Treasure Cay instead of Hopetown

Before heading off from the Jib Room Monday, we dinghied over to the Royal Marsh Harbour Dinghy Dock across the harbor and headed to the BaTelCo office in hopes of finding out how our Bahamian phone went through over 1.3 gigs in one day when the first 2 gigs lasted 29 days!!  After an hour with customer service at the BTC office (whose internet was down!!!) I was told to get on WiFi somewhere else and update my iOS and that should solve my problem.  We made a quick stop at Maxwell's for groceries and headed back to the boat.  I went up to the bar at the Jib Room and got the new iOS downloaded and we headed off...but not for Hopetown.  We had heard on the Cruiser's Net that there were no mooring balls in Hopetown so we headed for Treasure Cay.

We followed Resolve the 13 miles to Treasure Cay and took a slip the first night....no moorings available.  A
very pretty setting but a bit rundown at the Marina, AND they had just raised their rates!!

We had studied the Treasure Cay listing on Active Captain and found all the complaints to be 

accurate.  Very old wooden docks,  so so facilities and LOUD music from the bar until 1 am.  Resolve had taken the last mooring ball, so we came in to take a slip.  We had been told we would get a great discount with our Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club membership, but that expired at the end of March!  That news plus the new higher dockage rates made it important to make it out into the mooring field (that price went up too, but $30/night is better than $2.15/foot!)  Luckily we were not obligated to use the electricity (it had been $24/day, we didn't even ask how much that went up.)  

First thing Tuesday morning Mike called to say he was in the dinghy hanging on to a mooring ball that has just been vacated.  We hightailed it out there and Mike was there to hand us the line!  It was an absolutely beautiful day so we headed over to the beach on the Sea of Abaco side and had lunch at Coco's Beach Bar.  Touted to be the third most beautiful beach in the world, we were sure it was the

loveliest one we've seen!  Lunch was good. 

I decided not to collage the beach pix...  These two catamarans were heading from Green Turtle, just about to pass No Name
Cay (home of the northern pigs) on their way out through Whale Cay Cut.

Wanted to include a little of the pristine white sand along the 3 1/2 mile beach.

Kite surfer near the southern end of the beach.

The wind piped up quite a lot last night and we were surprised how close we came to the charter catamaran on the mooring behind us, but close only counts in horseshoes...  The sky was brilliant and only the masthead anchor lights interfered with seeing the stars.

Debbie declared she has too much food aboard and asked us over for a brunch casserole and freshly baked coffee cake.  Quite a feast, and with Dan's famous Bloody Mary's we were set for the day.  We are moored right near Spartina from Clairborne, MD (they have a mooring in Tilghman Creek)  We had first met them 8 years ago down near Warderick Wells, and then once back on the Bay, so we caught up with them a bit.  They now keep the boat in Fort Pierce every other year so they don't have to do the northern trek every year.  Sounds tempting...

It's almost low tide, so we are going to head back to the beach to see how big a sand bar develops. The cruiser's net has been talking about this being a perigee time so tides are more extreme. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

FYI

I keep forgetting to mention that, although most of you get an email whenever we post...and read it right there, IF you go to the actual website  sailbrunelle.blogspot.com you will see the map Sam has set up at the top of the site that shows our SPOT locations.  M

Ready to move on from Marsh Harbor

I should have known when bubbles came out of my underwater camera when I turned it on underwater out at Mermaid Reef that things weren't good!  It's dead.  My last underwater bit the dust at just the same age (just under 4 years old).  I did get the pictures off the SD card and shared them on the last blog.  Many hours and a tupperware full of rice didn't do anything to revive the camera tho...

Not all that much to report about Marsh Harbor.  We enjoyed the Wednesday night Rib night here at the Jib room, adventured around town with Debbie and Mike and waited for Ed and Connie Dooley to return from West Palm where they went to deal with Connie's broken wrist follow-up.  They got back on Friday and we celebrated with Resolve and Southern Pilot (Ed and Connie's boat) aboard Brunelle.  I made "Aunt Nancy's Tilapia"(familiar to many) with local grouper and it was a well received.

Saturday at the Jib Room is steak and limbo night and we enjoyed both.  It was great fun watching all the kids whiz by under the limbo bar when it was high and a few made it through successfully as it got lower, but there is no competition for Desmond.  He has worked here for over 20 years and has wowed audiences every Saturday night.

The young lady in the coral dress took it seriously, but finally resorted to crawling before Desmond replaced
the bar...

 with a FLAMING one.

Desmond does a little stretching with a one handed push up and then puts a cigarette in his mouth and begins
his amazing trip beneath the bar, stopping to light his cigarette before passing on through and jumping up!!!

We had a relaxing Sunday with a little rain and Dan's famous Bloody Marys and are now ready to move on.  We hope to find a mooring in Hopetown this afternoon so we can get reacquainted with Elbow Cay.  ~~~_/)~~~M&D (I'll have to rely on iPhone and Dan's big SLR for pix from now on.)