We've worked our way down the Exuma chain to the cruising Mecca of George Town. This is the ultimate destination for many who will spend weeks or months here. Sally and I are not part of that crowd so we've only stopped briefly for provisions before continuing on.

After leaving Black Point we stopped at Little Bay which some syndicate is still (again?) trying to develop into a marina/golf/retirement complex. There are slick new brochures, a big new sign by the one house there. and an excavated pit for the planned marina but no other sign of activity. All the old construction equipment is slowly rotting away. There's not even a power line into the house - they're running off a generator. Perhaps we've reached a saturation point for this type of invasion in the Bahamas.

From there we sailed to Little Farmer's Cay, a small island held in common by all descendents of the original owner, a freed slave. Not much of anything changes, or can change, here which is fine with us. We enjoyed a nice lunch at Terry and Ernestine Bain's Ocean Cabin restaurant overlooking one of the two harbors. As far as we could tell, we were the only visitors to this sleepy island that day.

With rough seas and strong head winds expected out in Exuma Sound, we stayed inside and spent a night at Galliot Cay, waiting for the winds to lighten up. That it did the next day, though not as much as predicted. It did allow us to motor out through Galliot Cut then 15 miles down the Sound to Lee Stocking Island. The inside route along there is a bit too shallow and convoluted for our taste.

There was no sign of life at the marine research station on Lee Stocking. We did find some relatively new moorings available, though none had attached pennants. We used our dinghy to attach our own pennant, then attached pick-up buoys to other moorings for the two boats which came in later.

The final leg into George Town was supposed to be a beam reach across a strong NE wind. What we had was a light SE wind which did finally back to the NE after a few hours but never rose above 10 knots until we were anchored off Sand Dollar beach. Still, we had a couple of hours of very pleasant, light air sailing in the Sound and harbor.

From here we'll head over to Long Island, sailing the northern route with ESE winds. The town of Salt Pond is one we like to spend time in. Maybe we'll find old friends Dawn and Mike there. You could always count on finding their boat Anahata anchored there but now they've reportedly settled into a house. It's easy to understand that sort of impulse.