Day #242 – West End, Bahamas…still

Yes, we are still at Old Bahama Bay waiting for our crossing window.  Tomorrow is the day.  Winds are predicted to be calm, seas 2-3 feet, winds 10-15 from the south.  Patience has paid off, hopefully.

Lisa, Patti and I took a long walk this morning and it was beautiful.  We will really miss the Bahamas and Old Bahama Bay has been great.  While we were walking I noticed something odd looking in the road ahead of us.  When we got closer it moved and moved quickly.  It turned out to be a blue crab.  A workman who was in the area told us what kind of crab it was and that is was unusual for him to be out of the water.

While we were talking to him he showed us a tomato plant growing in the middle of nowhere.  It was covered with tomatoes.

If you look at the surrounding area, it is amazing that ANYTHING can grow in this soil.  It is like gray dust, most likely coral.

The entire time we have been in the Bahamas we have been looking for sand dollars.  We have yet to find one but a friend of Patti and Brad’s who goes down there every year and dives for them gave her a few and she shared with me.  Lisa told us that you can tell a Bahamian sand dollar apart from others as the Bahamian have six slots instead of the usual five.

While walking around the marina we spotted a needle fish.

The marina is really filling up now that the weather has started to calm down and make the passage possible.  More than a dozen boats have pulled in today.  Many of the boats are quite impressive including  a Viking, Alaskan, Son Ship, Marlow, and several Nordhavens all 55 feet plus.

We had dinner tonight at Bonefish Folley’s with Brad and Patti, Jim and Lisa and Charlie and Linda as it is the last night we will be together here in the Bahamas.

Funny…no one ordered conch tonight!

Nice that a sunset appeared for us as well.

A beautiful end to a beautiful part of our journey…

Day #241 – West End, Bahamas

The wind is relentless.  It just keeps coming.  No boats left today and with good reason.  A couple have arrived coming through the Sea of Abaco and said it is really rough.  So, still looks like Good News and Salvage Crew will wait it out here at Old Bahama Bay for another couple of days.  Again, not a bad place to be stuck.

Patti and I took a nice walk this morning and this afternoon decided to walk the grounds and take a few pictures of the flowers here at the resort.  Beautiful, beautiful and so many varieties.

We walked the beach and pool area and are pleased to see so many people enjoying their vacation here.  Certainly busier during spring break than it was when we were here in January.

We were kind of watching for the arrival of Kismet and Freedom’s Turn today as they had emailed and said they were hoping to make it here on Saturday or Sunday.  They have had a rough few days traveling through the Abacos.  They passed through Don’t Rock passage instead of the Whale and said it was raging.  The seas were terrible and Lisa kissed the ground when they arrived at Green Turtle Cay. While we were walking the beach Andy spotted two boats out in the distance and we watched them come in.

The seas were very rough again today and they are glad to be here and we are glad they have made it.

Day #239 – West End, Bahamas

Today is the windiest day we have had in some time.  Several of the large fishing boats that arrived from Florida yesterday are still here at the dock and even they didn’t go out.

We rode bikes out to the break wall in Old Bahama Bay to get some exercise and see other sites.  The head wind was incredibly strong and you really had to work hard on the single speed bikes.  When we got out there a cruise ship was going by headed to Freeport.

The winds are coming from the south at about 25 miles per hour which makes the Atlantic side very rough.  Waves in the gulf stream are reported to be 6-9 feet again today.

We walked over to the Sea of Abaco side and it was a much different story.  We even spotted a few string rays floating in the calm water.

While we were out on the point we spotted this ship trying to make its way into the marina.  The were really pitching and rolling and it appeared they had come all the way from Florida.  When it docked, it was apparent that it is a commercial dive boat.  Not sure how happy the paying customers were for their experience in the ride over.

The curly tail lizards are everywhere and they look to be having such fun.  They make me smile.

Day #238 – West End, Bahamas

Another beautiful day in West End.  There is still quite a strong breeze, but it is sunny and 78 degrees.  Several boats pulled out of the marina this morning and left to cross to Florida.  They were facing 6-9 foot seas and we wished them luck and off they went.  2-4 foot seas were plenty for me on the way over and don’t choose to experience more, especially if we don’t have to.  One couple told me they would email me and let me know that they made it safely.

Andy discovered that one of our gallons of motor oil had sprung a leak in the engine room, so he spent most of the morning cleaning that up.  Fortunately he found it before it had pumped overboard and into the water.  Quite a messy job, but he is done and now taking his Captain’s siesta.

Brad, Patti and I rode our bikes into West End again today, about four miles away.  We stopped at the two little “grocery” stores along the roadside, but came out empty handed.  We then went to the “liquor” store a bit further down the road.  Brad bought beer at $2.45 a can and club soda at $1.25 a can.  Definitely something you don’t have to want to purchase much of around here.

On our way back we stopped and took pictures of some of the local sites.  This is a very poor area but everyone is so friendly and happy.  A fisherman walking along the street stopped us and asked us if we wanted to buy any lobster.  He pulled them out of his bag and they were still alive.  He would have sold us 12 for $30 but we had no way to get them back and still all have quite a few in our freezers.

The photo below is of their nicest pub in West End called The Star.

The  next picture is of their seaside bar across the street.  It even has ocean side seating.

Another stop showed the continuous piles of conch shells along the roadway.  Guess they gave up on trying to put the shells in the bucket a long time ago.

Across the street from that is this building adorned with cleaned conch shells.  Not sure what is supposed to go into that bucket…hungry dogs????

After we got back, Patti and I decided to try and clean the conch shells we had gathered yesterday.  Several people on the dock got into the act.  It will not be a quick project as you scrape, soak in bleach water, dry for a couple of days and scrape again.

Dinner tonight will be up at the resort restaurant, Fishbone Folley’s, located right off the stern of our boat.

Sunset at dinner.  Another beautiful day in the Bahamas!