Day 31
Woke to another beautiful sunny day.
Our first chore was to get the laundry done and take the trash out.
We dinghied over to the ferry dock and handed our trash over. Literally handed over the bag of trash to a young man whose job is to collect trash from the mooring basin. Trash pick up is every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.
Next we walked to the laundry and after waiting 20 minutes for the machines to be free, I was able to get the clothes in. Met up with Gary from MV Juggernaut who came in to do his laundry after me. This is a popular spot for boaters!!! You have to buy tokens for the washer and the cost is $7 a load. Will be wonderful to have clean sheets and towels!!
Once back on the boat we had lunch and Bill tackled repairing the shower drain pump. Luckily we had the spare part and he was able to make the repair.
We relaxed on the flybridge with a soda and appetizer to celebrate a successful repair job and decided to take a dinghy ride around the harbor.
Five very large boats have come into the marina in the last two days.
We put the dinghy in the water and took a quick tour around the harbor. Lots of mangrove waterways and docks for the private homes and inns that line the harbor and small canal off the harbor.
After the dinghy ride we stopped at the Hope Town marina to splurge with a drink. The bar tender was a real card and gave Bill a hard time. They were a match for each other!
We returned to the boat and had dinner and spent the evening planning our next week of travel.
Here is Bill hard at work planning our route and trying to make the weather cooperate with us.
Day 32
Our research shows our only window to get to Eleuthera is Monday - so we woke and had a leisurely morning watching all the boat traffic in the harbor. Later we put the dinghy in the water and went into town to pay for the mooring for two more nights. Right now we will start heading south on Friday - but that could change!?!
We then starting walking to the hardware store near White Sound on the south end of the island. Bill stuck his thumb out as we got out of town and we hitched a ride with two locals. Glad we did as the walk was a bit longer than we had envisioned.
As luck would have it, Bill found the butane torch he needed because someone had donated it to the hardware store the day before! So we were able to borrow it for free!
On the way back to town we walked to White Sounds Firefly Inn and Resort for fresh fish tacos and Bahamian Mac-n-Cheese. Great food and great service.
The Firefly Inn has a restaurant, pool and rental units, as well as a marina facing the Sea of Abaco. just north of Tahiti Beach.
White Sound is a shallow bay with limestone bluffs on the shoreline.
With our appetites sated, we continued our walk back to town. After a 15 minute walk, another local picked us up and gave us a ride to just outside of town.
Had my quota of sun for the day, so was glad to get back to the boat and relax!
On our way back we took some shots of the lighthouse and whatever struck our fancy!
The shot below shows one of the fishing sloops that were made on Man-o-War years ago.
Have been remiss by not mentioning the wildlife we see. Everyday we see one or more green turtles. Often they are right here in the harbor with us. We also see the curly tailed lizards everywhere. Finally got a shot of one, they move quick!
Sorry, so far the turtles have eluded my camera. I'll keep trying. Also there are lots of Common Ground Doves, which are smaller then our doves in the States.
As we walked to the dinghy dock, we enjoyed watching this dog who searched in the water and dove to retrieve shells and rocks and then brought them to shore.
Bill stood too close for the picture and got a bit wet as the dog shook off!
Next project is for Bill to try to fix our anchor binding issue. Good Luck Bill!!!
Well, Bill devised a successful intervention for the anchor. Yeah!!
We had lots of boat traffic today. The small mail ferry came into the harbor and visited the three piers in the harbor. Was a wonder how that big boat managed into the docks to deliver goods. A crane onthe boat did all the heavy lifting.
We had to stop what we were doing as there was a boat traffic jam. Two very large yachts and three medium sized cruisers came in within 15 minutes of each other. The Dockmaster must have been tearing his hair out. We had two 40 plus foot boats circling the mooring field as they waited their turn to get into their slip. Luckily the 90 foot boats got in their slips first. Thank goodness those big boats had thrusters because they had to hold station and squeeze into some tight slips!
