Touring GTC (Green Turtle Cay) by golf cart

This is the preferred method of travel since it's cheap. Only 55 bucks for 8 hours. I can rent a car from Enterprise, have them pick us up, drop us off and keep it for 24 hours cheaper. Hey that's life in the fast lane I guess..
It's easy enough to walk the island, but we have such a limited amount of time and so much to get done these days. We feel that given the island is about 3 miles long, renting a golf cart for 8 hours has mande us expert regarding where everything is.
There are a few roads here that are quite a bit of fun to drive, like the beach road on the east side. That's where I took a few of the photos in the bucket (see link on main blog page). But there are others that walking, let alone driving, is a bit risky because of all the ruts.

We'd like to move on to Orchid Bay at this point, but the weather is not cooperating at all. Few boats are willing to chance Whale Channel at this point given the recent wind direction and speed. Some have been turned around out there and come back in. Friday is looking like we get a very small window, but since we have been toasted by small windows on the way down here we are a bit concerned about pushing it.

There are much worse places to be stuck.

Bluff House and New Plymouth

Yesterday we walked over to the Bluff House Resort which is right across White Sound where Freedom is now. It's really a great looking facility and we will probably stop there on the way back up North.
The docks are in great shape and all the facilities are laid out conveniently. They are currently offering the same special GTC is, in that your dock fees are subtracted from your total restaurant bill.
Today we took a dink ride over to New Plymouth since the wind was out of the east and our path lay in the lee of Green Turtle Cay. Walking around the town was interesting. There are no tall buildings there, it all seems to squat down out of the wind. Duh.
We bought a few things and then went over to Black Sound to the boat yard and had a security cable made up for the dink. Riding a dink down here in clear water is quite a bit different from riding a dink on the Rondout Creek.
See the photo link for new photos.

Public Aquarium

Tonite the snapper were all around the transom. Hopefully this shot lends a little bit of realism to the clarity of the water.

We're not talkin' Rondout Creek here!

The water is about 4-5 feet right here and drops off under the props quite a bit. If you click this photo it will probably open up quite a bit for you. It was interesting to note that the first night, we had all these bait fish all over the transom eating up the krill, or very small fish. Tonite, when these fish showed up, all the bait fish from 1/2 to 3 inches was gone. Ya think?

Green Turtle Cay and Points South

We made reservations today for extended stays at a couple of marinas. When we get the next decent break in the weather we head over to Orchid Bay. Probably in a week or so we'll leave Green Turtle where we are now. The weather looks ugly for a while with high winds again.
After Dec at Orchid Bay and others, we have Feb booked at the Sea Spray Marina, and March is booked at Treasure Cay. We're thinking if those calling us to visit are serious, that Treasure Cay (March) is a good time to visit since it has an airport on the same cay, and, we will be there for a while.
Candidates must be able to sleep in a V-berth which has a disadvantage of being a bit cramped and some wave noise all night.

See the photo bucket link on the main page for photo updates now.

Well the sun is setting on a great day here, and it's time to stop hacking away at the pool side and take a dip before the sun goes down. With that I'll rest my glass and turn my attention where it belongs...

Sale Cay and Green Turtle Cay

These two parts of the journey have been kind to us. We left for Sale Cay thursday bright and early with about 10 other boats.

Passing through the shallows at Indian Cay was not that bad, we had a few feet to spare for the most part. Everyone took it slow and easy since the channel is narrow and not marked at all. What one does is plug some way points into the gps and fly by wire so to speak. But once through the water gets to all of ten feet deep all the way to Sale Cay. I have no idea why they called it Sale Cay since there are no stores there thus no bargains. All there is there are mosquitos, which stay ashore thankfully.

Arriving we dropped anchor and immediately it started to drag. As it turned out the Fortress was not good in sand and weeds, so out when the CQR. The fortress clogged with weeds and then bounced along the bottom. Ray are you out there? The CQR held like a rock not the Danforth! It's a totally different game down here and we are glad we had a selection of anchors to work with. Once sorted out the sun went down, and the water turned into a mirror that blurred the definition of sky and horizon. It was too dark to photograph however.

In the morning on we went until arriving here at Green Turtle. This place is how all marinas should be (except for the no-see-ums). Your restaurant bill is subtracted from your dock fees.

GPS tracks are uploaded, and photos are going to the bucket soon. I have to start commenting on the photos... I'll update this entry when the photos are there with the link.

Edit:

Updated the main page to include a link to the photo bucket, and started commenting the photos so they make a little sense.

It's time to start moving again...

Ever since Friday last when we crossed the Gulf Stream, we have been kicking back waiting for the weather to lighten up a bit. We need two days of light winds to get around to Green Turtle Club and Marina.
This trip is composed of a couple of legs around 50 or 60 nm each. That means we anchor out since there is really not much in between these two places (West End and Green Turtle). The accepted anchorage is Sale Cay. It's pretty much the midway point and offers good protection from North and East winds. Since the prediction is that the wind will be composed of these directions, we should be good to go.
And many folks here at west end feel the same way since we are all leaving the marina tomorrow headed for the same place.
We are going to take the short cut through Indian Cay, while several others that pull 5 feet of draft are headed further north to Memory Rock before they turn east to Sale Cay. We'll all be in touch via radio.

But-

To bring you up to date, we took the local bus service from West End to Freeport. The bus is your basic 8 passenger van with a small diesel engine. It was actually a great ride. Everyone that got onto the bus said good morning to everyone and everyone on the bus responded in same.
It was only 7 bucks apiece each way instead of what would have been 70 bucks for a taxi.
We landed at the Straw Mall in Freeport, and it was immediately depressing. It looks like it got whacked a ton by the hurricanes of '04 etc. and it never recovered. Very sad. There were only a handful of vendors sticking it out.
So we hopped onto the bus and went over to LuCaya. It seems like this is where all of the tourism industry has migrated to leaving Freeport behind.
We had lunch and bought some things like sandals. I was going to buy a Hawaiian Sling to spear lobsters with but Deb said that spear would not sit well in the cramped corners of the micro bus so that was out. Lunch in RumRunners and then back onto the bus for the ride back.

Here at the marina in West End, the water has finally settled down and we can see the bottom again. Last night we had some 3 foot tarpon swimming around in the transom lights looking for bait fish. Tonite, even tho the water is clear, all we see is the small stuff again. Perhaps as the sun sets further more action will occur.

So while we are on the move, I am sure we will not be updating the blog until we reach Green Turtle. Hopefully the only challenge on these legs is the anchorage and passing through Indian Cay.

In this photo, we see the lobster fisherman at work. There are a few of them here, and they are of humble means. They drag a beat up cooler around by a line, and hunt out lobsters. They are out there all morning swimming around harvesting lobsters. When the man came around the dock with his cooler I bought three for 20 bucks. We have had several meals out of them, and I hope he had a couple of meals or other things he needed with the dollars we gave him.

Gmail ID

By the way the Gmail id is damapes@gmail.com