Tuesday, January 27

The plan this morning was simple: move Celtic Cross from Georgetown down to Long Island, aiming for Thompson’s Bay. A local captain I’d spoken with recently recommended it—not because there’s much there (there isn’t), but because it’s different. A grocery store, a couple of restaurants, a new anchorage, and some beautiful scenery. That’s enough.

The forecast called for a front to move through early. When I woke around six, Georgetown Harbor was completely calm—not a ripple anywhere. Within the hour, though, the wind filled in. By the time I pulled anchor and headed south past the end of Stocking Island and out into Exuma Sound, it was already blowing 15 to 16 knots.

Seas built quickly but stayed manageable—two to three feet, close together, a little choppy. As the wind climbed into the low twenties, it set up one of the best sails I’ve had in a while: a clean beam reach. The seas on port stern, the boat felt balanced, and everything just worked. I even saw nine knots a couple of times.

A catamaran that had left Georgetown ahead of me arrived about 20 minutes after me. That always feels good.

Update (Early Sunday Morning)

Around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, the winds associated with the cold front moving into the area had arrived. I’d turned in early, knowing the overnight hours were when things were expected to pick up, and they came in right on schedule.

By the time I was fully awake, the wind was blowing a steady 32 to 33 knots, which was about the peak I saw. The boat rode it well. The anchor was holding, and everything on deck behaved the way it should. Earlier in the evening, I’d taken down part of the bimini to keep it from getting worked over and pulled the courtesy flag so it wouldn’t shred itself in the dark.

They’d been calling for possible 40-knot winds, but so far it doesn’t look like we’re going to see that. Once I was satisfied everything was settled, I dozed back off—eventually. Around 6 a.m., I woke up and the wind was still blowing around 30 knots, but everything was good. We were still well within the anchor alarm radius.

📝Harbor Notes

Thompson Bay, Long Island, Bahamas

By about 4:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday, the wind finally started to ease enough that I felt comfortable getting the dinghy off the deck. I’m usually reluctant to do that much above 15–17 knots—once the dinghy on the end of a halyard catches in a breeze, it can turn into something you’re no longer fully in control of. But things were settling down, and I had a mission ashore.

I’d heard there was a grocery store here that was surprisingly well stocked for being so remote. That turned out to be true—better than Georgetown, actually. I’ve been hunting for bread flour to keep my sourdough experiment alive, and Thompson Bay’s Hillside Grocery delivered.

On the way in, I aimed for what I thought was the dock closest to town, but I stopped to ask another boat in the anchorage if that was the case. They told me it had taken hurricane damage and wasn’t really safe anymore. Instead, they pointed me farther down to the government dock—which added a bit of distance to the walk, but seemed like the smart move.

I tied up at the concrete government dock alongside a couple of fishing boats and started walking. It ended up being a solid mile and a halfs to the store. The road was strikingly quiet—the entire walk in, I think only two cars passed me. That alone told me this was a very different place than Georgetown.

After stocking up on bread flour and some fruit, I stopped at Sou Side, a local bar and grill, and wound up chatting with a couple of guys there. One was originally from Maine—sailed down here about 30 years ago and never left. The other was the proprietor and a local fisherman. With the forecast for the weekend looking like it did, I appreciated his reassurance that Thompson Bay was a good place to be in a gale out of the North to Northwest. We also talked about the island itself—how Long Island once had around 7,000 residents and now sits closer to 3,000. Still a big island. Lots of space. Lots of quiet.

After a couple of beers, I decided to start heading back. Rain was clearly building, and sure enough it had already swept through the bay. Unfortunately, I’d left the hatches open, so I knew I had a bit of cleanup waiting for me aboard.

On the walk back, I threw my thumb out more out of curiosity than expectation. Given how few cars I’d seen all afternoon, I wasn’t especially optimistic. But a truck slowed, pulled over, and asked how far I was going. I told him to the government dock and climbed into the back and was back at the dock in a couple of minutes.

Back aboard, I confirmed what I already knew: the boat had gotten a little wet inside. Nothing serious—just a reminder to close the hatches when you leave.

Postscript:

Later in the week, I did end up using the hurricane-damaged dock I’d been warned about. All of the horizontal slats were gone. After tying up and climbing out via a ladder, moving down the dock became a careful balancing act—placing each step deliberately, no distractions, no hurry. It wasn’t something you’d call comfortable, but it shaved a significant amount of walking off the trip ashore, and I decided the trade-off was worth it. Another quiet reminder that cruising is often just a series of small risk calculations.

This won’t be a weekly section. It’ll show up when there’s something worth noticing—something that feels different enough from the way I used to live that it deserves a few lines. I want you, my virtual shipmates, to be aware of what I see as a slow transformation.

One of the bigger changes I’ve noticed on this trip is how much I’ve slowed down—and how many things I’ve quietly let fall away. Not dramatically. They just stopped making sense.

A good example is how I spend idle time. Before, it was easy to reach for my phone and disappear into an endless stream of 30-second clips. Small hits of novelty. Cheap dopamine. Lots of motion, not much movement. It kept my hands busy and my nervous system oddly restless.

Out here, that habit has mostly been replaced by small boat projects. Mundane things. Pulling a few stainless screws, cleaning the threads, adding a dab of Tef-Gel, and reinstalling them so they don’t corrode themselves into place. Nothing exciting. Nothing that would ever make a highlight reel. But when I’m doing that kind of work, my mind settles. My attention narrows in a good way. The boat gets a little better, and so do I.

Another example is my sourdough bread making. Something a lot of cruisers do.

It really takes time. You can’t rush it. You can’t decide at four in the afternoon that you want fresh bread by dinner—at least not good bread. You have to plan for it. Sometimes it takes two or three days just to get the starter into a state where it’s ready to be used.

I try to keep the right ingredients aboard, and I have a starter that I probably mistreat by most standards. I don’t always feed it on schedule. Sometimes I leave it out longer than I should. I like to think that adds character—maybe even a little resilience. I’ve named it Diesel, partly because it just keeps going, and partly because when I let the dough rise, I usually set it on top of the diesel engine in the engine room. It’s normally warm down there—usually around 75 to 80 degrees—and it turns out to be a pretty reliable place for bread to take its time becoming bread.

It’s a slow, methodical process. One you can’t just drop everything and do. You have to think ahead. You have to wait. And then you wait a little more.

I’m pretty sure pre-sailing Andy wouldn’t have taken the time for any of this. He would have optimized it away. Found a shortcut. Grabbed something faster. But somewhere along the way, I’ve started to enjoy these slower rhythms—the ones that don’t reward urgency, but do reward patience.