Back in Georgetown

Amberisle2
Valt & Sandy
Sun 31 Mar 2013 13:16
23:51:498N. 075:74:553W
March 31, 2013
We returned to Georgetown and found a nice anchorage at Sand Dollar Beach, one of our favorites. Surprisingly, there were still lots of boats here and in the other anchorages too. Maybe 150 boats. But most of the boaters we knew had headed back north and home. New faces, new names. The Cruisers Regatta folks were gone, the "second shift" was here.
Our mail from the U S had arrived and was being held for us at a local business. We went to pick it up and found that the owner was also selling an auto pilot like ours. Although we have an auto pilot, and it works, it was hard to pass up, if only for parts. We agreed upon a fair price, and left happy. The mail included some Christmas cards. It's been that long since we got our mail.
Next stop was St. Francis Resort and Marina. Owners Jillian and George are from South Africa. Years ago Jillian renamed Valt "220". She'd misunderstood Valt for Volt, and gave him the nickname. For lunch we enjoyed Cracked Conch, a Bahamian special shellfish that is battered and fried. We also had an order of grouper fingers. After lunch we walked the beautiful beach there looking for shells. But this popular spot was pretty picked over and we found little.
Our taste for shells spiked and we went the next day to another beach. If you don't like one beach there's always another here. The Exuma Sound Beach is amazing. Rare for an ocean side beach. We walked several miles in the sand, then walked back shelling. Great exercise, and a bucket of shells. Tired, we returned to Amber Isle. We saw that a boat was departing, leaving a nice hole closer to shore. So we weighed anchor and moved forward.
There we saw a familiar boat and invited them in for a visit. A second familiar boat dropped by too. A very social place, a party can break out at anytime.
For Easter Sunday, an island bus tour and Easter buffet were planned in Rolleville, some 20 miles away across Great Exuma. Although interesting, we opted for a local holiday dinner here. Maybe we were still shell-shocked by our previous bus tour of Long Island.