One More From Sea Spray

Shortly after my last post, the Elliot Clan departed to return to Florida.  Elizabeth, daughter, Janet, and granddaughter Hali pictured here on the Marina porch. Janet has to get back to work at her new job at a Canadian National Park on Vancouver Island. 

The past couple of weeks have flown by and we are now in our last week on lovely Elbow Cay.  The weather has remained perfect, dare we say a little too warm at times ... but then there is a pool.  Every visit to Hopetown is fun, whether by dinghy or by bike.  The cottages are darling.

There is a significant art community and the Hummingbird Cottage is an art gallery.   The gallery is actually the larger building seen on the far right of the picture.  In addition to selling their work, they host events and conduct art workshops.  The two cottages, like many of the island buildings, have been restored, but always keeping the original design intact. 

This is the School House.

Across the harbor is Hopetown Inn and Marina, a bit fancier than Sea Spray.  It's only accessible by boat, but they have a pontoon that shuttles visitors across the harbor at all times of night and day for those who don't have their own dinghy.  

We pulled up to the dinghy dock and had a look around.  It's gorgeous ... this is the resort they picture on the marketing websites for Hopetown. 

 Buck and Linda, aboard Oasis their lovely 44' Catalina sailboat, are the ones who originally told us about Sea Spray.  Here they are getting into their dinghy for one of our adventures. 

They are fun company, always up for an adventure, a meal, or a card or domino game.  The dive boat was ferrying people over to Man O War Cay one Saturday for their annual Festival and Flea Market that raises money for their school.  We thought it was a good opportunity to see another island, so off we went.  It was very rough that day, and even on the top deck, we got soaked with spray. 

We dried off quickly in the warm sun and set off to see the island.  Man O War was also settled by the Loyalists, and there are many families there descended from these original settlers, resulting in clean, industrious, and family oriented island.  We had a great lunch at the food tent.  Cooked by the locals, there were several varieties of side dishes, beans and rice, potato salad and baked macaroni and cheese to choose from, so I quizzed  the serving ladies on who made the best.  The Albury family has been hand building boats on Man O Way for generations, and their sturdy elegant fishing craft are seen in all the harbors. 

The Albury family also own the ferry service and a canvas shop where they used to make sails, but now sew up all kinds of good looking and useful bags, very expensive.

Here we are at the festival at the classic sign telling us how far we are from just about everywhere else.   

One of our favorite spots to visit is Tahiti Beach, just a short dinghy ride, or bike ride, or walk to the south.  It's one of those perfect sand beaches, and if you go at low tide, you can walk out a long ways on the sandbar or in the water.  The water is warm, the boats go by, it's heavenly.  Getting more crowded as the month progresses, some days there are as many as 10 other people there !!!

 

 

 

The Bahamas are known for its many "Blue Holes", and Buck had gotten the coordinates for one about 6 miles down the Sea of Abaco, through a little "inlet", and then another 2 miles through a maze of islands behind Snake Cay.  We took off in the dinghys one day to see it, but the Sea was way too rough for our 9'6" RIB's so we turned back, went around Lubbers Quarters and found a beach on the back side that was deserted.  We landed, walked and discovered a "party place" complete with a swing... 

... and a bar, built out of beach flotsam where we had a picnic lunch that Linda had packed for us.  

Will try another day for the Blue Hole, stay tuned !!!

Little Harbour and Pete's Pub

One fine calm day last week, we decided to make a journey to Little Harbour and Pete's Pub, only 15 miles south of us, but necessitating a transit across two of those nasty "open to the Atlantic Ocean" inlets that produce the big rollers.  In bad weather, crossing these inlets (just crossing them, mind you, not actually going out in them), can be impossible.  On this day, we were told, it would be as good as it gets.  A word here about beam seas ... this means that the waves are directly hitting the side of your boat ... and the difference between sailboats and motor boats.  When a sailboat has a sail up, the wind helps to hold the boat steady and lessen the rolling of a beam sea.  We have no such, so beam seas tend to roll us quite heavily.  Even on this "as good as it gets" day, we were rollin', but only for a short time until we got back into the lee (protection) of the next barrier island.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Here's the view looking south as we leave Sea Spray in White Sound and enter the beautiful Sea of Abaco...

... and here is a particularly lovely shot of the water.  I don't enhance any of these photos, the colors are sensational.  The "ripples" are actually the bottom of the sea bed reflecting in the sunlight.

It felt great to be out on the water in the big boat, rather than the dinghy.  We made it across the two inlets and entered Little Harbor, a destination with a wonderful story, which I am going to take verbatim from Dozier's Waterway Guide: Bahamas 2013 because they tell it so well.

 

Little Harbour probably comes close to anyone's dream of a Bahamian hideaway.  It certainly met the critical demands of the extraordinary, dynamic, eccentric runaway Smith College professor, Randolf Johnston, one of the great sculptors of the 20th century.  Johnston and his wife, Margot; daughter, Marina; and three sons, Bill, Pete, and Denny, left Northampton, MA, on their schooner, Langosta, to escape the maddening rush of civilization and live out their lives in sight of no man, in the pursuit of a free life and devotion to art.  With no particular place in mind, Langosta sailed to Little Harbour.  The family, in true Swiss Family Robinson style, lived in caves, built thatched huts, and eventually constructed a foundry for Randolf's work.  Johnston, who died in 1992 in his late 80's, spent the last 40 years of his life in Little Harbour, pursuing his dream of living free to sculpt in an unspoiled natural environment removed from the fetters, constraints and pollution of life in the developed world. 

 

Today, much of Little Harbour remains in the hands of his three sons.  Only Pete maintains a relatively high profile with a gallery devoted to his father's work and his own, as well as that of other local artists. 

 

The small harbour has mooring balls, 'er make that mooring tires, so we grabbed one ...

... and dinghy'd in to see the gallery. 

The sculptures are beautiful, but a bit out of our price range. 

 

 

 

We settled for a new hat for Steve and lunch at the funky open air beach bar, Pete's Pub. 

View of the Harbour from the roof.

We walked over the dunes on the board walk to take a look at the ocean... 

... and hiked down the road and up the path to the remains of an old lighthouse.   

 

It's a rugged coast line here. For cruisers heading further south to Eleuthera and the Exumas (the southern island chain, very popular cruising ground) Little Harbour is the last safe port before heading out for a 40 mile open ocean crossing. 

 

For us, however, it was the furthest south we would go on this trip.  On our way back to the boat, we met Pete on the dock.  He denied he was Pete at first, but after we chatted for a while and asked him about the caves, he owned up.  He told us where the caves were and how to best see them (we did), but said he couldn't really remember living in them.  We slept well safely attached to our mooring tire, glad that we had made the journey to see this famous place.  The next day, we anchored at Sandy Cay, met up with friends Steve and Elaine, and snorkeled a small reef that is part of the Bahamian National Trust Land and Sea Park.  The huge spotted manta rays that Elaine promised did not show up, but we saw some decent coral and several schools of colorful fish. 

 

The rest of the ride home was beautiful, cruising in the Sea of Abaco is great.  We get a little restless sitting in our slip, so today took the big boat out to Marsh Harbor for provisioning.  After paying the Elbow Cay prices for produce and dairy, Maxwell's prices looked pretty good.  Just a day trip, back home tonight. 

 

so here's a little map of where we've been so far, the Sea of Abaco is the water between Great Abaco Island and the Cays ... pronounced "keys".  The English apparently spelled it Cays, but when the Americans decided to use it to describe small barrier islands, we decided to spell it like it sounds.

 

 

 

Hope Town & Sea Spray

This post is gonna be views around Sea Spray and pictures of the quaint buildings in Hope Town.  First up is Elizabeth, in her inflatable kayak.  We have an open slip next to us now, ahhhh, the huge sport fisher boat next to us has gone back to FL, so she paddles over most mornings and we share coffee and chat.  Granddaughter, Hali, is with her today; mom and dad of Hali are also here on their boat, but both boats are leaving very soon, so we will miss their company. These blow up kayaks are really cool, and Elizabeth paddles fair distances in hers.

Here's the view from our aft deck.  It faces east, so we get lovely afternoon shade for sitting in our chairs and with no boat behind us, we get a good view.  Just over the dunes in the background is the ocean.

In addition to hearing the waves break, we also get a great deal of salt spray.  You can't see it when it is happening, but the two screens Steve added this year face aft and they get covered in salt after a week.  Hmmm, I guess that's why they named it Sea Spray.  This is the entrance to the lovely pool...

 and this is the lovely pool, where currently I sit in the shade under the covered area you see back left. 

A brief word about the weather ... it's been above normal temperatures this winter, so the pool is warm and the sea and ocean waters are nice also.  The north winds that plagued us earlier have pretty much gone away and the southerly's are prevailing, but light.  Perfect, really.

This is the tiki bar, located between the pool and the outdoor dining area.   

And this is the front view of the humble Shingebiss, among the big boys.  

Our slip fees here, until March 1, because after all, this is the 'off season', are almost too cheap to be true, $10/day ... but water is 40 cents a gallon, and electricity is 85 cents a kilowatt.  Compare that to our prices in the USA, and we realize again what a bountiful country we live in.  So we use water and electric very parsimoniously, and take all our showers in the bath house, located just steps from the boat, and very nice.  The marina staff will give you a lift into town, but so far we've preferred to take the dinghy.  The town is full of old, well maintained, adorable (there's no better word) buildings and homes.  Here's a couple of them, starting with the post office/police station. 

 The Clinic

... and the Museum.  Like New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay, Hope Town was founded and settled by the Loyalists, so the architecture is sort of a New England style with pastel colors. 

No cars or golf carts are permitted on the narrow streets and you can walk the entire thing in about 30 minutes, stopping at each of the 2 grocery stores to see who has the best stuff ... supply boat comes on Thursday. 

Here we are having ice cream cones with crew from October and Whisper, both on mooring balls in the harbor ... which I might add are $20/night, but people love them because they are at the center of all the social life of Hope Town.

For the land lubber that wants to visit, there are rental properties all over town and throughout the island.  This one is my favorite, located right at the harbour entrance. 

So, that's it for now !!!  Time to decide if it's a pool day or a beach day. 

Elbow Reef Lighthouse

Hope Town is also a pretty easy dinghy ride away, so one day last week, we set off to visit.  Nigel and Elizabeth joined us in their dinghy for this scenic ride.  First stop was to see Jim and Gloria on Jimandi their 34' Gemini sailboat.  They hopped in their dinghy and we all went to visit the famous Hope Town Lighthouse.  This is the view of the lighthouse that is frequently painted by various Abacos artists.  We tied up at the dock on the right.  Note the small boat building shed on the shore, more on that later.

Climbing up the stairs, Steve was distracted by an old dinghy lying on the ground. 

Visiting the lighhouse is easy, no fees and always open. 

This sign at the entrance and a guest book is the only paperwork you'll see, so the following information is copied from the web.

Probably the most recognizable landmark in Abaco, the Elbow Reef Lighthouse is one of the last manual lighthouses in the world. The lamp burns pressurized Kerosene oil with a wick and mantle. The Fresnel lenses concentrate the mantle’s light into a beam directed straight towards the horizon. The lenses and burner equipment, weighing 8,000lbs, float in a circular lubricated tub. This reduces friction so that the 700lbs of weight, when wound up to the top of the tower by hand, smoothly rotates the 4-ton apparatus once every 15 seconds. The lighthouse keeper on duty must wind up the weights every 2 hours in order for the red and white candy-striped lighthouse to be seen from 17 miles away. 

 

In 1836, 2 lighthouses were built in the Bahamas in order to improve navigation and decrease the amount of shipwrecks. One of the lighthouses was stationed at the southernmost tip of Abaco called Hole-in-the-Wall, and the other just south of Bimini. Even with the lighthouse at Hole-in-the-Wall, wrecks were still building up around Abaco. As a result, in 1863, England decided, to build a lighthouse at Hope Town to steer ships clear of the extensive “Elbow Reef”. Despite protests made by wrackers (salvagers), the lighthouse was completed in 1864. At this time, the lighthouse was equipped with a non-rotating, first-order light. In 1936, approximately 73 years later, the Imperial Lighthouse Service closed the Lighthouse at Gun Cay (south of Bimini), and realized that the lighthouse at Hope Town was in need of a beacon for easier identification by ships. The Gun Cay lighthouse was then decapitated, and the iron lantern room with its dome, petroleum burner equipment, turning mechanism, and the rotating Fresnel lenticular panels were brought to Hope Town to replace its standing wick-type light. In 1996, for economic reasons, the Port Department was prompted to automate the hand-wound kerosene–burning lighthouse in the Bahamas. The Lighthouse Preservation Society (the non-profit historical and educational society dedicated to the preservation of Bahamian lighthouses) convinced the government to reconsider, as long as the Society would provide the Port Department with the parts they needed that were longer available through their previous supplier. Since then, the Society has been using mantles from the Coleman Company (manufacturer of Outdoor Equipment). Today, the Elbow Reef Lighthouse is still sending out light, rated at 325,000 candlepower, with the same light source it acquired in 1936.

 

Imagine a giant Coleman lantern that needs to be refueled every 2 hours.  Rumor has it that the government is no longer funding the job of lightkeeper so currently the light is being lit and fueled by volunteers.  

 

We climbed the 100 steps and squeezed through a 3' high door to get out on the deck for a birds eye view of Hope Town.  The inlet into Hope Town with small harbor and boatyard. 

 

Most of the town is seen in this one, Atlantic in the background.

and the mooring field, filled with cruising boats. 

When we had our fill of the awesome view, we descended the 100 steps and visited with a young Bahamian boatbuilder who was part of a team restoring these classic wooden Abaco sailing dinghies.

 They are beautiful and expertly restored. 

Next we crossed the harbor and pulled up to the "fish boat", who comes every Friday to sell fresh fish and lobster.  You can see the crowd on the dock and our little fleet of dinghies purchasing dinner. 

We concluded this perfect day in paradise by docking the dinghies and walking through town. We purchased a "triple chocolate" cake from a bake sale going on next to the fish monger, and enjoyed a delicious smoothie at the Hope Town Coffee House. 

 

Our friends Elizabeth and Nigel are also here with us at Sea Spray.  They have a couple of inflatable kayaks and I got to try one out with Elizabeth.  Over by the shore just adjacent to Sea Spray are some boats that appear to be abandoned. As we were paddling around them, we noticed a couple piles of conch shells and I found these two among them.  They've been harvested which means they have a small cut on the back of the shell which allows the tendon that holds the meat in to be severed and the meat pulled out.  But they must have been harvested recently because they were not bleached out from the sun and they were not broken. 48 hours in a bleach solution and a scrubbing with a stiff brush and I have the souvenirs I was seeking.   

We are really enjoying ourselves here and there's lots more to tell.  I can't keep up, but thanks so much everyone for reading.  We read all your comments and love them. 

I wanna live here !!!

Before we left Green Turtle Cay we discovered this beach, pretty nice.  It was just a dinghy ride then a short walk from where we had the boat moored. 

 

We left GTC early in the morning with Whisper, a beautiful 47' Passport (sailboat), with Craig and Carol aboard.  They were "first timers" to the Bahamas also.  Because of the several days of calm winds, the Whale Passage was smooth .... as they say "coulda crossed it on a shingle". 

 

We dropped the hook in Marsh Harbor, the third largest city in the Bahamas (population 5,300) and had lunch with Craig and Carol to celebrate. 

 

After lunch, Whisper moved on to a mooring in Man O War Cay and we set off, to do a little provisioning.  The big grocery store in Marsh Harbor, Maxwells, is only a few blocks from the dinghy dock and has a reputation as being the best and most reasonably priced market in the entire Bahamas.  While I couldn't compare it with Cub Foods, it was good and we were able to build back our supplies of dairy, produce, and bread, knowing it was the best shopping we'd see for the next month.  It's funny how much meaning getting food takes on when one is cruising, something we take so much for granted when we are home.  We had heard that Marsh Harbor was dirty, crowded, and loud, but we found it delightful with plenty of helpful, friendly people.  The water was crystal clear where we anchored, as you can see the chain going all the way to the bottom. 

We spent a peaceful, quiet night at anchor and set off the next morning on yet another calm, sunny, warm day.  A couple of pics of the short cruise to Sea Spray Marina, where we will spend the month of February.  The water is only 12 feet deep and we could see the bottom clear as could be.  I took several pics trying to capture it, and this one is the best as it included a starfish.  If you didn't have a depth finder, you'd swear  you were gonna run aground.  Actually, there are plenty of shallow spots, and we both keep a close eye on the electronic charts and on the water itself.  The main passages are all marked on the charts, so just stay on the line. 

 

And the water again was flat calm...

 Sea Spray Marina is located on Elbow Cay, a narrow 6 mile long island, with a population of about 500 souls, most of them living and working in the settlement of Hope Town.  Hope Town has a small natural harbor with mooring balls and a couple of marinas.  We are about 3 miles down island in another small natural harbor called, again, White Sound.  They have a terrific dockage deal in this "off season" and there are three other cruising boats from Harbortown (our Fort Pierce home) here, along with a couple of others in town.  We are extremely pleased with the marina and absolutely in love with the island and with Hope Town ... I wanna live here.  The marina is small but has all we need. Showers just steps away, a pool, outdoor bar and restaurant and laundry service.  They send it out and it all comes back clean and folded !!!  There are also cottages for rent and just over the dunes, is the Atlantic Ocean.   Here's the view, about a block from the boat.  We can hear the waves crashing as we nod off into dreamland every night. 

This beach is a rocky one, not good for swimming, but great for finding treasures from the sea and there are several other places to swim close by.  The day after we arrived, we unloaded the bikes and biked a scenic 2-3 miles into Hope Town, which is about the most charming and adorable town we've ever seen.  Within minutes, we ran into Steve and Elaine, who had their sailboat, October, on a mooring ball.  Before they came over by boat, they rented cottages in Hopetown and they gave us a great personal tour. Here's the harbor with the famous Hope Town Lighthouse in the distance, more on that later. 

Here's Steve and I sitting in conveniently placed chairs at the end of a street overlooking the entrance to the harbor...

... and here's Steve, Steve, and me on the beautiful swimming beach just over the dunes from town. 

 

This is our favorite place so far and we've been very busy since we got here.  Lots more to tell and hope to get another blog up soon.  Hang in there, Minnesota, it's Feb 1.