A Sad Farewell

Today Rob had to leave and return to cold, cold Kansas. We thoroughly enjoyed his stay aboard. I think the last log entry I posted was from Green Turtle Cay, but I can't remember for sure. I'll start from there in any case.

It was about 02:30 in the morning, Saturday, Feb 9, and very calm in the harbor. The sky was clear and there was an incredible panorama of stars above. We were anchored in Settlement Harbor on the island of Great Guana Cay. We left Green Turtle Cay on Friday morning, Feb 8, about 08:30. There is a sand bar stretching across the Sea of Abaco from Whale Cay on the Atlantic side to "Treasure Cay" on the Abaco side. Treasure Cay is not really a cay, but part of Abaco. Everyone calls it Treasure
Cay anyway. The sand bar restricts passage for boats drawing more than about 4 feet so to get from the northern part of the Sea of Abaco to the southern we had to go through the Whale Channel, which is a cut in the reef that leads out to the Atlantic on the northwestern side of Whale Cay, and re-enter via the Loggerhead Channel on the southeastern side of Whale Cay. This is very easy to do unless there exists what are known as "rage" conditions. Apparently when there is a heavy swell from the
east (such as a big storm out in the Atlantic would cause) the channels can get violently rough and choppy. Many boats and more than a few lives have been lost in the Whale over the years due to rage conditions, so there is a very nice fellow at Abaco Yacht Services who will tell you what the current conditions are if you call him on channel 16 on the VHF radio. He gave us the all clear, and we got underway. By the time we reached the Whale, there were about 5 other boats traveling with us. It
was an easy passage and we arrived at Settlement Harbor by noon.

Settlement Harbor is very pretty and picturesque, but too small for more than a couple of boats to anchor and still have room to swing around the anchor, so they have moorings you can hook to. A mooring is a permanent anchor (usually a large cement slab or sometimes an old engine block) with a buoy marking its position and there is a piece of rope called a pennant attached to the buoy with a loop in one end. You motor up to the buoy and use a boat hook to grab the pennant and pull it aboard. You
then pass a mooring line through the loop in the pennant and cleat it to your boat. It is very easy and the big advantage is that you don't have to have nearly as much scope (the amount of chain or line between the anchor and the boat) on a mooring and thus don't swing in a very big circle. I'm amazed at how close together the moorings are, but as long as all the boats swing in the same direction, they don't run into each other.

Once we were moored, we had sandwiches for lunch and then took the dinghy ashore. We went to this beach bar named Nipper's, which is a multi-level, multi-colored series of decks built on a dune overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. They have swimming pools on two levels of the decks and stairs leading down to the beach. The beach is very pretty and the reef is just off the beach. Rob and I went snorkeling on the reef while Nancy strolled along the beach. We snorkeled for about an hour and it was incredible.
We saw all kinds of fish and even saw a sea turtle. After snorkeling, we sat on one of the decks and had a few beers and just watched the ocean. We saw two guys carrying big net bags full of lobsters and decided we'd have dinner at Nipper's. They had rib-eye steaks or lobster for $20, along with salad, beans and rice, baked mac and cheese and steamed vegetables. You could choose your steak or lobster and the rib-eyes were simply huge, but then so were the lobsters. The locals all eat the steaks,
because they eat lobster all the time and steak is a real treat for them. Us tourists eat the lobster because we can get steak anytime back home, but freshly caught lobster is a real treat for us. Everybody is happy. The lobsters were very delicious and we were stuffed when we finished eating and tired from the snorkeling, so we headed back to the boat shortly after dark. We sat up in the cockpit reading for a little while, but we were all nodding off and wound up going to bed by about 21:00.

Later Saturday morning, we noticed the head wasn't flushing properly (a "head" is a nautical term for toilet). Fixing the head is perhaps the least pleasant job on the boat. It is very rewarding, though, because when the head doesn't work, everyone aboard gets very grumpy. If you can fix a marine head, you are an instant hero, so I got to be hero for a day. After demonstrating my plumbing prowess, we returned to shore and again went to the beach at Nipper's for more snorkeling. We snorkeled
a different part of the reef for a couple of hours and then climbed back up the stairs to Nipper's for a beer and lunch. If I haven't mentioned it before, there is a local Bahamian beer called Kalik, which is very tasty. After lunch we walked around and had a Guana Grabber at a beach bar named Grabber's. A Guana Grabber is a famous local drink made of 3 kinds of fruit juice and 3 kinds of rum. It was quite good and I think a few of them would really grab you and not let go for a while. It was
low tide when we got back to the boat and Stolen Child was hard aground. Fortunately the wind was not changing direction much so none of the other boats swung into us. A couple of hours later the tide had come back in and we were floating free again. Rob fixed fettucini Alfredo for dinner.

Early Sunday morning, Feb 10, a thunderstorm blew through the anchorage. It was just a little after low tide and Stolen Child was still aground, but the 25+ knot winds blew her free of the bottom and we were able to swing with the other boats. Later that morning we got underway for Hope Town, on Elbow Cay. Hope Town is where the famous red and white candy-striped lighthouse is. The entrance to Hope Town is narrow, circuitous and shallow, so we timed our arrival with the high tide and entered
the harbor without any drama. The harbor was packed with boats and we had to motor around a lot before we found an empty mooring. After mooring we went ashore for lunch and then strolled around. We walked all the way to the northern tip of the island and back and were pretty tired by the time we got back to the boat. Rob cooked pasta in a clam sauce for dinner that was delicious.

Monday we took our trash to the dumpster and went to tour the lighthouse. The lighthouse was built in 1863 and is still in operation today. Back in 1863 the locals were very opposed to its construction because many of them made their living salvaging the wrecks of ships that would run into the reef. Once the lighthouse was built, the salvaging industry dried up completely. We were able to climb to the top of the lighthouse and look at the mechanism. The rotating part of the light floats in a
vat of mercury for a very low-friction bearing. It has huge glass Fresnel lenses to focus the beam, which is generated by a small kerosene mantle, much like you find in a Coleman lantern. There are weights that the lighthouse keeper winds up to the top of the lighthouse and a clockwork mechanism that turns the light as the weights fall. It was very fascinating and the view from the lighthouse is awesome. After the lighthouse, we went to the Harbor Lodge, which has a patio overlooking the reef
and Nancy and I sat on the patio having drinks while Rob snorkeled on the reef. We went to Captain Jack's for lunch, then walked around town taking pictures for a while, then stopped at a coffee shop for coffee. Rob cooked burgers on the grill and some really good macaroni and cheese for dinner.

Tuesday morning we got underway for Marsh Harbor on Abaco Island. The weather forecast was for some bad weather to arrive later in the day, so we wanted to be safely anchored when it arrived. Marsh Harbor is well-protected but quite a bit larger than Hope Town harbor. There were quite a few boats, but still plenty of room for us to anchor. Right after we got anchored, it started storming and it stormed intermittently the rest of the day. During a break in the rain, we dinghied ashore and had
lunch at a place called Snappa's. This was the first food we had ashore that left us unimpressed. It wasn't bad, but nothing to rave about, either. We walked around town for a while and returned to the boat well before dark. I have to say that I don't really care for Marsh Harbor. It is very full of people and automobiles and strip malls. We hardly ever saw an automobile on any of the other islands, but of course the cays are much smaller than Abaco. On the cays, most everyone either walks
or drives a golf cart around. Marsh Harbor is the third largest town in the Bahamas and is in a busy growth phase. The good thing about Marsh Harbor is the airport and the availability of just about anything you need. It has supermarkets, hardware stores, liquor stores, banks, an airport, etc. The wind blew like crazy all night and I heard on the cruiser's net this morning that it topped 40 mph during the night. Our anchor held like a champ, though.

This morning (Wednesday, Feb 13) Rob packed up all his stuff and we dinghied ashore for breakfast. After breakfast we went to Buck-A-Book, a used book store located in an old shipping container. Every book is $1 and they also have DVD's for rent. All the money goes to the Abaco Wild Horses Foundation. We bought a few paperbacks and then it was time for Rob to catch a taxi to the airport. We really hated to see him leave and are looking forward to his next visit in some future locale. Nancy
and I are going to start planning our return trip to the States tomorrow. We want to make it a very leisurely trip with stops in as many places as possible.