George Town

Yesterday morning we left the anchorage at West Blue Hole—five miles south of Thompson Bay—and set sail for George Town. Our goal was to anchor in George Town for better protection from the forecast SW to W to NW winds. We timed our arrival in George Town for slack high tide to reduce the wind against current effects in the sometimes treacherous southern entrance into the harbor.

We had squalls during the entire six hour trip. Since we stow our enclosure while in the Bahamas, George and I got quite wet. Our fingers were downright pruney.

The entrance into the harbor went well. When we arrived at our planned destination, Master’s Harbour, we saw that there were mooring balls available in Red Shanks, right next door. We took the first one we came to and had a restful night on the mooring ball.

The mooring balls are new and quite controversial with the George Town cruisers. Although we rarely stay in George Town more than a week at a time, many cruisers stay here the entire winter. Until now, anchoring throughout most of George Town has been free. Now there are mooring balls in three separate anchorages within the newly designed Moriah Harbour Cay National Park. They are managed by a partnership between the Bahamas National Trust and the Elizabeth Harbor Conservation Partnership. A fee schedule has not yet been established so they are currently free. That will soon change and many cruisers are unhappy. We watched a webinar explaining the rules within the park area and were left more confused than we were before we watched the webinar. We don’t yet know if anchoring in areas, like Master’s Harbour, that are within the park—but outside the mooring field—is allowed. We will just have to wait and see how it develops. In the meantime, we were grateful to be here and also to be able to get some laundry done during our stay.