Long Island, April 10 to April 14, 2011

We arrived in Long Island on Sunday afternoon, after a sunny and gentle cruise from George Town.  Chris caught another barracuda, but we put him (her??) back in the sea. 

Our first anchorage in Long Island was at Grays Bight, where we went ashore to see the oldest Catholic church on the island, now in ruins.  We read different reports of its age, one said it was built in the 1500’s, the other in the 1700’s, but suffice to say it is really old!  It was quite small, and we wandered through the church itself and the grounds.  It had a lovely old bell tower, which was by far the most interesting feature of the church.

We then took our dinghy over to a “blue hole” that was not far from where we anchored.  It was quite visible, being an almost perfect circle of dark blue in the otherwise turquoise and much shallower water surrounding it.  Blue holes are sections of very deep water, sometimes more than 100 feet deep, surrounded by much shallower water.  The next day we moved to the anchorage in Thompson Bay where we rented a car for a day.  We traveled south to the deepest blue hole in the world, at almost 670 feet deep, Dean’s Blue Hole.  They were having a free-diving competition there over a few days.   Free diving is where the diver drops to depths of a few hundred feet with no breathing apparatus whatsoever!!   We watched a few of the competitors dive down this incredible chasm and compete for world and national records.  It was pretty amazing!

Dean's Blue Hole

Free dive competition platform

663 feet deep!!

We drove up and down this island which is about 80 miles long and only 4 miles wide at its widest point.  The island is famous for being one of the first places where Columbus made landfall, and there are many very old Catholic churches here that were built by the Spanish settlers who came after, though most have now been converted to Anglican churches.  

Old Catholic church in Clarence Town

Yesterday afternoon we trekked down an overgrown path to find one of the natural caves in the area.  We found it by using excellent tracking skills (!!), and it was quite impressive.  Apparently, these caves were used by the original people of the island, the Lucayans, and many artifacts have been found in the island caves. 

Light at the end of the tunnel...

 

 

 

Ancient Lucayan cave dweller!!

Last night we had dinner at the Club Thompson Bay.  We were the only ones in the restaurant, and were a bit apprehensive of our chances of getting a good meal, but boy were we in for a treat!  They put on an amazing show for us, starting us out with several huge local crab claws (fabulous), followed by the best cracked conch we have had, and fried snapper.  YUM!

Last night, as we were returning to the boat after dinner, we saw two Selene’s coming in to anchor alongside us.  It was Wayne and Sharon from MySharona, as well as John and Kathy on Mystic Moon, both boats who were with us on the rendezvous!  They are on their way back to George Town, so we will plan to catch up with them back there. 

We are thinking now seriously of staying in George Town until after Easter for the annual sailing regatta,  apparently one of George Town’s biggest annual events.  We will think carefully about this over rum drinks and let you know what we decide!! But first, Chris has to get down and dirty in the engine room. Time to change the generator oil and filter, and freshen up the watermaker RO prefilters!! A sailorman’s work is never done!!