...held in George Town Great Exuma is an event without parallel.  I've had the pleasure of being in George Town for this week of racing and festivities several times over the last 22 years.  I still get excited when I start seeing the preparations for the Regatta begin.  The first change you notice about a week before the start, is the buildup of food and beverage vendor shacks along the road towards the Government Dock.  When later in the week you start seeing the traditional Bahamian sloops trickling in, either on the mailboat, towed behind fishing smacks or sailed in on their own bottoms; you know the start of the Regatta is near...

After my last update and while George Town was getting prepared for the Regatta, I had my first boat problem here in the Islands.  My portside engine quit.  I troubleshot  the engine and discovered that the high pressure pump for the fuel injection had gone bad.  I called Sideline Bob, in Ft. Lauderdale, told him what I needed; and he had the parts on Reggie Air and in George Town 2 days later.  After 4.5 hours of careful disassembly and reassembly, I had the motor fixed and running like new.  No left over parts either... imagine that.  Before I left on this cruise, I sprayed down the motors with Heavy Duty Corrosion X.  This kept the engine (under the cover) looking like new and made the repairs very easy and painless.  The covers themselves look terrible.  I spent a lot of hours making them look that way because thieves are only interested in new looking motors. 

This interval, before the start of the Regatta, was also spent doing the normal things that we do here in George Town:.  We lunch at Jean's Dog House, where Jean makes the best Bacon Cheese Burgers this side of Jimmy Buffett's song.  Jean's gonna kill me when she sees the picture that I posted of her, but I just couldn't post the one of her smiling... people would accuse me of using Photoshop to alter the image!  I love you Jean, REALLY!  No poisoning my burgers now...  Monday and Friday evenings one can go to the Peace and Plenty's happy hours.  Sunday afternoons can be spent at KB's Chat & Chill for the BBQ followed by the varied options at the "Fish Fry" and, of course, Monday evening's Rake and Scrape at Eddies Edgewater is not to be missed.  The occasional beach party or dinghy drift and, of course, diving and spear fishing round out the variety of diversions available to us here in George Town.  More than enough distractions to keep one in trouble... errrr... I mean OUT of trouble...

The weather this year was perfect for the races.  Over the course of the week, the winds ranged from 15 to 20 knots and there were enough clouds to give us intermittent shade.  The racing started on Tuesday with the kids Junior Nationals races where kids under 18 raced the smaller "C" class boats.  Wednesday was kind of a practice race day for the adults with the Governor Generals Cup and the Prime Ministers Cup.  Then on Thursday, the racing became very serious as the cumulative points gained over the next 3 days of racing would determine the winner of the 54th Family Island Regatta.  The "A"-class racing was very close between the 3 leaders; "Running Tide" from Long Island (Bahamas!), "Red Stripe" from Black Point, and "Tida Wave" from Staniel Cay.  Running Tide won the regatta but then, due to some protests by "Good News," the win was taken from them, and "Red Stripe" named this year's winner.   I won't go into the fact the rule book was tossed out for that decision... but it was!

Following tradition, many of us watched the races from Zollie's boat, Mugwump, anchored just off of the windward mark.  Even though Zollie is no  longer with us in person, he was definitely with us in spirit and enjoyed himself immensely!  Scott and "Veronica," errr... I mean Connie, did a wonderful job of hosting the 4 days of partying  this year.  Evenings were spent either on Mugwump or in town at the shacks and even at the Two Turtles which opened their bar and had bands 3 of the nights.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll keep the narrative short and sweet and let the pictures do the "talking."  When you click on a picture on this page, you'll open up not only a larger version of that picture but also numerous other related pictures.  I hope that you enjoy!

The next update will be sometime around May 20th... See ya then!