The Dooleys took a picture of us as we were anchored off of Mermaid Reef just outside of Marsh Harbor.

    HOME AGAIN, but I thought I'd do a brief wrap-up.  Thursday was blustery----big surprise!  We had to vacate the boat by 10 am. We had bags packed, linens gathered for the staff, extra food stuffs arranged for easy pick-up by 8:30.  Dan decided to email Ed and Connie to let them know we had to leave the boat by 10, that we had food left over and they were welcome to any of it.  ....WELL, we have two emails "labelled" Ed, and Dan picked the wrong one.   Instead of writing Ed and Connie, he wrote to our next door neighbors back in Spring Grove, Ed and Karen Smith.  Ed (Smith) responded with  a slightly confused tone that he and Karen had to work today and probably couldn't get over this morning---were we going away for a while??  We didn't realize the erroneous addressee until we got home Thursday night. We all had a good laugh about it.

Dan, in street clothes shifting bags ashore (again taken by Dooleys)

      Ed and Connie showed up at our dock at 10:00 while we in the middle of our debriefing by one of the Moorings staff.  As soon as the debriefing was over, they came aboard and did find a few things they felt were worth retrieving.  After all the luggage was off the boat, Ed and Connie joined us at Curly Tails for a departure Bloody Mary (thanks, Ed!).  As we chatted, they mentioned their friends who had departed the day before we arrived had the same  trouble getting through the Nassau airport with 2+ hours between flights and had the same return schedule we had...with only 1 hour and 10 minutes to make the change (including immigration and customs) in Nassau.  They chickened out and switched their Bahamas Air flight to 7:25am and had plenty of time in Nassau. ,,,a little late for us to do likewise, so we hoped for the best.
     Wouldn't you know it, the Bahamas Air flight to Nassau was late!  That cut our transfer time to less than 40 minutes.  But with the great help from both Bahamas Air and AirTran ground staff we made the transfer with 3 minutes to spare!!  They rushed us through check-in, immigration, customs and security like we were VIPs.  Easy flight home and luckily all the snow we had heard about on Wednesday was nonexistent by the time we arrived in BWI.  Our final thoughts---if you have to charted, the Moorings is the way to go, but having your own boat is WAY better.  Next year......  ~~~_/)~~~ M&D, K&P

To see all (and too many) of our pictures go to http://sailbrunelle.smugmug.com/Sailbrunelle-Blog-Photos/2013-Bahamas-Charter.

     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

        Sailing in Bahamas wouldn't be complete for us without a picture of a shadow of the main reflected off the bottom (through clear water.)  Here it is.  AND....if you look really closely, you can see the faint shadow of the headstay!

Actually I can't see the headstay at this point, but I can see a grassy bottom.  Hooray for a beautiful sunny calm day.

    It was, as predicted, a beautiful day today. However, we went from too much wind to next to none. We left Man-O-Way Cay at 9:30 am and headed out into the Sea of Abaco. We raised the main, but not our hopes, in an attempt to sail. After about half an hour of drifting we decided to make our own wind and motorsailed across to Mermaid Reef, which is right outside the bight at Marsh Harbour. We dropped the hook at 11:00 and prepared for our first venture underwater this trip. The gear, provided by the Moorings was really quite good. Masks didn't leak and the flippers were comfortable and efficient. We were close enough to the reef to swim, but opted to take the dinghy closer. Kate is not a fan of cold water, so she remained aboard Second Treasure Just as we were about to head off, the crew of a catamaran, Felix the Cat, came by to ask if we knew where to go. They had just finished snorkeling and had a baggie of crackers left over from their adventure and offered them to us. They turned out to be quite a hit with the Sergeant Majors. Dan is almost as colorful as they are!

Mermaids Reef was just a colorful as the last time we were there even with the water being a little murky after all the high winds for the last 5 days.  Several different types of Parrot Fish, the skinny Ballyho and the everpresent grunts and sergeant majors.

         We had two different visitors right after we got out of the water. First a pair of porpoises passed right by us on their way into the harbor. We were treated to another visit from them while we took a sunset cruise once we had returned to the dock at the Moorings. The second visitors were Ed and Connie Dooley on their fast trawler. They were out for a ride with dock neighbors and we chatted and took pictures of their new boat. Dan also got a great shot of them as they returned from their trip to Hope Town. They also joined us for our sunset cruise this evening.

Dan caught two porpoises as they passed us out by the reef(upper left) and I had my smaller camera and got a few shots as we cruised around the harbor in our dinghy. The one, upper right, had a chunk missing from his dorsal fin.

Southern Pilot is an Island Pilot 435 and quite sleek and quite fast.  The sunset across the harbor was lovely and was greeted by a chorus of conch horns. Sadly mine is home --- too heavy to fly with!

Tomorrow brings another front with winds up to 30 knots, so we may opt to take an island ferry over to Hope Town for a visit. ~~~_/)~~~M&D, K&P

Phil hemming while we were hawing!  Note the dainty thread cutter on the table.

Less talk and more pix.  First off, I forgot to post the above picture yesterday.  Phil didn't think he'd be wearing long pants, but when he put them on they were too long.  A man of many talents!

     Today dawned clear and bright, but still mighty cool.  We decided to stay here a Man-O-War Marina for another day rather that fight with the problems entering either Hope Town or Little Harbor (has to be done - both entering and leaving - on a rising tide or at high tide).  We took an early dinghy ride to check out both the north and south harbors here.  It was necessary to have at least three layers on, but the sights were worth it.  Wind was less than yesterday, but still brisk.

Scenes from the morning ride. Upper right shows our stern (with the yellow horseshoe) nestled between two behemoths.

This being a dry island, we made Bloody Mary's and headed up the the "Dock & Dine" at the head of our dock for a leisurely lunch. Once back aboard we couldn't decide between napping or taking a golf cart tour. Luckily the Cruise Dictator decided for us and we rented a "buggy" for three hours. I didn't think we could find enough to see for three hours, but was pleasantly wrong. We took the Queen's Highway (which is just two golf carts wide at it's widest and often was just a sandy track) all the way to the north end of the island and were so glad of sun and scenery that three cameras were clicking A LOT.

 

Sea scenes from our travels.  Upper right show the narrowest point on the island. It looks like a very high tide might wash right over the "highway".  The middle shot is from the southern end - looking out toward Elbow Cay.  The beaches and waters were beautiful. 

The scenery shoreside was also interesting. We liked the developments and proposed developments of the northern end of the island best.

The whimsical fish gates were fun and the drive through a hedgerow picturesque.

      Tomorrow promises to be a short reprieve between two large and fast moving cold fronts, so we hope to sail about in the Sea of Abaco and maybe even snorkel on Mermaids Reef before heading back to Marsh Harbour before the next blast hits. ~~~_/)~~~M&D, K&P

Sunday...a day of rest...NOT.  We woke up ---no we got up, I'm not sure anyone slept much after a VERY WINDY, VERY ROLLY night.  The first sight was someone less fortunate than we.

This Gulfstar had opted to save the $20 mooring fee and anchored.....not a good idea.  Luckily as we left around 9:45 (half tide) he was almost vertical and had a strong long anchor line to windward.  We hope he got off!

The seven mile ride from Great Guana Cay to Man-O-War Cay was dead downwind and we opted to go with "bare poles" and made good time through windy but not too rough seas. There were no moorings available in the harbor, so we took a berth at the Marina. Thank goodness the slip was an upwind one, I wasn't interested in testing the strength of our reverse to try to stop on a dime downwind in 25+ knots of wind! We are neatly tucked in between two very "tall" vessels and glad of it. The wind if anything is stronger tonight. We tend to heel over (here in the slip) when a puff comes along!. We found that everything shuts down on Sunday on Man-O-War Cay, so we had lunch aboard and took a walk around the town. What a change from our last two trips which had coincided with "Sojer Days", a heritage celebration which brought out all sorts of arts, crafts and foods along with lots of people. This time as we walked the deserted streets the few people we saw puttered by in their golf carts...almost everyone of them had small dogs with them---all wearing sweaters!

One thing we were very excited about (notice the SHADOW of Dan's thumbs up) on our walk around town, the sun came out!  Not that we were able to shed any of our 4 layers, but we enjoyed our walk, especially one home with a clever artistic occupant.  We loved all their sculptures.

A yummy dinner aboard---The Moorings did a good job of provisioning us---and we're ready for a slightly quieter, or at least less rolly night. ~~~_/)~~~M&D, K&P

       We were less enthusiastic about listening to the Cruiser's Net this morning because we could see that today didn't look any better than yesterday...and maybe a little grayer, colder, windier AND wetter!  We headed off at 9:40 after a quick trip ashore to dump garbage and other things and rolled out the jib for the first time.  The trip to Great Guana Cay was just over two hours and we noticed that the cut between Whale Cay and Great Guana was a little bumpy, but the rain held off until we were almost there.

While Cap't. Dan steered us toward Great Guana, Martha and Kate hunkered down and read their Kindles while Phil practiced his harmonica down below.

        We picked up a mooring ball (after several tries---lousy boat hook, lotsa wind and a less responsive helm than Brunelle) in time for Bloody Mary's before our trip ashore to visit Nipper's Restaurant for lunch.  We have heard Nipper's advertised on the Cruisers Net on each or our previous trips, but had never had the pleasure. What a place. The walk through town was uneventful, and we headed across the island toward the windward side.Our first inkling of what to expect came as we walked up the track towards Nipper's.

We had to get a picture of this for our grandson Ben but didn't realize it was an indication of what we were about to see!

Nipper's is really colorful and the gray skies didn't dull its charm. 

Nipper's is famous for wild Saturday night parties, but at lunch time on a dreary day we had the place almost to ourselves. We had a wonderful lunch (inside) and enjoyed watching the Atlantic broil along the eastern beach.

     We were back aboard by 4:00 and napped, read and relaxed until a Bahamian feast of our Bahamian Lobster and  our version of "peas and rice".  The worst of the rain came during the late afternoon and evening as we snuggled below.  Our sunscreen is not getting much use, but we all agree we are enjoying ourselves.  ~~~_/)~~~ M&D, K&P

     We listened to the cruiser's net at 8:15 am this morning, which begins with a weather report, and realized we may not get to use the mask, snorkel and fins that come supplied with the boat.  We're in for two successive fronts this week and the winds are strong and from the NW for most of it.  We decided to venture out and head for Treasure Cay.  This is new territory for us, and Rosie, our Moorings guru, said there was plenty of room for anchoring in the protected harbor and the beach on the northeast side was listed by the National Geographic as one of the 10 best beaches in the world.  We left the dock at 10:00 am and powered directly into the wind  for the 12 mile trip to Treasure Cay.  Not a whole lot of traffic on Abaco Sound as we motored along.  (Steve and George will appreciate this---) We had a brief man overboard drill when we realized the dinghy had decided to come untied!  This boat has HUGE aft cleats and a double cleated skinny dinghy painter managed to wee-waw it's way off!   It was retrieved without much ado and we continued  on our way.



The entrance to Treasure Cay has one skinny spot, so we entered slowly but never saw less than 9 feet. The harbor was fairly full but with the help of friendly neighbors we found a spot and Dan was even offered a glass bottom bucket to check the anchor set. The harbor was too murky for the bucket, so he did use his mask and snorkel to check it. We dinghied in and walked across the narrow strip of land that divides the marina from the famous beach. We were all warmly dressed, so no cheesecake pix from this group! We stopped at the Coco Beach Bar for a quick drink before hitting the bakery on the way back to the boat.   Dinner aboard.  We christened the grill with big burgers. We're now enjoying the lovely hummmm of the 1.5 hour (2X daily) engine charge needed to keep the refrig and house batteries up to snuff. Just like the old days on my parent's CSY 37
Brunelle.

A sunny day would have increased the beauty 10 fold, but it was gorgeous all the same.

~~~_/)~~~M&D and K&P