Long Island is south and east of Georgetown.  We had a great sail for the 40 miles to Thompson Bay.  We finally sailed south of the Tropic of Cancer which was a milestone for us.  Long Island seems to have a slightly different climate than the Exumas.  It seems greener and better able to support some agriculture.  We saw many banana trees.  Much of the agriculture is pothole farming where natural or manmade holes in the rock filled with fertile soil are used for growing vegetables. We saw an advertisement
for a corn festival next month.

We rented a car with Idunno and traveled the island from one end to the other.  In Clarence Town (south end) we had lunch at a local Bahamian restaurant.  My meal had a side dish of plantains - very good.  In Clarence Town we visited an old Catholic church built by Father Jerome.   The church has twin spires that can be seen for miles as it sits on a high hill.  He also built the older Anglican church in town (before his conversion to Catholicism) which also sits on an adjacent hill.  The church
has a great view of the harbor.  The harbor itself is formed by reefs and small islands with one narrow entrance. 

The north end of the island has a monument to Christopher Columbus up on Cape Santa Maria, a bluff over looking the ocean - excellent views. 

One day we dinghied over to a cave and did a little spelunking. There were eight of us each with a flash light and it was still very dark.  There was one section of the cave where it was open at the top allowing sunlight to infiltrate and trees were growing inside the cave up through the hole - it was very interesting.  Of course there were many bats but they were all sleeping.  John saw one crab, and we were told there were tarantulas in there but we didn't see any (whew).

One night the local Bahamian restaurant had a buffet ($10), and we had about 30 cruisers.  As usual with any gathering of cruisers we had a potluck on the beach one night.