Hopetown

Hey,

We took an early morning ferry from Marsh Harbor to Hopetown to see the settlement and the ‘famous’ lighthouse.  The 20 minute ferry ride turned out to be another one of those unexpected high points of the trip.  From what we can surmise, taking a ferry to work, school or for dinner and drinks is very common place among the island residents. 

Hopetown itself is picturesque with lots of charming houses overlooking the harbor, narrow streets and has some fine dining/drinking establishments.  For us, one day was all we needed to enjoy the island and today’s visit reassured us going to Marsh Harbor was a better choice for us to wait out the wind.  As soon as the ferry landed in Hopetown, we recognized several boats in the harbor; one was owned by some folks we met in Titusville!

Speaking of the wind, it looks like Sunday the winds will lay down enough for us to move onto Great Gauna Cay, home of the famous (??) Nippers beach bar!  From what we’ve been told and read, you’ve got to visit it at least once; we’ll report back our findings soon!

CHeeRS!

-m & d

the 'famous' light as seen from where we had lunch

Is this really a famous light?

All the streets are like this and they allow cars on them!

Green Turtle

We needed Internet access for weather updates and wanted to visit New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay so off we went.  Unable to reach anyone at the 2 places we identified as working into our plan, we went to plan sea and discovered a real jewel! 

We’re at the Bluff House marina where there is a laundry, a restaurant, a pub, and a private beach to name just a few of the details.  There are only 2 other sailboats here and a few large motor boats.  The best thing about this place is not the free wifi, or 100 gallons of free water (we’ve been paying $.50 a gallon for water), but anything you buy at the restaurant is deducted from your dockage bill!!  For us, this meant we had fish sandwiches and a fresh salad for free yesterday (Oh, I also had a kalik for good measure)!

The weather reports are showing favorable conditions for a Sat., Sun. or Monday Gulf Stream crossing so tomorrow (Wed, 3-9) we’ll head to Allans –Pensacola Cay, then on to Great Sale Cay, and then West End (Grand Bahamas) for the trip across the gulf stream.  We may also stop at Mangrove on the way to West End to make our trip to WE easier, we’ll just have to wait and see…..  This will be out last Internet access until West End.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Looking towards the SEa of Abaco from Bluff House

A narrow [typical] street of New Plymouth

On route to Green Turtle Cay

Great Gauna Cay

Okay, we made it across the Sea of Abaco to Great Gauna Cay in 2 hours (ya it was a tough day) and just in time to grab the last mooring ball.  The mooring field/anchorage kept filling up with boats anchoring between moorings to the tune of 1 new boat ever 7 – 10 minutes.  Watching large boats ‘fish’ for a place to anchor while dodging other boats was nuts!

Enough of watching people hunt for their perfect spot (there were none - we tried also), next adventure was finding the famous Nippers beach bar!  Finding our way to the bar was easy; just follow the swarms of people from the ferry (most everyone we saw already have a libation in hand).  All along the route to Nippers there were all kinds of places to grab your favorite beverages in case you couldn’t wait to get to the beach. 

Yes its true, Nippers turned out to be another one of those one of kind beach bars, where beer (I just had to have a Kalik to fit in) and rum drinks (Nipper Juice) were flowing like there was no tomorrow.  Folks were enjoying their drinks in the pools, in the hammocks over the pools, on the decks and that is not to mention the incredible ocean beach.  Great Gauna has the nicest ocean beach we’ve seen on the trip, miles of sand and beautiful blue water.  Back at the bar…. we were told that during the day (night??) the bar tenders start handing out free rum shots (“fire in the hole” brand), doesn’t take too much imagination to see what this and the notion that its spring break leads to??? Nippers also has a room for the ‘50+ Nippers’, ya got to love the experience.

As we walked back across the island to our dinghy, we bumped into some cruising friends (Mike and Angie from Lady of Lorien) at Grabbers (a beach restaurant with a sunset view overlooking our boat). For the next few hours we caught up with them and talked about plans for crossing back to the states.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Grabbers!

Nippers!

another view of Nippers!

Marsh Harbor

Hey folks,

Marsh Harbor is the 3^rd largest city in the Bahamas and from all the cars and crazy drivers, we’d have to agree.  MH is not known for its nature beauty (they suggest you not swim in the harbor) but it is known for having everything a sailor might need.  On the recommendation of another cruiser we found a nice marina to stay at and it was also economical.

What we did manage to discover were two jewels in MH, Conky Joe’s seafood stand and Matilda’s snack stand.  We tried our first conch salad at CJ’s and not only was it great, but the conversation with the proprietor was another one of those Bahamian opportunities you don’t want to miss.  At Matilda’s snack shack we had the BEST homemade Guava ice cream ever!  The ice cream is not one of those wimpy, low fat, healthy types of frozen yogurt, it was sugar and cream and well worth the hit to our cholesterol numbers. 

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Home of some great seafood caught by her brother!



Comfort food... ice cream!!

The missing pictures

Hey folks,

I can't believe we forgot to add pics from Little Harbor and Pete's Pub!!

Enjoy!

-m & d

Pete's Pub, one of a kind!

The mooring field at Pete's

Just over the dunes from Pete's is the Atlantic and  if you look closely you can see the cut we used to get to the Sea of Abaco.

Marsh Harbor

Hey folks,

Looks like we’re going to be ‘holding up’ here in Marsh Harbor until at least Sunday, to say the winds have been brutal is an understatement!  We’re not the only ones holding up here, there are at least 300 boats in the harbor, some waiting to move, some just here for the winter but no one is moving.  Mangoes Marina is where we’re staying and is a small place with a special interest in customer care, a good place to stay.

So, if we are ‘trapped’ on our boat in a marina you must be asking; what do our adventurers do?  Go for a boat ride!!  Yup, tomorrow we’re taking the ferry to Hopetown for the day.  What a relief to be on a boat and not responsible for anything!!  Hopetown is one of those picturesque  postcard settlements.  We wanted to visit Hopetown and this is a quick and easy way to still include a visit in our travels that we would have to pass on visiting due to weather delays.

With all this time on our hands Dennis had a chance to run for the first time in months, it was good!  We’ve also checked out the local shops including a package store where we picked up some fine rum.  There is a Moorings and Sun Sail charter establishment here so we walked the docks looking at all the boats (okay, it was the catamarans that caught our eyes).  Oh ya, Dennis was also spotted reading & highlighting sabbatical research reports today.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Conch anyone???

Bond Cay and Cross Harbor –> Little Harbor

We left Nassau ahead of schedule with moderate wind and waves only to have the waves increase to the 4’ to 5’ range after an hour into our jaunt (7 hours) up to Bonds Cay.  The wind got stronger and the waves grew so much I was wondering if I read the correct wind/waves report?!  We wearily persevered onward and got to our anchorage late afternoon.  This was a beautiful place to spend the night, not another soul to be found.  The anchorage was completely protected from the rough seas and high wind.

We headed out as soon as possible to our next stop getting us closer to the Abacos, Cross Harbor on the southern tip of the Great Abaco Island.  What a difference a day makes, we had light winds and seas in the 1’ to 2’ range, these conditions made us much more rested by the time we arrived at another desolate anchorage!  Not seeing any other boats makes ya wonder if they know something we don’t??

Oh ya, today (Saturday) Dennis turns 58, wohooo and is celebrating with a cold Kalik and we’re having lobster tails (thanks Gunter)!

Tomorrow we move onto to Little Harbor, home of Pete’s pub, foundry and hopefully some INTERNET access!!

**UPDATE from Little Harbor…. Today we caught our first FISH (while in 4000’ of water), goes to show ya that even a blind squirrel can find a nut!  The fish was an Almaco Jack and it was landed, cleaned and in the freezer and frig in less than thirty minutes.  You guessed it, we had one fillet for dinner and it was great!! 

CHeeRS!

m & d

Abaco Lighthouse

Our first fish!!