A Week Aboard S/V Sabado: 2/28/2021 – 3/7/2021

Hey! Have you seen our latest video?

Anyway, last Sunday we did absolutely nothing. We stayed on the boat, watched TV, and organized our hard drive of footage/cleared all our SD cards. It was a nice, relaxing day!

Monday morning we decided to sail South. We had about 16kn of wind coming from the direction we wanted to go, so we tacked back and forth all day until the swells got annoying enough for us to quit.

We ended up anchoring back in Black Point- home sweet home! This was our third time in Black Point, so we felt like locals. 😉 We went to shore for dinner that night, and took the dinghy home at sunset.

The next day we were feeling motivated to do some boat work. Ray did some stainless polishing, inspections, and replacements outside, while I scrubbed every nook and cranny on the inside. Taking care of Sabado is a full time job, and lately we haven’t been treating it like one- it’s tough when there’s always something more exciting to do! So, we decided to get back on top of things this week.

The problem with boats is that everything is either salty or moldy. If you don’t wipe down every crevice of the inside regularly, mold grows, and if you don’t rinse every bit of the outside regularly, the salt crystallizes and rusts things (and then things break). So, we caught back up on our chores and made a plan for maintaining things better moving forward! 

We went to shore later that afternoon and picked up some pizza as a reward for all our hard work. We got back to the dinghy dock just after someone had cleaned a fish, so there were tons of stingrays and baby sharks swimming around us as we left! 

The next morning I woke up to the boat bouncing around and the moon still peeking through the hatch.

The wind had shifted around and was coming from the West, so we had a consistent swell in the anchorage- it felt like we were living in a washing machine all day.

That afternoon Ray noticed a bunch of fraudulent charges on his credit card that we had only used at two restaurants here in Black Point. Obviously there’s no way to pinpoint for sure who stole his card information, but multiple other cruisers had the same experience after being in Black Point, so if you’re traveling through the area, maybe stick with cash if you can. It’s a real bummer to think you’re supporting the locals by spending money on land, and then having something like this happen. Luckily we have a friend coming to visit next week, so we were able to cancel the current card and have a replacement sent to her house, and she’ll bring it to us when she comes (thank you, Eve!). 

The next morning we left for George Town at sunrise. It was a fun, full day of downwind sailing! We had about 10-13kn of wind all day so we weren’t moving very fast, but it was our first time sailing on the Sound side (the bank= shallow, not many fish vs the sound= deeper, lots of fish) so we threw our fishing lines in and ended up catching a yellowfin tuna!

We dropped our anchor just off of Stocking Island at sunset, had some rum, made some dinner, and went to bed.

The next morning I got to listen to my first ever cruisers net! Cruisers net is basically just a set period of time on the radio where all the cruisers can chat. There’s a host who kind of drives the conversation to fit an agenda and everyone chimes in when appropriate. I was shocked at just how much was going on! People were announcing water aerobics classes, a dinghy floatilla, ride sharing plans, etc. To be honest I was a bit over-stimulated; this is the most boats we’ve seen in months, there are so many buildings around, plenty of resources, and things to do! We’re not in the middle of nowhere anymore. 

We decided to head out that day and get the lay of the land. We took the dinghy around to Victoria Lake, which is completely catered to cruisers. There are free dinghy docks and a grocery store, liquor store, gas station, and ATM just a short walk away. 

We made note of our options, then headed over to the Rusty Anchor- a restaurant everyone here recommends. It was attached to a beautiful resort, so we had lunch with a view!

Later that evening we headed over to the infamous Chat N’ Chill- a beach bar with tons of outdoor seating and games, a favorite amongst cruisers. We grabbed a couple of drinks, but got a little nervous about the amount of mask-less people we saw… so we walked along the beach for a bit then headed home for the night.

The next day we headed back to shore to get some provisions. The grocery store here is huge compared to what we’ve seen on the other islands! We picked up just enough to get us through for a week or so, and we’ll be sure to fully stock up again before we leave here. 

That night we ate the last of our tuna for dinner and watched the sunset. 

We don’t have any plans for today, but we have some friends in the area we might try to meet up with! 

I hope you all had a great week. ☺️