The island to the east of George Town, Exumas is called Stocking Island. There are many beaches on this lovely island and lots of places to anchor nearby. For most of our time in the George Town area, we anchored Sava near, and got stuck on Stocking Island.
Since this is a big area for cruisers, we tried to participate as much as possible to meet other sailors and learn from them. We went to the places they go, tuned in to the net and went to events for cruisers.
The Daily Cruisers’ net
Every morning at 8am, we tune in to the George Town cruisers’ net on VHF 72. This 30 minute conversation is led by one volunteer sailor and all the other boaters participate.
There’s a section on weather, self-introductions of new arrivals, local businesses, events, kids corner, buy/sell/trade and general questions/help.
We listened every morning and got lots of good info! We found out about the library BBQ and another meet and greet on Flip Flop beach in Stocking Island.
Other important tidbits from the morning net included where to drop off garbage (leave your garbage bag in the back of a pickup truck near the dingy dock and $3 in the window) and the scuba shop’s sale of used fins for $8 a pair. Yes, we bought two pairs!
We hope to join in on other cruisers’ nets as we travel the Caribbean. Informative and interesting!
Monument Hike
There is a nice beach walk and hill climb with beautiful views at Monument Hill on Stocking Island. This monument is originally a navigational beacon for boaters, and now is a cool hike. One of the views is the beach below where boaters have etched their boat name with shells, wood or other detritus.
Since the hike begins with the beach walk, so will I! The beach here was almost empty and stunning.
The walk was mostly easy except for the climb up but it was really direct so over quickly.
And the view was worth it as it often is.
We met a very interesting and well-traveled English couple while taking this walk. They have been living on their boat for 8 years and been everywhere! We are saying hi and starting conversations with people whenever we can. Boaters are friendly and very interesting and many know a lot more than we do. This particular couple happened to be anchored near our boat the next day so we had some beers with them later.
Chat n Chill
Stocking Island is home to the very popular beach bar/restaurant Chat n Chill. It’s super casual with lots of picnic tables, volleyball, a bar and barbecue, and a conch stand. Most customers just take their dinghys over and pull them up on the beach, while others simply swim from their very nearby boats.
The beach has some very cute resident cats. They account for the “chill” in the restaurant’s name.
The beach itself gets sting ray visitors, probably due to the proximity of the conch stand and the fresh conch discarded regularly.
We visited Chat n Chill twice, once on our arrival day for a couple beers, and on Sunday for their famous pig roast.
One of the other boaters we met told us that Elizabeth Harbor, with all the anchorages near Stocking Island and George Town, is jokingly referred to as “Velcro Harbor” because people get stuck. There are many cruisers for whom this is their winter home. They boat here from the U.S. and stay for a few months. It’s a nice little community here. We almost got stuck on Stocking Island ourselves, but now we are sailing on south. Watch this space.
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