Man'O'War and Hope Town again

Marsh Harbour to Man'O'War Cay

We stayed at the Abaco Beach Resort and Marina for 3 nights.  We enjoyed watching the sun set over all the boats anchored in Marsh Harbour while eating dinner at Snappas.  We took a couple of walks into town including to Maxwell's for groceries. We enjoyed a coffee at the Bliss café, a real treat when there aren't Tim Hortons or Starbucks on every corner!  We also enjoyed a delicious lunch at Colours by the Sea, not much to look at but substantial portions of perfectly cooked grouper.  
I was so fed up with the docks, maintenance of the washrooms & showers and the spotty wifi by the time we left Abaco Beach Resort on Friday March 23 that I actually launched into print on Active Captain, boaters social media!  Bottom line, if you pay top dollar at a marina you should be able to expect top notch facilities.
From Marsh Harbour, with the assistance of our friends Pat and Lynn of Adamant 1 from Midland Bay Sailing Club, we secured a mooring ball in the East Harbour at Man'O'War Cay.  

Man'O'War sunset

There we visited with Pat and Lynn, their daughter Kelly, Kelly's husband Rob and their kids. 

Lynn and Pat

We had coffee at the museum, walked the beach, poked our noses into Albury Brothers Boats where they are still building a very high quality fibreglass 23’ centre console power boat, visited the Albury Sail Shop where they sew bags from sail cloth and canvas and bought a couple of Bahamian Print pillow cases from Sally's Seaside Boutique. We also rewarded ourselves for all our walking with an ice cream from Island Treats Takeaway!

Man'O'War Cay sign post

Sunday morning it seemed pretty calm, so Karen had an idea that boats might be moving from Hope Town, so why not dinghy the 3 miles over in our 11' rubber dinghy and see if we could snag a mooring ball!  I’m always up for an adventure, so life jackets on we set off across the south Man'O'War cut in the dinghy.  It was a little bumpy which I initially chalked up to other boat wakes, but on the return trip (having found an empty mooring!) I realised we were crossing the cut at mid tide when the current is strongest and it was opposing the wind causing a nasty little chop!  No matter, the dinghy rode the waves well, even if we did get pretty wet from the spray, and we had our mooring!  

Man'O'War to Hope Town

Hope Town Lighthouse 

As soon as we had everything stowed on Trekker we motored over to Hope Town picking up our reserved mooring.  Karen's brother Richard likened it to reserving your chaise lounge at a resort by putting your beach towel on it! 
Not long after we moored our neighbour came over and “welcomed us to the neighbourhood”!  This was an early reminder of what a pleasant community Hope Town is.
We’ve spent the week hangin’ in Hope Town. Coffee in the morning at the coffee shop, long walks on the beach and checking out the gift shops (most of which have man chairs to relax in). 

Elbow Cay beach

We’ve also had some nice meals at the Hope Town Inn, Wine Down Sip Sip and On Da Beach!
I also went out on the Abaco Rage again for the Hope Town Sailing Club's last race of the year but unfortunately we were short a few crew for ballast and the wind was blowing 17 knots with higher gusts so our skipper Richard wisely decided against racing.  We still had some excitement, being hit with a gust that buried the leeward rail well under the water, and made the boards that we were sitting on to balance the boat seem like they were pretty close to vertical causing us to hang on for dear life to avoid falling off!
Friday we'll leave our reserved sign on the mooring and go to Marsh Harbour to get the boat cleaned and provisioned for Trevor and Kate and bring them back to Hope Town on Sunday.  We can’t wait to give them a taste of the Abacos, one day at a time!