By Jennifer

During our extended stay at Emerald Bay Marina, we explored one of the historic sites located in Steventon, Great Exuma. The site commemorates a 32-year-old slave named Pompey who orchestrated a slave rebellion from his wealthy British landowner in 1829. Pictured in the slideshow are the remains of the jail where Pompey was incarcerated and a monument honoring Pompey.

Here’s the story as posted on Bahamianstudies.org.

A.J. Lees, acting as Lord Rolle’s agent, attempted to transfer seventy-seven of Rolle’s slaves from Exuma to Cat Island. Led by a 32 year old slave named Pompey, a number of the slaves hid in the bush for several weeks and then stole a boat and sailed to Nassau to petition the Governor. When Governor Smyth finally heard their case, he found that Lees had lied to obtain the transfer permit and ordered that the slaves be allowed to remain in Exuma.

• “Eventually, the governor learned of the proposed illegal transaction and returned the slaves to the Rolle Plantation on Exuma where their peers celebrated their return and refused to work. The military was again called in, and searched the slave houses for arms, recovering 25 muskets. Pompey took a short cut through the woods and warned people in the second slave village on the plantation, who subsequently hid themselves and their weapons in the bush.”
• “Learning they would be leaving in three days to be hired out to another planter illegally, most of these slaves followed Pompey, a 32 year old slave, into the bush to hide for five weeks. When their provisions ran out, they stole Lord Rolle’s boat and sailed to Nassau in the hope of presenting their situation to the governor, who held antislavery viewpoints.”
• “In retrospect at least, Pompey’s miniature rebellion was the first substantial victory for Bahamian slave resisters.

By Jennifer

We took a break from our trip and flew back home for a week on March 4 through 11. We absolutely enjoyed coming home and seeing friends and family. We arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport about six hours before the biggest snowstorm in two years dumped about 8 inches of snow on the area. Before we left to return to the Bahamas, the kids declared they weren’t going back to the boat. I reminded them they had a defenseless hermit crab, Joey, anxiously awaiting their return.

(Note from Kevin: While waiting at the George Town airport for our flight, we spent a few hours at Kermit’s Airport Lounge. We were the only customers there except for a local Bahamian man watching “Ask Steve” on the television. We had never seen the show before and by the time it was over, we wished we still hadn’t. Let’s just say that Zach got quite an education from that episode–it is hard to believe the content they allow on daytime television shows–no wonder people send their kids off to school during the day.)

By Jennifer

Meet S/V Bendecida. Here are Zach and Madeline with Kathryn and John. They are a family from Orlando on an open-ended sailing trip heading south to the Caribbean. The girls had a lot in common and hung out quite a bit during our stay in George Town.

Volleyball Beach is the epicenter of activity in George Town. By 2 p.m., the beach is filled with boaters playing volleyball, dominoes and meeting new people. This is what Jimmy Buffett sings about…

By Jennifer

Here we are arriving in the much anticipated George Town — the cruising mecca of the Bahamas. Hundreds of boats converge in Elizabeth Harbor and anchor at one of the three popular beaches on Stocking Island — Monument Beach (pictured above with the monument atop the hill), Volley Ball Beach and Sand Dollar Beach.

This is mostly a destination for snowbirds. Many sail here and stay for three months. Because it is highly populated, the long-term residents organize a vast amount of daily activities including volleyball leagues, yoga classes, ham radio licenses, water walking, basket weaving, historical lectures, and dinghy maintenance seminars — all on a mostly undeveloped island in the Bahamas.

This is where we finally met up with some kids, so we stayed and played for nine days.

We also spent a lot of time in downtown George Town. Here, we stopped for a bite at Bikini Bottoms, a fun takeout eatery.

In this gallery you will see the entrance to Emerald Bay, interior pictures of the lounge, Kevin at the top of the mast in an attempt to change our anchor light bulb, cracking open coconuts collected from the nearby palm trees at the golf course, and the pool area at the adjacent resort Grand Isle.

We’ve been to our fair share of marinas and have seen many in the Bahamas, but Emerald Bay Marina is a luxury unique of its own for cruising boats. Since leaving the marina at Highbourne Cay, we’ve been anchoring along the Exuma islands chain. Emerald Bay, situated along the Exuma Sound (exposure to the Atlantic Ocean), not only has a reputation for fine docking, but also is the source of many stories from traveling cruisers we’ve met out here.

Emerald Bay was on my list because it looked so nice on the Internet. As we made our way south, I asked many people about Emerald Bay. One woman in particular said, “Oh no, we never go there.”

“Why?” I asked. “It looks so nice.”

She went on to say that boats broach –when your mast hits the water– upon entering the cut of the marina and the surge makes it difficult to leave. Well, I really wanted to go there as did the boats Magic and Veritas that we were traveling with. We persisted. We persevered. We’ve been here twice now.

The key is entering and exiting the marina on light and variable wind days.

The amenities we enjoy here include floating docks, dosckside free garbage removal, free wifi, free private showers with hot water, free laundry, complimentary coffee and tea, free dvd rentals, three lounges, big screen tv with satellite, pool table, and lending library. The key word here is free.

By Jennifer

Fish log — First remora we caught with a pole dangling over the side of the boat. We had a few remoras living under our boat back in Norman’s Cay faithfully eating all of our dinner scraps, so we consider them more like pets than edible fish. We turned him loose and he did not come near the hook for the rest of the evening.

We left Farmer’s Cay and arrived at Cave Cay, a small anchorage with a marina providing fuel, to position ourselves for our passage to Emerald Bay the following day. We choose this spot because “Cave Cut,” the opening to Exuma Sound, is uncomplicated.

At sunset, the Bahamian tradition is to blow the conch horn signaling the end of another blissful day.