February 10, 2011

Not getting home to Houston, but getting back to the boat in George Town. Currently there are about 250 boats anchored along a 1.5 – 2 mile stretch of beach. If one wanted to, they could be out at an event every night which means a night dinky ride home. There are no street or marina lights here so when there is no moon we have to find our boat among all the others. When leaving from a beach party I know the basic direction to go and can get us pretty close. If we are leaving from another boat it can get a little trickier. The boat we’re visiting may swing at anchor so now we need to figure which direction our boat is in. One night I almost headed out about 90 degrees from the direction I needed to go.

The drive home can be interesting because most boats, but not all, have anchor lights on but at different levels so I’m looking up and down making sure I don’t miss one. Since there are a few boats without anchor lights usually caused by owners who forgot to turn them on, I need to watch for the occasional dark spot of an unlit boat. And to keep things interesting there are the unlit dinghies motoring around as well.

Once near the boat we need to be able to pick it out from the other nearby boats. Most people have additional solar powered lights at deck level, but unless they are in a distinct pattern they all look alike. Some people, us included, have added Christmas lights which makes the boat stand out from the rest.  Some may ask why not use a handheld GPS? It takes two people to do this, one to drive and the other to watch the GPS. The driver should not be looking at the GPS unless they don’t mind running into something hard and passenger needs to be able to read the GPS as they bounce along. I’d rather have two sets of eyes out looking for other boats and trust my own sense of direction.

We have seen all different types and designs of boats here showing that if it floats you can get here. We have seen some high dollar boats like this one (Note the zebra on the top deck)

There are some homemade ones like this – I think the builder couldn’t decide between a tug and a catamaran so combined the two

And for those thinking of someday driving an RV there was this one

This boat is about 8 feet wide and probably fits on a trailer.

We have been doing some exploring; taking the dinghy to different areas to walk on the beach. We came across this little break in the coral. This opening is about 2 feet wide and perhaps 5 feet tall. We happened to find it at just the right tide level to get these pictures

When I was younger I would skinny dip, now I think of it as a chunky dunk.