Sailing Ohana

While Tommy, the boys, and Morris sailed north to a new anchorage, I got in a rental car with four of the other women who are traveling with our group. We visited Island Farm first (before they sold out of bread and other popular items), which was a huge treat. It’s a beautiful farm and store, where they bake delicious bread on Tuesday and Saturday and grow all organic crops. The farm store has homemade quiches, soups, salsa, marinades, jams and other items as well. We really wanted to buy the beautiful lettuces they had, but knew that they would not make it through the day in a hot, hot car. We were like kids in a candy store and couldn’t stop smiling and marveling at all the beautiful produce. We stocked up on all the things and then set off to take advantage of the car for a day.

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We checked out a pink sand beach on the other side of the island which was pretty, then went into Governor’s Harbour to grab coffee at Da Perk, a popular coffee shop. They were closed, but we found a cute ice cream shop and another couple of stores so we did some shopping.

I read briefly about the Levy Nature Preserve nearby and Susie and Andrea spotted signs for it, so we headed to see that next. It’s amazing how quickly you can do everything if you have a car! We drove to the nature preserve which had a lovely parking area where each car got their own little shady pull-in spot, and a beautiful visitor’s center. The preserve was set up so that you could take a self-guided walking tour/hike around the property and see all the plants and read all the signs with information about the native and non-native plants and birds. The hike leads to the top of a hill with a tall platform, up a few flights of stairs.  The 360° view over the trees and all the way to the ocean was breathtaking, as was the swaying of the platform in the wind! We took some photos and continued on one of the best hikes I’ve been on. It looped back to the visitor’s center, past the medicinal plants section, the poisonous plants section, edible plants, and a lovely reproduction of a Lucayan hut. The Lucayan people went extinct in a single generation after Columbus arrived, due to slavery and disease.

Tommy texted that he and the boys had arrived outside of Governor’s Harbour and had set the anchor, but not very well. I felt like I needed to meet back up with them to get the hook down properly so we could feel really settled and secure. W started driving towards our boat where we saw my family walking to town in search of ice cream, so we pulled over and I jumped out, said our good-byes, and re-joined my family. The other women went to lunch and a few other attractions, making the most of the rental car time. I dropped off the bread and produce at the boat and we walked into town where the boys got ice cream and I had a very late lunch. Governor’s Harbour has some beautiful old buildings and a really comfortable, friendly vibe. It’s hilly and lush, with flowers blooming everywhere.

When we got back to the dinghy, it was completely beached on the rocky beach and we knew we might not be able to drag it to the water until the tide came up more. There was one local guy in the beach talking on the phone, and he jumped up and offered to help. Thanks to him we were able to get it in the water fairly easily, and make it back to our boat. We re-set our anchor and had a good night sleep as the winds hardly effected us at all.