We fell in love with Hope Town. We really did. We even started looking at real estate there. Crazy, I know, but it has this feel about it that makes you want to stay. We met so many people that go there for the season, rent a mooring ball for a few months and just use it as a home base. They will leave every once in a while to do a little trip around the Abacos, then come back to Hope Town. Not a bad way to do it!
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| Hope Town Harbour. Trekker is in there somewhere! |
So after a fun night at Cap'n Jacks bingo night, to which I'm sure half the town showed up, we woke to a beautiful Tuesday. It was decided that all 8 of us would rent bikes and tour the island. So off we went, heading south, with Tahiti Beach, at the southern most tip of the island, the goal. Some were on 7 speed bikes and some on no speed bikes (they didn't have enough multi-speed bikes for all!). I like to bike, but I haven't done it in a while and I don't like hills. And so far all our biking excursions have been on flat land, but not this ride! Who knew that Elbow Cay was so hilly? Needless to say I was at the back of the pack most of the day, and walked my bike up a few of those hills. But the hills make it a beautiful island, with an amazing amount of new development along the coast line for people like us who want to live there (but with a bigger budget than us!). Our first stop was the Sea Spray Marina and Resort, which had a lovely pool side bar and restaurant where we had lunch and played a game of Giant Jenga.
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| Sheila and Bill playing Jenga |
After lunch we conquered a few more hills and found Tahiti Beach, which is quite beautiful. As it was low tide, we could walk out for quite a way, looking for shells and sea glass. Sea glass has become my new passion, and I look for it on every beach. I gave up on shells long ago, and my mission is to fill up a big jar on this trip then do some kind of "art" with it when I get home. Anyways, there were no shells or sea glass on this beach.
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| Tahiti Beach at low tide |
What goes up, must come down, so back on the bikes, and back up and down the hills. As a reward, we stopped at another resort, Firefly, which overlooks the Sea of Abaco and has a lovely view. So we had a quick rest (and a beer) and then headed back to our respective boats.
As Hugh had mentioned before, this is a big sailing/racing community, and Wednesdays are their "big boat" race day. Anyone can enter their boat in the race, as long as it is over 18 feet and they know the rules of racing. Of course Hugh was itching to get on a boat to race, and after contacting the race co-ordinator he was able to secure a spot on the Abaco Rage, a local Bahamian race boat, which was quite a feat, according to some locals. It wouldn't be right for me to tell you about his day, so I will give the blog over to him so he can tell you about his exciting day!
I was told to be at Cap'n Jack's at 0830 sharp "ready to go". I wasn't quite sure what that meant ... but I decided on lifejacket, foul weather top, dinghy boots and the Go Pro to take some pictures. When I arrived at Cap'n Jacks I met many of the crew including "Plug" who skippered Abaco Rage for many years. Coffee, beers and Bloody Marys were being served and nobody seemed to be in a hurry to leave! But at 0900 sharp a power boat pulled up to the dock, and on we hopped to be ferried out to the Abaco Rage sitting on her mooring. The rest of the crew was there, introductions were made, including to Richard, our skipper. We had our safety talk, during which we were warned to keep clear of the hiking planks as they are slid from side to side during a tack, and to keep our heads down during tacks, because the boom is only 18" off the deck at the planks! We were also told that if we fell off the plank, to swim toward the wake and they would throw a "safety line" to grab on to! We were towed out of the harbour at high tide, because the Abaco Rage draws 6' and mulled about, putting in a reef and basically getting everyone comfortable tacking and maneuvering. As for the race, we had an awesome start, on time at the committee boat and were looking pretty good half way up the windward leg. I think we may have missed a shift, because coming into round the windward "mark" (an island) we were well behind and the wind was dying so we shook out the reef. That was when the Abaco Rage showed her stuff. While the Beneteaus and Freedoms nearly stopped, we just kept on trucking, propelled by our 950 square foot mainsail! We passed four boats, and I couldn't see anyone ahead of us ... were we first?? Turned out the lead pack had made it through before the wind died and were already finished!
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| Abaco Rage |
I had a fantastic time, many thanks to Hope Town Sailing Club, Richard and Plug ... back to Karen
I had a wonderful quiet day, sitting on the boat in the drizzle, knitting, and then went into town with Bill to get a few groceries. I even made some excellent cornbread muffins from a mix I bought at the local store. After the race everyone gathered in the HTSC clubhouse for the awards and some socializing. Bob and Sheila had also managed to get on a sailboat for the race, a Freedom 45, which is the same make as their boat, so we all attended the Stand-Up (I think they call it that because they stand around and yak and there really is no where to sit!) and then went over to Cap'n Jacks for their $7.50 Spaghetti night.
Thursday was our last day in Hope Town, as a weather window was open for Saturday to jump down to Eleuthera, so we had a lovely day wandering around town, having coffee at the Coffee House, taking a tour of the local museum, where we learned about the history of Hope Town, a very loyalist community, and walking the beach one more time, looking for sea glass, of course!
Friday morning the plan was to get some fuel and water, and head down south to an island called Lynyard Cay, and anchor for the night, in preparation to do the jump down to Eleuthera. But we are in the Bahamas, and the only marina in Hope Town that had fuel was down, as their pumps were not working. So after filling our tanks with water (we had enough fuel for the trip, it was just for a top-up) we had a beautiful sail down to Lynyard. There were four of us, so as soon as we all got close, it became a race, because more than one boat makes a race, according to most sailors.
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| Racing against Her Diamond |
When we got to the anchorage it was quite clear that we were not the only ones with this idea, as there were at least a dozen boats anchored already, waiting to jump down.
Once we anchored Hugh and I hopped in our dinghy and ran over to Little Harbour, which is a fairly shallow harbour with a famous place called Pete's Pub, a beach side restaurant that reminded us of Foxy's in the BVI's, just a shack with t-shirts hanging all over the ceiling and very open-air.
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| Pete's Pub |
When we arrived, we were standing at the counter to place our order when I heard "Trekker!" and there were Larry and Annette, the couple that had led us through West End's Indian Cut. We are finding now that everywhere we go we are meeting up with boats we have met, left behind, and are meeting again. Its fun to be able to catch up. Where have you been? Where are you headed? It's a very small community of boaters.
After lunch we went into Pete's Foundry, where Peter Johnson makes beautiful sculptures out of copper. The third generation of Johnston's, Greg, is now continuing on with the foundry, as well as managing the pub and doing odd jobs around the island. The foundry building was built in the 50's by Randolph Johnston, and still houses the showroom and foundry .
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| The Foundry showroom |
Once back to the anchorage, we beached the dinghy and walked over to the beach on the Atlantic side. It is shocking and very sad to see the large amount of garbage washed up on the beach shores. We have noticed this everywhere we go, and this beach was worse than most. Where does it come from? Plastic barrels, shoe insoles, flip flops, plastic bottles, it seems endless. Is this a result of storms washing debris up, or wasteful people throwing garbage into our beautiful oceans. Hugh took a large barrel and filled it with as much plastic garbage as he could, and put it above the high water line. We doubt anyone comes by to collect garbage and the amount is just overwhelming. We need to take better care of our oceans and beaches!
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| Lynyard Beach on the Atlantic side |
After a rolling night, and not a great sleep, we were up at 5:30, and cast off at 6:30 with a flotilla of about 15 boats, to head out of the Little Harbour Cut, which can be nasty in the wrong conditions, and down to Eleuthera, about an eight hour ride. The conditions were pretty good, although the seas were a little higher than expected, but the winds were steady and we had a great sail down. Once we arrived, the majority of the boats went into Royal Harbour, a very well protected, and large anchorage, for a quiet night of catch up sleep.
Sunday we made our way down to Spanish Wells, a small town on St. Georges Cay, where we will spend a few nights and decide where our next stop will be.
Exploring the Bahamas ... one day at a time.
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