We awoke to clear skies, and calm seas and wondered why we had come back to base early, but here we were.  We had a leisurely breakfast and grabbed a cab to the ferry dock to catch the 10:30 ferry from Marsh Harbour to Hope Town on Elbow Cay.  The Albury Ferry, Donnie VII (all their  boats are named Donnie --- from #I to #XIII) headed out in a slightly stronger wind than we had experienced in the early morning.

Upper left is the view as we left the ferry dock in Marsh Harour, clockwise, the Hope Town Sailing Club launch had nice lines; ferry trip home was a lot rougher, crowded mooring field in Hope Town Harbour, including a lovely classic Abaco catboat that seemed to be hogging a cruising boat's mooring!; Cap't. Jacks restaurant (all "buttoned up" as we headed out the harbor, one of the Donnie ferry boats; and center the fearsome foursome having a lovely lunch on the deck/dock at Captain Jacks.

      We walked around town both before and after lunch and we were VERY aware of how the wind continued to build. We kept commenting that we were very happy to let "Donnie" to do the driving --- not us. Hopetown is a quaint and charming as it gets. The wind may have been strong, but so was the sunlight and we enjoyed marveling at the riot of color that abounds in the flora and also the architecture.

Several of these places are either commercial or private homes, but a joy to photograph.  I was puzzled by the bottom right that is a dive shop, someone must be dyslexic because the Dive Shop has code flags that say D-E-V-I!

Most of these homes are rentals, and each has a name and character all it's own.

No trip to Hope Town would be compete without a few shots of their famous lighthouse.  It is one of the few remaining manually operated lighthouses left in the world.  We captured its charm from many angles, but my favorite is the one (lower right) that Dan took as we were heading back to Marsh Harour,  The spray from the speedy ferry gives it an impressionistic air.  Zoomed in you can see the spray flying, causing it to look a bit like rain.

     One whimsical home had a wonderful Lizard Lodge in their front yard.  It came complete with a VW bug, seaplane, basketball hoop, sailboat, pirate cannon  wrought iron glider, lighthouse, bird house and much more.  We managed to get a few pictures of  "Old Mr. Curly Tail" but he better watch out---the neighborhood is going to the crabs!

      Last but not least, just a few miscellaneous artsy shots.

Upper left shows the spot we found last trip, but from the water --- we didn't realize it was the range for coming into the harbor (note the two red triangles).  The beach is on the Atlantic side, facing north.   With a west wind, we saw people snorkeling along the reefs in the calm(ish) waters.  

 What a wonderful day! We caught the 3 o'clock ferry and pounded our way back to Marsh Harbour to work on cleaning out our larder with our last dinner aboard. It turned out to be just as good as all the meals we had aboard! Tomorrow we will attempt to head to Nassau and then BWI, but the current weather reports have us working on contingency plans in case we get "stuck" in Nassau due to stormy weather back home. We'll see. ~~~_/)~~~M&D, K&P