Our time with guests continued until mid-week. We had been traveling about with Joyce's parents, Marcy and Ed day sailing to nearby destinations for a couple of trips late last week, returning each day to Marsh Harbour. It was quite a hectic pace to leave the harbor, sail a couple or three hours to a new destination, anchor, get everyone in the dinghy and to shore; explore for a couple of hours and then high tail it back to Marsh Harbour before dark. With Joyce's brother Chuck now aboard, and Ed and Marcy leaving early in the week, we decided to change to less hectic tactics, taking everyone with us but sending Ed and Marcy back on the ferry.
The petite body of water known as the Sea of Abaco, with uniform depths and protected waters fortunately make for more relaxed sailing. Distances between the many diverse destinations are thankfully short, allowing plenty of land time for exploration and beach combing. With all five of us aboard, we sailed the 10 miles back over to the protected harbor at Hope Town on the eastern edge of this sea. We probably wouldn't do this in anything other then calm water, but we piled everyone in our dinghy and puttered ashore. After a lunch out overlooking the harbor, we again piled in the dinghy for a trip across the harbor to take in the stunning views from atop the Hope Town Lighthouse.
Late in the day, rather then have us sail back to Marsh Harbour, Ed and Marcy hopped on the ferry for a much quicker ride back to the Conch Inn while Chuck remained on board becoming our first overnight guest since the beginning of our trip.
Chuck brought along with him his new digital camera. It's amazing the many features it has and made Joyce quite envious. While our digital camera is pocket-sized and easy to carry around, it doesn't take the best quality of pictures in all conditions. The nicer quality pictures in this and the previous update are courtesy of Chuck's camera.
Unfortunately, a cold front making its way into the Bahamas began to influence our plans. Exceptionally strong for this time of year, Chuck (our favorite Meteorologist) was in agreement with the local weather forecasts for 30-35 knot winds behind the front. As Hope Town is well protected and we felt quite secure, we decided to forgo a day of sailing in order to remain on our mooring. We made good use of the calm before the storm to dinghy out and snorkel the reef and to walk on the pretty pink sand beach. But by 3:00 am the next morning, the front was upon us with all of the wind that was forecast and more. We thought that surely this would be one of the last fronts but by later in the week, another equally strong front was pushing south.
Being too rough to comfortably venture out, Joyce accompanied Chuck on the ferry back to Marsh Harbour for his afternoon flight. The boat was ours once again. Please don't misinterpret... we really wanted these guests to come, we thoroughly enjoyed every minute of their company and would eagerly welcome them and others back. It's just nice to have the quiet of normalcy back. Having company on board is rather like having people living with you in a room the size of your bathroom. It's fun for awhile, but eventually you tend to want some privacy!
Back on our own and wanting to rent a couple of bikes to explore the rest of Elbow Cay, we found the place with a yard full of well kept beach cruisers but no one around. Okay, so this IS the Bahamas; the bikes WERE unlocked so we just borrowed them thinking maybe someone would be around when we got back. We biked four or fives miles south, past the outskirts of Hope Town, past scenic ocean vistas and past one place where Hurricane Floyd had washed out the road along the beach forcing all traffic to detour through someone's poor front lawn. With again no one around when we got back, we left the bikes where we found them and headed back to the boat.
The following day, Starlight, Changing Channels and ourselves arranged a rendezvous at Man-O-War Cay. Nigel Calder, a prominent nautical writer, was scheduled to speak on cruising Cuba later that evening and we hadn't been to see Man-O-War anyway. And it just so happened that Brian landed a 12 pound mutton snapper on the way over, enough to feed the six of us twice. Mutton snapper is one of our favorite fish, the meat, white, firm and flavorful almost the texture of a tender chicken breast.
Upon entering the cut at Man-O-War, the channel divides the north and south opening into two almost equal sized harbors. The settlement, marinas and services line the north harbor. Large enough to hold only 20 or 30 boats on closely set moorings, both harbors are well protected by the high hills most of the way around making this a favored spot to ride out the more severe weather. The town is neat, orderly and well kept with a variety of small shops, stores and even a working boat builder fabricating the sturdy Albury open runabouts that are very popular with those who work on the water.
From Nigel's talk and slide show we gathered that Cuba presents an mix of unspoiled cruising grounds and environmental disaster areas. He said that he never met more warm and friendly people but and it was a big but... the Cuban government did not really want cruisers there and in particular did not want any fraternizing with the native people. Nor are U.S. citizens allowed to spend any money in Cuba. Perhaps things will eventually change there.
From Man-O-War we sailed the 12 miles or so to the northwest end of Great Guana Cay anchoring in Baker's Bay along with Changing Channels and Starlight. At one time, a cruise ship line had developed the property here, creating a resort atmosphere for their guests. But in 1993, the cruise line abandoned the site we were told because the ships kept running aground in the channel. Another version gives the reason that frequent rages kept the ships and their unhappy guests at bay so to speak. What ever the reason, the resort was eerily abandoned in place; like a scene from the Twilight Zone where there was once a city, but where were the people? Tiki huts on the beach still wait for sunbathers; tennis and basketball courts still wait for players and beach bars still wait for partakers. But slowly, the undergrowth has begun to take over and the once fancy resort is sadly falling apart.
Although Brian and I struck out trying to find a decent place to snorkel nearby, Susan and Joyce hit pay dirt shelling on the adjacent islet known as Spoil Bank Cay. They collected fistfuls of the most amazing variety of shells, colors and shapes of many varieties and even shells that seemingly came from prehistoric snails, such were the horns and humps on these 2 inch shells.
The forecast for the second cold front of the week forced us to abandon the open roadstead of Baker's Bay for the all around protection of Treasure Cay. Now firmly attached to the mainland, this peninsula still retains its distinct name designation. Really a Florida style resort complete with several rows of rental town homes boarding narrow canals, the place was hard hit by Floyd and efforts are ongoing to recover. We picked up the last open mooring of only 6 available. All else who followed us in had to anchor in the soft dredged bottom.
The front came through at 5:00 am with a little lightening, barely enough rain to wet the decks, but plenty of wind. One station reported gusts to 50 knots, but we saw nothing quite that severe. Nevertheless, with the reversal in wind direction, much excitement in the anchorage ensued. Two boats swung around and found themselves aground with a third boat dragging down on the now helpless grounded boats. Three others drug but caught themselves quickly and reanchored safely including a large ketch that nearly dragged down on us. In the end, no harm was done and everyone eventually got safety tucked away.
Blustery cooler weather prevailed after the front so we stayed put for the day exploring where we could on Treasure Cay. During that day a plan developed to make our way back towards the Little Harbour cut so we could snorkel the Pelican Cays Land and Sea Park and then cruise out the cut into the ocean to do some deep sea fishing as we came around the northeast end of the Abacos.
