First some business...As I opened Blogger today I got a notice that the new EU compliance rules may change the way some things work in the blog. I'm not sure how links I provide will work but since I'm not really savvy on computer stuff we'll just keep doing the same thing and cross our fingers.
This installment will cover the rest of our Bahamas trip, mostly with pictures. I have to say that the weather was not as good as expected for May and we didn't get to as many places as hoped and hardly anchored at all. We're still glad to have made the trip and hope to do it again sometime in the future.
Once the winds died down we were able to leave Green Turtle Cay and around the Whale pass into the Hub of the Abaco's. This was the area we were familiar with from previous trips and really looked forward to visiting. The first stop was Great Guana Cay. We'd hoped to anchor in Fishers Bay but we arrived on a Sunday which is the day of Nippers famous pig roast. The anchorage was pretty full so we opted for the marina.
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| Fishers Bay |
We skipped the pig roast and hung out at Grabbers where this picture was taken. Much less crowded on a Sunday. Maybe it's all the time spent on a boat or just getting older but we seem to shy away from the touristy things....
Timmy really seemed to enjoy his return to the island and the laid back lifestyle.
We stayed an extra day and went to Nippers on a less crowded Tuesday. Still good food and drinks and a great beach to snorkel.
Our next stop was Man-of War cay. It's one of our favorite islands and many boaters pass it up. There are only 2 restaurants and a few shops. It is full of hard working people who build boats and such for a living. You can still hear the faint English accent in the locals talk and the island pretty much shuts down on Sundays.
The Albury's Sail Shop makes nice bags out of sail cloth and the Albury's boat works still hand make modern center console fishing boats.
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| Boat shop from Chasing 80 |
They still use a marine rail system to pull boats up for work and storage.
We were able to explore some by dinghy and went to a quite beach on the bay side that had waves crashing across the road on the ocean side.
Jill was able to get a picture of an elusive starfish using our new camera in underwater mode...they don't like to hold still for a picture and move faster than you'd imagine.
Anytime you visit the Bahamas and think things are expensive remember how things get delivered to the islands. Below is a shot of fuel being delivered to the marina. Drive a fuel truck onto a barge and then drive the barge to the island....can't be cheap!
Our next stop was Hopetown on Elbow Cay. This island has the famous lighthouse you can climb that is still kerosene lit and hand wound every night.
We decided to take the dinghy to visit
Cracker P's for lunch and hang out at Tahiti Beach for a bit. This was about one of the nicest weather days in the past week.
The next day we walked to the lighthouse for the big climb...you can see a long way from up there and I wanted a picture of our boat. Many years ago we had done the same climb and I remember thinking that some day it would be our boat I would be taking a picture of!
Next we traveled to Marsh Harbour which is on the island of Great Abaco. This is the "mainland" in relation to all of the other cays. We stayed at the Jib Room and Marina which is home to a weekly rib night and Limbo party.
We stayed a week here due to the forecast of rain and high winds...they were right. Also during this stay I began to see signs of the seasons first tropical system (Alberto) about 10 days out. It was way too soon to tell where it would go if it actually formed but we felt it would be best to head back to the US if it really did develop.
This meant we would miss a part of the trip I was really looking forward to, anchoring in Little Harbour and visiting
Pete's Pub. It's a real treat to pull into the harbor on a boat and has some great history also, check out the link (if it works). Good thing is it is on the island so we rented a car and drove down one day.
One good thing about going by car is we saw a couple of Blue Holes which we wouldn't have seen otherwise.
We also drove over to Cherokee Sound for some beach combing and a shot of the "longest wooden dock" in the Bahamas. At 770' it was build to allow the weekly mailboat to unload. I imaging everything comes by road now.
By the end of the week at Marsh Harbour Alberto was beginning to look like it would form but the forecast direction varied between hitting the Bahamas or going into the Gulf. It looked like there would be a 2 day window to get back to Florida so we began moving back toward West End.
The weather held and we were able to cross back to West Palm on May 24th just a few days shy of 1 month in the Bahamas. The last day as we were headed to West End the water was so calm you could clearly see the sea fans and coral in about 12 feet of water as we traveled.
Soooo we are now safely back in the states and traveling up the east coast of Florida. Stay tuned for a future blog where we detail our, ever changing, plans for the summer.....
