Black Point

 We left Big Majors and Staniel Cay on March 17th and sailed about 10 miles south to Black Point. The area around Staniel Cay is very touristy. Black Point is very different. Black Point is a small settlement, that has been a center of local activity for many years. There a plenty of vacation rentals, but not the real high end ones you can see over on Staniel. The vibe is very local and it is much less expensive to live here. Many of the locals board local transit boats each day to go to work over on Staniel. There is a great restaurant called Lorraines and a great laundromat with the best view of any laundromat I have ever seen. 

This is a view of the harbor from the East end. There is a long shallow area that is almost dry at low tide at this end and then about 9 feet of water where the boats are anchored. 

The hole in the limestone in front of you is a blow hole. I have a good video of it going off that I will include on my YouTube Videos.

There was a party going on at this end for the cruisers on St. Patricks day. 

The town is quiet and fairly well kept. There is a place to get rid of trash and get water. Both for a very small fee. That is one of the many reasons that Black Point is a cruisers favorite.

This is the view from the laundry dock. Not bad!

I really liked Black Point. This is the Bahamian experience that I had been looking for.

That is Lorraines restaurant. Just above it is Lorraines mom's house. You can go there and get a fresh baked loaf of Coconut bread for $10. I got one right out of the oven. Very tasty. 

This is the laundry and showers. Very reasonable at $4.15 to wash and $4.15 to dry. 

Just a beautiful harbor.

Our time in Black Point was very enjoyable on land. We did have three days of a very rolly anchorage. At least it is all free. Then the wind came out of the north and the roll stopped. The harbor has very good protection from the north, so even though the wind was blowing around 20 knots, the water was pretty flat. 

Lorranine hosted a totally free dinner one night just to say thank you to the cruisers. That was very nice and the food was great!

We made some new friends and saw some people we knew from Marathon last year. 

While we were in Black Point the group of Island Packets that we had seen in Big Major sailed over and dropped anchor. We met a couple of them and then one day on the beach we met Hayden Cochran. He runs the IP Owners website and he and his wife Radeen sail an IP 35 just like SHIFT. 

As our time was winding down, we took a long walk to a beach on the ocean side. 

We stopped by the Blow Hole again. Very cool! I needed to climb up on that rock to get the view.

The rock formations and the crashing waves made for a very cool view.

This is the view from the top. 

You had to be very careful walking on these strange looking rocks, they are very sharp.

This is the beach we wanted to walk on. It was a grey and windy day, but we love to see the power of the ocean.

We have to get a Kim on the beach shot.

Black Point became our last point south. It was now March 23rd, and we had to be out of the Bahamas by April 17th. We had a lot of miles to cover, and we had one more Island Chain that we wanted to visit. We had a great weather window to sail north over the next few days, so we decided to get moving that way. In my next entry, I will write about our trip north.