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Yesterday, Sunday, we arrived here in Man-O-War Cay after a short five mile motor from Hope Town.   The flavor of this island is so different than Hope Town with it’s thriving boat building waterfront.  Hope Town is much more of an island resort and this island seems to be all business.  In some ways, nix the palms and you’d almost think that you were in Maine.  The harbor is very small and well protected and with loads of moorings, some of which are alarmingly close to one another.

Last night we went on a “cocktail cruise” in our dink and enjoyed the sights of the waterfront and harbor.   This little wooden boat caught our eye.  It seemed right at home near the rustic cabin.  Not the sort of sight that we have seen much of here in the Bahamas.  It looks like someone named Billy-Bob should live in that house.    Nearby there were several egrets that eyed us suspiciously   Fly away, not fly away, fly away…

What a beautiful sight. These lovely Abaco sloops were moored out in front of Albury’s boat shop.  They used to make a lot of these in the past but much of their work these days is in fiberglass fishing boats.   We have seen their fishing boats all over the Bahamas.  This morning we headed ashore with the hope of having breakfast but no luck.  The only spot to eat is open for lunch and dinner.  However, that did not deter as we just toughed it out until lunch.

As we were walking around we spied this lovely sloop fresh from the paint shop. 

All of the boats here on the island aren’t traditional.  I am not sure exactly what this is but expect that Jacques Cousteau would have a pretty good idea, I’ll bet.Brenda was particularly excited about coming here because the island is home to a store selling batik fabric from a company called Androsia and we were told that this store is the largest distributor for Androsia.  These fabrics are died and patterned by hand in a shop on the island of Andros,  an island that is not on our itinerary for this year.  (Andosia from Andros?  Get it?)

Brenda was in heaven and had a tough time deciding which fabric to buy.  The colors are great.  While Brenda was shopping, I was enjoying the view of the harbor from out in front of the shop.  Nice boat, that Pandora.  Wonder who’s she is?  Our next stop was the canvas shop.  This used to be THE place to have sails made for the wooden ships and sloops coming out of this harbor’s yards.  Now, descendants of the same sail makers turn out wonderful canvas bags, and lots and lots of them. Now Brenda heart was really racing.And, they were even making MORE bags.  What’s a girl with a bag fetish to do?  You guessed it.  Buy a bag!!!  In case you are wondering, Brenda showed admirable strength and resolve and only got one.  But, it was a BIG one and the PERFECT bag.   I am sure that the flight attendants will be green with envy as two or three of them help her hoist it into the overhead compartment.   “Would you like us to check that for you Miss?”.   “No, thank you, I am sure that with just a few more helpers we will able to lift it.  No really, I am sure that it will fit just fine, if we push just a bit… harder.”

The main transportation on the island is golf cart and there are well maintained concrete paths going everywhere.  The homes and yards are very well manicured.  We particularly liked this lovely garden path.There are flowers in profusion.  With more rain here than in the southern Bahamas, things are a lot more lush.   Brenda and I enjoyed the flowers.  I guess that April is a good time for flowering trees.  Do you recognize this one?  If you guessed poinsettia, you’d be right.  I expect this is what they look like if you put them out after New Years and they don’t end up under a snow drift like up north.

No idea what this vine is but they are very pretty.  The flowers are about 3″ across.The fruit of a palm but clearly not a date palm. Some sort of lily although the plant is not so lily like. These trees put out a riot of yellow flowers.    Quite a sight.These red flowers are on a bush that is trimmed into a sort of feathery hedge.  This spiny plant had an alarmingly sharp spine on the end of each leaf.Of course, the ever popular hibiscus.These 5″ flowers looked like they were made of velvet.   An amazing color.
After lunch we headed back to Pandora just ahead of a deluge of rain.  After months of sunny and dry weather it seems that we are in the rainy season.  I was told that it rains a lot in April.  It’s nice to keep the salt off of the decks.   Yes, it does look a lot like Maine.  Speaking of Maine, we’ll be there in a few months.  I had better swim while we are here because I’ll not be in the water much in Maine.

Man-O-War.  Now this is a lovely spot, rain or shine.

It’s Sunday afternoon and we are waiting for the tide to rise enough to get out of the harbor for a run the few miles to Man-O-War Cay.  I have to say that it would be easy to spend a few more days, no make that another week, or more, here but it seems that we should be moving on.  Moving on is more about seeing something new than a particular need to be on the move.  This is a very pretty spot and a welcome, and more cosmopolitan change from the very rural and simple settlements that we visited earlier in our trip in the Exumas.

From our limited visit to date it seems to me that the Abacos are the “white Bahamas” as opposed to the “black Bahamas” that we have seen for much of our travels further south.  I’d also say that it seems to me that southern areas are more like what I would describe as “real” and I like that. Yes, there are blacks here too but it seems that they are the employees of the white Bahamians.

It’s hard to say which I like better but this area is much more like the US than the Bahamas, as nice as it is.  It’s certainly easier with more, if fewer, protected harbors.

A traditional boat type that was developed in the Abacos is called the Abaco sloop.  I understand that these “type” boats are still made in Man-O-War Cay and I am looking forward to seeing a shop, or two, while we are there.   This one has been sailing all over the harbor since we arrived.  She is a very nice boat with beautiful lines.We saw another one that was stored, as they all seem to be, under a shed roof.  In this sun the seams would dry out pretty fast and the boat wouldn’t hold up for long.  A pretty view from the “boat house”.   Getting things around town, with the very narrow streets, is a challenge.  Sometimes, it seems, you have to improvise.  Perhaps enclosing this photo is a bit random but I though it was fun.  With water being in such short supply here these tanks are used to catch rain water, as infrequent as it is.  Speaking of rain, we had a deluge last night and the dink was filled about half way to the gunnels this morning.  I guess that this tank would have filled up PDQ had it been in place. So, now for the “fishy” part.  I have taken quite a few videos but it seems that they just don’t look as good as it seemed when I took them.  Perhaps underwater photography is one of those “you had to be there to appreciate it” sort of things.

Having said that, here’s two that are pretty good.  This one is of a very nice queen trigger that I saw back in Warderick Wells, in the park area.
This one includes a shot of a really pretty nurse shark with his or her own personal remora in tow.
Well,  perhaps this post has a bit of seemingly unrelated items.  However, it’s my blog so there…

 

One of the most iconic images of the Bahamas is the candy striped lighthouse here in Hope Town, a lighthouse that is very much a part of the island and culture here.  It seems that the love of the lighthouse wasn’t always the case in it’s early days.

The early residents of Hope Town were transplanted loyalists who escaped the newly formed United States following the revolution.  Their goal was to bring to this little Bahamas Island the life that they left behind in the States.  They planned to transplant their agrarian lifestyle, complete with slaves, from the life that they had left behind in a country that no longer wished to be connected with their British homeland.

However, there was one important problem that they seemed to overlook in their goal to begin anew and that was the availability of the water to grow crops.  Oops…  It seems that this island, as is the case with so many here in the Bahamas, lacked a good source of fresh water.  Alas, growing crops wasn’t going to work for them.

So, what’s a loyalist to do?  Here’s an idea, let’s salvage wrecked ships…  As luck would have it, not for ships but great for the island residents, the reefs just offshore, on the Atlantic side, were particularly nasty and claimed many ships each year.  It seems that poorly marked reefs were as much a part of the Bahamas back then as they are today.

The reefs were not so great for the ships and their crews, but a great opportunity for the new residents of Hope Town.  Here’s an idea for a business plan… Let’s rescue the crews and passengers of those foundering ships?   Oh yeah, and we’ll keep the cargo and salvageable portions of the ships to compensate us for our troubles.  On top of that, we can take the wood from the ships, build new ships, and sell them too.

Good news, sinking ship persons!  We’ll rescue you.  Bad news… about your valuable cargo.  Finders keepers…  Sounds like a pretty good business model, actually, and it was.

So, fast forward to a time when there was a move to put up lighthouses, to warn unsuspecting mariners, along some of the particularly nasty areas of the Bahamas.   What do you think that the residents of this island said to the idea of a lighthouse to warn ships that they were straying into dangerous waters?  You guessed it.  NIMBY! (If you’ve been living under a linguistic rock, it means Not in my back yard.).

The islanders fought tooth and nail to keep this lighthouse from being constructed, even going so far as denying the construction workers access to fresh water to make concrete.  Keeping a lighthouse, designed to save lives is a particularly interesting way to keep the local economy healthy, for sure and probably not an unexpected response from folks who kept slaves.

After years of wrangling, the lighthouse was eventually built and today it is one of the most beloved symbols of this still fiercely independent island community.

While the Bahamian government has let most of the lights and markers fall into disrepair in these waters, the Hope Town light not only operates each evening, but it is still powered by kerosene and it’s original cable and weight mechanism that has kept the light rotating since the mid 1800s.

The once maligned and now beloved light is kept operating by a group of volunteers that have done a wonderful job of keeping a Bahamas icon in top shape when every other light has been converted to electric operation, if it operates at all.  This is what Wickipedia has to say about Hope Town and this remarkable landmark.

Hope Town   “Hope Town features one of the last operational kerosene-fueled lighthouses in the world. This lighthouse was built in 1862 and became operational two years later,^[1] it is striped horizontally red and white. Its light can be seen from 23 nmi (43 km) away.^[2]

The Hope Town Lighthouse is one of only three Manual Lighthouses left in the World. It has a spring mechanism that has to be hand cranked every several hours to maintain the sequence of five white flashes every 15 seconds. The lamp burns kerosene oil with a wick and mantle. The light is then focused as it passes through the optics of a first order Fresnel lens^[1] which floats on a bed of mercury.”

Brenda and I took a self guided tour of the light and were really impressed with it.  I loved the machinery and inner workings of the light.  Brenda was impressed with just how creepy it all was. Yeah, nice inner workings Bob…  Seen enough?

The light stands like a candy striped sentinel over the harbor.  It’s the tallest thing in the area, higher than even the BATELCO cell tower.  This view, from town, shows just how big this light is relative to the low islands of the Bahamas.The grounds, while a little scruffy, are well kept. There is a wonderful spiral staircase with some 200 steps.  Brenda loved that feature the best, as you can imagine.  Can you say dizzy?  Wait, is that rust I see? Are those stairs safe to stand on…At the bottom of the staircase there are a number of five gallon jugs of kerosene waiting to be carried up the 200 steps to power the light.  I’ll bet that the keepers are in great cardio shape after feeding this light night after night.  The kerosene is pressurized in these chambers to keep the light burning.   Pop quiz…  What is the operating pressure needed to keep the light burning?  The gears that make the light turn are really wonderful.  It’s hard to believe that this mechanism has been cranking steadily since 1864.  Perhaps it’s their liberal use of the ever handy “3-in-one” oil.  Can’t anyone pick up after themselves?The views from the top are spectacular.  Can you pick out Pandora down below?For the more “mature” readers…  Yes Mom and Dad, that’s you.  Here’s a, sort of, close up of Pandora.  As you descend that wonderful spiral, there are a number of windows with great storm shutters and fabulous views.  Can you imagine what it would be like to stand in front of this window when a hurricane is blasting through town?  Good thing that the wall thickness is measured in feet instead of inches.  It’s clear that the residents of Hope Town will continue to fight to keep this lovely landmark operating with as much enthusiasm as their fore bearers fought to keep the tower from being built.  That’s a good thing.

It’s hard to believe that we have been here in the Bahamas for three months.  It was on January 18th that we cleared into Nassau and began our journey through the Bahamas.

In some ways it seems like it’s been a lifetime since we crossed over from Ft Lauderdale and yet in some way it feels like we have been here for just a few weeks.  Our perception of time aboard has changed.   For our nearly 40 years of sailing, our trips used to be measured in days, weeks at most.  Now, with months aboard we aren’t in as much of a rush… “Let’s fit in as much as we can into this weekend!”  Now we often stay in the same harbor for a week at a time, something that would have been unthinkable prior to this trip.

We have seen and experienced so much, so many firsts…

Preparing to head out into the “almighty and scary” Gulf Stream was a major focus for months with fretting on what it would be like.  In retrospect, it was not that much of an event, probably because we chose a good weather window and were well prepared.  Actually, some of our longer crossings here in the Bahamas have been much worse.  Go figure.

Brenda’s first overnight sail was a very big deal for her as she had never done that before.  For me, it was my first overnight that involved water so shallow that you could see the bottom, in the dark!!!  And doing this with no aids to navigation made me very anxious.

Having spent my life sailing in the ever-so-well-marked US waters, sailing toward the impossibly narrow Northwest Channel Light in the middle of the night with squalls all around (where there are absolutely some nasty rocks but, alas, no light) was a major fright for me.  Passing between rocks in the wee hours of the morning that would have torn the bottom out of Pandora while she was barreling along on a broad reach made my mouth dry.    The problem was that I did not trust the Explorer Charts and the recommended waypoints to steer toward yet as I had not used them before.

As it turns out, the coordinates, as I had been told many times by those who knew about such things,  were indeed “spot on”.    However, on that first night when we ran from Ft Lauderdale to Nassau to clear in, I have to say that I wasn’t confident and, more than a few times, wondered if our trip to the Bahamas might end up being one of the shortest on record.   For sure, the squalls that hit us off and on that night contributed to my unease.

So, what was the Bahamas like?  Well, that depends…

The Bahamas, or should I say, the Bahamians are very friendly.   The people that we have met have been warm, welcoming and quick with a “good morning”.    Everywhere we have gone we have met folks who are proud of their country and when they learned that it was our first visit, they wanted to know where we had been and what our impressions were.  Mostly, they dress with care, perhaps no better defined than by the uniforms worn by school children and the very natty uniformed police.

We experienced the very rural, perhaps best defined for us by our time in Rum Cay where it’s so remote that the entire island only has about 50 full time residents, all of whom, including the resident dogs, show up in force when the weekly mail boat arrives.  Having grown up near New York, where nearly everything is available 7 days a week, these out-islands were a very new experience.   Imagine having your life and everything you need be dependent on the once-a-week boat showing up?   On some islands the mail boat is more of a “ship”, well, sort of a ship…On others, like this one that services several islands in the Exuma chain, perhaps “boat” is a better word.One way or the other, EVERYTHING that comes to these islands comes from somewhere else.    On top of that, there is precious little to choose from in the tiny shops.  And if you come in a few days after the mail boat, there’s not likely to be much in the way of fresh food left.

When we were preparing for our trip and provisioning the boat back in the US, we did wonder, more than once, if we were overdoing it with all that we were putting on board.  Did we really need 20+ packages of pasta?  (Actually, it turns out that we needed more than that)  We have needed most of what we brought and more.  It’s a good idea to bring what you need to live for months from the states as purchasing it here in the Bahamas was going to be much more expensive, if it’s available at all.  The fact that the government puts a 40% import duty on everything that comes in makes many items a lot more expensive than in the States, if you can get it at all.  And that combined with the complexity of getting it to the islands makes the final cost on the smaller islands very expensive and about twice the cost of the same item in the States.

Making friends has been really great.  Sometimes for a week or more we would “buddy boat” with another couple when we were both going the same way.  When our plans were no longer in sync, we headed our separate ways with a promise too hook up again soon, if not here, perhaps this summer in Maine.

Miles and Loreen aboard Ariel, are a couple that that we enjoyed spending time with.  They shared some of their favorite spots with us including Compass Cay, where we mugged it up with some of the “locals”.  We hope to see them again in Maine and I expect that they will visit us in Essex too.  Harry and Melinda from SeaSchell, took us under their wing and showed us the ropes during the early weeks of our trip and Melinda, along with Maureen from Kaluna Moo made a point of recognizing Brenda’s birthday.  Can you tell that she was a happy birthday girl?  We loved the opportunity to learn new things.  Brenda learned basket making from Nancy on Trumpeter, who shared this Bahamas art form with her.   I have to say that Brenda’s getting pretty good at this and has 9 under her belt to date.  One thing that we haven’t gotten used to is the difficulty of doing laundry.  I won’t admit how long we have gone between cleaning the sheets but it’s sufficient to say that it was WAY TOO LONG.  Getting haircuts has proved to be tough too and it’s not a matter of finding a suitable spot to have your hair cut.  It’s about finding ANY place to have your hair cut.  I went for three months between cuts and by the end, which came a few days ago, I felt that I had a small mammal perched on my head, and it wasn’t a very cooperative mammal.

Speaking of wildlife.    We’ve seen plenty.   In particular, the number of sharks , that we have seen.   Most were the harmless nurse sharks, but not all.  In Rum Cay, in addition to the nurse sharks, there were plenty of Lemon and Bull sharks, and they aren’t selective about what they eat when there’s blood in the water.  Where ever there are fish being cleaned there are sharks.  There are loads of turtles but, alas, they are just too fast to take pictures of.  In some places, we saw literally dozens of the 2′ wonders swimming about.

We really love these little curly tailed lizards.  They are everywhere and are oddly curious, often running up to you for a better look.  These tropical long tail birds are beautiful.  Oddly, there aren’t a lot of birds in the Bahamas but these are some of the most beautiful. Perhaps the most complicated part of being in the Bahamas is the weather.  Because most of the anchorages are only protected from one wind direction, you have to be constantly aware of the coming weather, not just tomorrow but days from now.  There were several times when we found ourselves 25 or 50 miles from protection and only a day or so to get there in advance of nasty, unfavorable winds.  That makes for high anxiety and something that has taken some getting used to.  However, assisted by the ever patient Chris Parker, the weather router that we use, we have made it around just fine and in doing so have had some amazing sailing.  

This photo of Pandora was taken by Jay of  Take Two whom we had never met prior to his presenting us with photos of Pandora, under sail.  Jay came up to our boat a few days ago and presented me with these and several other photos.  He took them when we were sailing across the Northwest Providence Channel about a week ago.  Take Two has been the home of Jay and Tanya for the last 5 years.  They began their journey with their 4 children on board and now have 5 including  a two year old.  Yikes!!!   I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be on board with that many folks.  Check out their blog to learn more about this remarkable family.  

Nice photos from Jay?  I think so.

So what do we think of our visit to the Bahamas?  All and all, it has been great with fabulous weather, warm water and spectacular sunsets.   Yes, there have been challenges but much of that was anxiety about the unknown as it’s all so new to us.  But, now that we have been here for a few months, it all seems clearer.  Well, a little bit clearer anyway…

So, we will make the best of the next few weeks prior to Brenda’s flight back to the states and our “other life” in Essex.  I look forward, with a bit of anxiety, to my 900 mile trip back to New England and hope that the weather will cooperate for a quick passage.

Speaking of making the best of things.  We enjoyed a nice visit to a resort yesterday, the Hope Town Inn and Marina.   For the price of a beer, or two, we were able to spend a few hours in the pool.  What a spot and only a short dink ride from Pandora.   Can you say “fresh water?”  It was great.  We may never leave here.Today we will rent a golf cart to tour the island with our friends Jeff and Susan from Meltemi.    We ran into them yesterday as they entered the harbor.  We had not seen them since we were in St Mary’s around Thanks Giving.  With all the islands in the Bahamas, it’s indeed a small world.

As the American revolution was heating up and it seemed that the British would be expelled from The Colonies, those loyal to the Crown fled the soon to be  United States.  Many of them settled in the Bahamas and some in the Abacos on Elbow Cay and founded the lovely village of Hope Town.

Today, Tuesday, Brenda and I weighed anchor in Marsh Harbor and made the short trek, less than 10 miles, to Hope Town.  While we enjoyed Marsh Harbor (I finally got a haircut, my first since January) this island, even though it is very close to Marsh Harbor, is beautiful and a world apart.

When I was reading some of the comments on Active Captain, a sort of Web based cruising guide, one reviewer likened Hope Town to Oak Bluffs on Martha’s Vineyard, a lovely spot known for their tiny Victorian cottages.  I agree, Hope Town has the same feel and is actually even nicer and better kept.  We went ashore and toured the Island, primarily to find a spot for dinner tonight and here are some of the sights we enjoyed.

The main settlement of Hope Town is built around a very compact harbor.  The homes are lovely and each is more beautifully kept than the last.  The colors of the buildings, in true Bahamas style, are very brightly painted.

These two pink buildings, perfectly maintained, with green grass all around, are home to an art gallery.  How magnificent.
Out in back of the gallery, with a view of the ocean, is a lovely deck.  I’d love to have this sort of layout on the back of our home in Essex.    I can’t imagine a better spot to host a gallery opening.  I’d go, assuming that they were serving wine.  That’s what they do at openings, right?The island is known for it’s candy stripe lighthouse.  It’s the last manned light and only kerosene light in the country.  The keeper still winds the mechanism and lights the lamp each night.  Actually, there are precious few lights that are maintained at all, manned or not in this country.   I expect that the locals have something to do with this status of this light as there is clearly money on this little island. This is a good example of one of the “streets” that run all around the island.  Golf carts are the preferred form of transportation.   The plantings are lovingly maintained. This was a particularly lovely walkway on someone’s property.  The large pendent trumpet flowers are datura.  Really impressive flowers.  Some folks in the US grow them as a summer patio plant.  Here, they grow well year round. Some of the plantings on the island are very old.  This one is from Captain Bligh’s stash of breadfruit plants brought on the Bounty from Tahiti.   Pretty amazing.  Someone has worked hard to keep this plant living for all this time.  Breadfruit is clearly not an invasive species as this tree is showing it’s age.
Everywhere you turn there is another lovely home to enjoy.   The trim work on this one is perfect. So, did we find the perfect spot for dinner tonight?  You betcha!!! We will be dining at the Hope Town Lodge.  Check out their site as it really gives a feel for how nice the place is.  The dining room requires “appropriate attire”.  “What would appropriate attire be”, I asked?  Hoping that we had something suitable aboard Pandora.  The answer was shorts and a polo shirt…and shoes.  Whew… I can do that.

Prior to dining we will enjoy one of our favorite “adult beverages” on this terrace.  As luck would have it, the patio faces west so we can enjoy yet another Bahamas sunset.  I can hardly wait.  So, is this the real Bahamas?   Right again and one of our favorite stops yet.