, headed off to the Aliv phone store to purchase Bahamian SIM cards. We ended up getting a small WiFi box for data while on the boat and individual cards for text messaging and calling. We were told that Aliv had better coverage than BTC on the remote islands, where we’d be spending most of our time.
I had one more painful experience with Walmart’s Straight Talk Wireless with the replacement phone I bought, after my cell phone went overboard way back in Vinylhaven Island. I had contacted Straight Talk more than a month before to make sure the phone was unlocked so I could use it in the Bahamas. I was assured by 2 people in the online contact center that yes indeed the phone was unlocked. Not true. After waiting for almost 40 minutes on hold, I finally got a hold of a real person in the “unlock center” and was provided the secret codes.
Earlier in the day, we had entertained ourselves (and likely annoyed Alex) watching Alex trouble shoot an electrical issue with his tender and swim platform. As we sat on the dock watching Alex do his best impression of an octopus by squeezing himself into small spaces, Judy tossed around fixes like solenoid, bus bar and loose connections. Turns out, she was absolutely right, it was a loose connection. Time to celebrate!
Fabian, the dockmaster at the Yacht Club was a high energy guy who wanted us to get the full Bahamian experience while we were in Port Lucaya. He had made all the arrangements for us to attend Junkanoo and also arranged for us to go to a Bahamian Fish Fry on the beach the following night. Alex and Corky, who aborted their plans to leave due to lumpy conditions, joined us, along with Daniel from Blue Jazz and Bert and Louise, off of sv See You Soon, an Island 40 ketch, out of Montreal. It was a lot of fun and the food and company was great!
Our repaired sail was back and, while the repairs were rough, they were good enough for us to continue our trip. We readied the boat to leave the following day and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing by the pool. We also got to meet John, a former pilot from the US, who kept his boat in Lucaya. His daughter was a Charter Boat Captain from Alaska and was planning to fly in a few weeks for a visit. He was very helpful in telling us what spots he enjoyed the most in the Exumas.
We, along with sv See you Soon and sv Blue Jazz were heading to the Berry Islands in morning. mv Anodyne would also be making a quick trip (for them) to Great Harbor for a couple of days. Little did we know that our Bahamian experience was about to reach an entirely new level.
But more about that, next time.
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