OtherGoose: Long Island Mar 8-10

March 8-10

We spent Wednesday getting ready to go to Long Island to the rally that is the continuation ...or the wind-up to our George Town Cruising Regatta. It was a windy, stormy day again with winds up in the 20's and waves up over 3 feet in the harbour. We took the bat over to Volleyball beach so we could have the Chairman's wind-up meeting and Volleyball, and listen to a talk by endangered Species, a boat that spent 12 years circumnavigating the world.

The talk was very, very interesting and I learned that I really don't want to do that!!

At the meeting, I became the Chairman for next year, but I have a co-chairman in Bill Roy, [boat Providence]. Bill has been around the regatta for many years and has lots of good ideas, and memories of how things were done in the past. That's important to help coalesce plans for next year.

So...moving on...we packed up early the next morning, picked up Jeanne and Gordon and headed out the channel to Long Island. The wind was ...you guessed it...on the nose...20-25 knots and the waves were 3-4 feet..I hate Chris Parker, the local weather predictor.

We had to go because there was a huge dinner planned for that night that we all had paid big bucks for and we couldn't miss it. We got into the harbour about 5:00 p.m. and the bus left for the dinner around 6, so we were on time and surprisingly, not the last ones to arrive!!! We had a couple of drinks before dinner and had the conch races...I lost.

So dinner was in this amazing cave! It was huge and apparently had bats! I didn't see any but others did. I was just worried about bat shit in my dinner!

It was a great night although I have to admit I am a little bit tired of rice and peas, bbq chicken and coleslaw. But at least I could eat it. I couldn't eat the fish or the mac'n cheese of course, or the awesome looking dessert.

Today we took a bus tour down to Clarence Town, the south end of the island. We went to an amazing [and scary] Dean's Blue Hole. It's the deepest recorded blue hole in the world.

We saw some ancient churches and the results of hurricane Joaquin and Matthew. Long Island seems to re-build and restore a lot faster that Exuma when it comes to keeping up their facilities.

Tomorrow we are going on cave tour. It sounds exciting...15000 year old burial and habitation site....and caves with stalactites and stalagmites...can't wait!!!

We will probably stay here for an extra day or two to get the art and school supplies taken over to the school. We will explore the island a bit more, then head back to George Town.