Day #223 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

Slowly recovering from a fantastic night last night at the “Pirate Ball.”  Patti had offered to make a southern breakfast for “the gang” as she wanted all of us to experience cheese grits.  At 10:00 Andy announced that pirates were boarding Salvage Crew and we assembled on their lovely back deck.  We reminised about last evening and laughed again at some of the antics.

Brunch was presented and it consisted of mimosas, bloody Mary’s, cheese grits, bacon and eggs. Yum!

Everyone enjoyed the entire event and were appreciative of Brad and Patti’s southern hospitality.  We said our good byes to everyone as we are leaving Marsh Harbour on Friday and don’t know when we will see any of them again.  Thanks for the memories to Buck and Haldean, Pat and Patricia and Jim and Joan.  Fun times, new friends and we certainly hope we meet up again somewhere.

After that, the captain dinghied us over for our provisioning. You have to time your grocery shopping around their delivery schedule.  Produce is delivered on Mondays and generally restocked on Tuesdays so you need to time it accordingly.  Wednesday was the day.  Did our shopping, walked back to the boat, took the groceries home, put them away and got back in the dinghy.  My patient captain took me back over for my pedicure.  Much needed before we take off for destinations unknown.

Tonight will be our final “Rib Night” at the Jib Room.  It is hard to believe we have been here four weeks and are planning our departure.

Boo, the owner of Marsh Harbour Marina, and her son Stephen who works here as well.

Watching the limbo competition. The crowd has gotten younger as it is Spring Break.

Patti dancing to “Who is Alice?”  with a member of the band.

Day #222 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

In the morning it was a “Be Kind to Mary Day” and Andy dinghied me into town for a cut and color.  Ahhh, it has been too long.  My chauffeur picked me up at the dinghy dock on schedule and back to the boat.

The Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club was having their annual Pirates Ball and Jim and Joan Elliott were kind enough to include us at their table.  It is a fairly big event in town and even the “Party Time” store stocked pirate garb for the event.  We called a cab to take us their but after waiting 20 minutes a lovely local couple stopped and asked if we were going to the “Ball” and offered us a ride.  Wonder how they knew we were going????

They dropped us off right at the door (what service) and the night began.  Clearly many of the boaters prepare for this ahead of time and pack their costumes on board as they really dressed for the event.

Even some visiting children participated in the event and passed around trays of  “Scurvy Prevention” which were slices of key limes.

The evening went way too fast but we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.  Very nice people, welcoming and friendly.  The evening of dinner, dancing and entertainment was made that much better by the presentation of a lovely full moon.

Day #221 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

Woke to a perfect day today.  Clear skies, calm winds and the high is expected to be 80 degrees.  We decided to put the dinghies in the water and head over to Man-O-War again.  It only takes about 20 minutes on a calm day and it is a beautiful ride.  We arrived there about 11:00 and just walked and walked the island.  As I had mentioned before when we visited there a couple of weeks ago the island is inhabited and run by the Albury family.  There names are everywhere.  The pictures tell the story of our wonderful day today.

We have been invited to dinner on Salty Dawg as guests of Pat and Patricia Dwyer.  The Elliotts, Salvages and ourselves will be in attendance and it should be a wonderful night.  Salty Dawg is docked at Conch Inn, across the harbor, so we will dinghy over at 5:00.

Day #220 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

A very quiet day in the harbor today.  Lost an hour of sleep due to the fact that we went on daylight savings at 2:00 am.  Not sure if that is the reason or nor, but everyone was kind of quiet today and not much happening.  Beautiful and sunny, high 75 with a slight breeze.  It is supposed to stay like that for the entire week and we are really looking forward to it.

It is hard to believe, but we are actually planning our return to the United States.  We arrived in the Bahamas on January 28th and plan to leave Marsh Harbour on Friday, March 13th and start making our way back.  We plan to travel with Salvage Crew which should be great fun.  We will probably anchor out for a night or two, but plan to go to Sea Spray on Elbow Cay, back to Man-O-War, then Orchid Bay on Guana Cay and a stop in Treasure Cay and back to Green Turtle Cay.  Most likely we will end up back in West End on Grand Bahama to wait for our crossing to West Palm Beach, Florida.

We need to be back in that area around April 1st.  We are thrilled that our good friends, John and Karen Barney will meet us in West Palm on April 5th and stay for a few days.  The four of us haven’t been together since they left our boat in Ludington, Michigan in August.  We know we will have TONS of fun with them as we always do.

Grilling out with Brad and Patti tonight.  Should be another fun evening.

Day #219 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

Woke to another beautiful day here in Marsh Harbour and went for our morning walk.  The winds have definitely calmed down from last week and the high is in the low 70s with abundant sunshine.

A sailor at the marina climbed all of the way to the top of his mast to change a light bulb.

Joe taking his dinghy out after getting the water out of the pontoon.  Project by committee.

A quiet day in the marina today.  Everyone doing boat chores.  Andy finally was able to get the Hurricane furnace working.  He had ordered a replacement photo cell for the one he had already replaced as he figured that was the only thing that could be wrong.  He was correct, so the one that they sent him initially was bad, however we still had to pay for the replacement.  Oh well, now it is working and at the moment, no further repairs on the list.  We are figuring we will run into some cooler weather when we start heading north in April/May.

We went to Wally’s restaurant in Marsh Harbour tonight with Salvages and Lynches.  It is supposed to be the best restaurant in the Abacos.  We gathered at 5:30 for cocktails and called a cab for our 6:30 reservation.  Good dinner, good company.

Day #218 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

Wow, what a day! Today was the Barefoot Man concert on Guana Cay at Nipper’s.  He is a bit of a legend in these parts.  He actually lives in Cayman, but comes to Nipper’s several times a year and performs.  He has quite a following and has a Jimmy Buffet style with humor.  http://barefootman.com.  A few of his most popular songs include “Thong Gone Wrong” and “When They Cut You Off at Nipper’s” if that gives you an idea of his style.

We walked into town and caught the 10:30 ferry to Guana.  It takes about 40 minutes and makes one stop at Scotland Cay which is a private island.  Guana is a beautiful harbor and it was full of boats there for the concert and the action packed weekend.  Golf carts were lined up at the ferry dock to take you to your destination, just the way cabs are lined up at airports.

We arrived a Nipper’s about 11:30 as we were told that his performance was to begin at noon.  Well, entertainment started but he didn’t actually begin performing until 3:00.  Everyone ate, danced, people watched and drank the day away.

And a few of the t-shirts that help show the mood of the day.

…and the answer is “yes!”

The ferry left to go back to Marsh Harbour at 4:45, but we were ready to go when it was.

We tried to board the smaller ferry as it had fewer passengers and would make it back more quickly.  They told us it was for locals only as that is how many of the workers on the island commute to and from work.  Eventually the captain came to the other ferry and got us and let us ride with them.  Not only was it faster, but he gave us a ride right back to our marina which saved us the long walk back.  All in all a great day…more memories.

Day #217 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

Sort of a cool start to the day today, but it warmed up as the day progressed.  Took a nice walk this morning but it was brisk.  Spent most of the day doing boat chores.  Andy washed the boat, I did laundry and then we went into town via the dinghy.  Laundry dried quickly as the wind was stiff.

In town we went to the local seafood shop.  Today they offered fresh conch, mahi mahi and crab.  She also grows her own tomatoes so we bought a few of those.

On our way back to the boat, through the mooring field, we came across a boat with a familiar name.

For those of you who are not familiar with the name, a curlew is a shore bird.  We used to have a sailboat named Curlew.

It is warming up nicely now and we plan to grill lobsters ($3.25 each) with Patti and Brad tonight.  At that price they are one half the price of chicken breasts here in the Abacos.

Day #216 – Snake Cay, Abacos

Came back this morning from Snake Cay as it was rough at anchor last night and the winds were predicted to pick up as the day progressed.  Here are a few of the sights of our time at Snake Cay.

We put the dinghies in shortly after we settled into our anchorage.  Quite a bit of coral in the area so we had to pull up the anchor and change location.  Once that was done, we set out in the dinghies to do a little exploring.  It is hard to tell from the pictures, but we saw:

A large sea turtle

A huge ray (4 ft. span)

Many star fish

Some unknown creature from the deep…you just never know what you will encounter!

I woke up in the middle of the night and the sky was amazing.  The moon was about half full, but there were so many bright stars, they reached all the way down to to the horizon.  A beautiful spot and so glad we came.

Day #215 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

A beautiful day here. Still a little cool but the winds calmed down and we are headed out for an anchorage.  There are at least three boats going and we are headed to Snake Cay.  We have been told by many other boaters that it is a great place to put the dinghies and and go exploring.  There are reportedly many sting rays and other marine life to see.  Hopefully when we return I will have lots of good pictures to share.

Until then…bon voyage!

Snake Cay is located just above Little Harbour.

Day #214 – Marsh Harbour, Abacos

The predicted cold front moved through in the night and it brought about five minutes of rain.  Beautiful and sunny today but the high is only expected to be about 65.

Joe and Judy were nice enough to let us use their scooter to go into town.  A little too windy to take the dinghies across the harbor.  The first stop was the Party Time store as we are attending the “Pirate Ball” on March 10th with the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club.  Should be fun but you have to dress up so we found a few accessories.  Then to the bank, auto parts and grocery.  We don’t feel too safe on the scooter.  First, you drive on the opposite side of the road and secondly we are afraid people can’t see us too well.  So back we came and unloaded.

Andy’s Popular T-shirt

Having Patti, Brad, Judy and Joe for dinner tonight.  Should be fun as they are a great group.  We will have a planning meeting as we are all talking about taking off from the marina and anchoring out in some of the out islands to do a little exploring.  If we do, we will be out of internet contact for a couple of days.  Plan to come back on Thursday.