Day 33 April. 24. Last Lay day in Hope Town

Day 33

Another glorious morning in the Bahamas. Bill left to drop off our garbage and return to the hardware store to return the butane torch. He decided to rent a bike rather then walk and depend on being picked up by a local. Plus he got some exercise!

Along the way he was intrigued by all the signs left by fellow boaters and travelers on the island. SO he stopped to take a few pictures.

I liked the last sign above which was added by a local!!

My job today was cleaning tasks on the boat and preparing to leave Hope Town tomorrow. We have 10 more miles of the Abacos to explore before we make the crossing to Eleuthera.

Bill returned with a successful hardware visit and set to work on two projects he wanted to get done while in a quiet harbor. He successfully added a bolt to make sure the anchor did not foul on itself and cleaned up and recaulked a fitting on the side deck.

We celebrated by having lunch of conch fritters and then went into town. Decided to walk up the lighthouse one more time.

This time I paid more attention to the workings of how the lens rotates. The lighthouse keeper must climb the stairs every two hours in the evening and hand crank the cable attached to the lens, sort of like an old grandfather clock, except much bigger cable.

Got some nice shots again from the top!!

We then took the dinghy to Normans Grocery and Bakery for fresh bread. Delicious, got pineapple and
coconut bread and the Bahamian white bread. We then walked through town and found the old Methodist Mission Church founded around 1890. It is still serving the community of Hope Town today.

We then walked to the beach to enjoy the view and stopped at Munchies a local takeout eatery for some ice cream.

Returned to the boat for Bill to tackle a job of recaulking the waterline exhaust and cleaning the water line of the boat. Sounds like fun!?

Always something to do on the boat. Hopefully this is the last big project!

Hope to enjoy a relaxing evening for our last day in Hope Town.

Reflections on the Bahamas

Reflections on the Bahamas Over the past 10 weeks, we have traveled through Abaco, Eleuthera and Exuma Islands and enjoyed the hospitality of the Bahamian people. We have learned all about the islands, its unique geography - limestone, caves, blue holes and chalk cliffs; and colorful history-pirates and rum running, salt ponds and cotton plantations, boat building and wrecking/salvage. Traveling over 1300 miles through narrow cuts and wide bays to vast depths of ocean, we negotiated the islands and found safe harbors, calm coves for anchoring, bays filled with moorings and marinas large and small. This trip required us to pay close attention to the weather, the tides and currents as we traveled between and through the islands. The Bahamian people are warm and friendly, willing to give us rides, advice and directions, as well as some secret recipes!! We enjoyed hiking trails, walking the beaches, snorkeling the coral rocks and reefs, discovering ruins and ol...

June 4-5. Day 63-64. On to Cape May New Jersey. 53.4nm. Total 1534 miles.

Left Delaware City at 5:35am to be able to take advantage of the strong currents going with us while traversing Delaware River and Delaware Bay. The Delaware River goes south about 15 miles and flows into the Delaware Bay. As we travel south, New Jersey is to the east and Delaware is to our west. We are traveling just outside the shipping channel and are really moving at 10.9 knots. That is three knots faster than we normally travel, as the outgoing tides are pushing us along. Nice to have Mother Nature helps us save on fuel. The Delaware River is about 8 miles wide so there is plenty of room for the freighters and the pleasure boats. So far, we have not encountered any commercial traffic, but there is a large freighter behind us that will eventually pass us as they travel at 14 knots. The Delaware Bay proper varies from 23-29 miles wide and 26 miles long. There are five lighthouses on the Delaware marking the shipping channel. We went by Ship J...

Day 98. 2nd year. August 27. On to Manistee. Miles 25 Total miles. 3910.

We weighed anchor on a sunny 50 degree morning. So we put on our sweatshirts and drove from below as we left Frankfort. Going through Frankfort’s channel and breakwater we encountered a few intrepid fisherman and further along as we cleared the breakwater there must have been over a hundred fishing boats. Almost like playing bumper cars, but with boats. Had to negotiate a path between them as the fishing boats were all trolling fishing lines behind them. We were still seeing fishermen 4 miles south of Frankfort. These guys sure take their fishing tournaments seriously! The shoreline that we pass heading south are still sand dunes bluffs some as tall as 200 feet. As we travel, we pass the small town of Arcadia and Portage Lake, each situated on an inland lake which is connected to Lake Michigan by a dredged channel. Interesting to note that the dredged channels were originally small rivers connecting the inland lakes to Lake Michigan. As we passe...

Crustacean Travels

Search This Blog