We Left Marsh Harbor – finally!!

One of our favorite spots - Treasure Cay!

What a great beach - beautiful!

Neat little beach bar with a great attitude!

Enjoying the waters of Treasure Cay

Just look how clear the water is!

Another beautiful sunset - never gets old!

Cheap Thrill

Other side of boat
"The Thrill is GONE"
hilarious!

The shores of New Plymouth at Green Turtle Cay

Narrow streets - golf cart friendly

How could we ever forget?

Finally after two more weeks at Harbor View Marina we are on our way. We spent five weeks at Marsh Harbor. We like the marina but enough is enough! Especially every Friday and Saturday night when Snappa's decides its band needs to turn it up! LOL! It really is quite loud but maybe we're just getting old….. Nah!!

Anyway, we did get the generator fixed – thanks to Basil again. Hopefully we won't have any more major problems until we get back to the states. "Paradise ain't cheap!"

We have spent the last two weeks since the Smiths left watching it rain mostly. This is got to be the rainiest season ever! However, the saying over here is "the more it rains in May – the less likely to have hurricanes later" Old wives tale? Who knows – but with two named storms already, we can only hope it's true!

We did manage to enjoy ourselves while we waited out the rain. We managed to hit most of the restaurants/bars in Marsh Harbor. Snappa's pizza on Tuesday night – Happy Hours at Rum Runners – Pizza and Wings on Sunday at Mangoes, and on and on…… Oh, and on Friday nights we walked to the Abaco Beach Club in Boat Harbour to listen to Brown Tip's "Rake and Scrape". It's a big deal here to play saws along with recorded music. It's a hoot! By day Brown Tip (that seems to be his name) cleans the bottoms of boats (scuba diver) – at night he plays the saws. Seems logical!

When the sun would come out to shine – we all would congregate at the pool. We did meet several nice people waiting out the weather. Some I'm sure we will cross paths with again - hopefully soon. When it rained we passed around boot-legged movies. You can get them here for $5.00 a piece – some of them are movies that are currently at the theater. They are sold right out in the open in stores. Guess there's no rules over here about that.

We did spend a lot of time people watching – some VERY interesting people at times. In fact, there are three very nice Hinckley boats here that are used as "limos" for those that are members of Baker's Bay on Guana Cay. It's a very upscale private resort. People fly in to Marsh Harbor and then are taken over to the resort in these boats. One of the boats was parked right next to us and continually shuttled "important" people back and forth. In fact George Strait and his son and family loaded up right next to us. However, the biggest thrill was when CINDY CRAWFORD and her husband and family walked right by us on their way to the BIG limo boat. She came in without any fanfare. We all just noticed that there was this very attractive lady on our dock at first. Then, we found out who she was! All the guys were giddy! She just smiled at everyone and kept walking. Good thing!!

We are currently working our way back to stateside. The weather has been a major factor on our schedule. We expected to be back before June 1. It doesn't look like we're going to make that date at all. We spent Saturday – (5-26) at Treasure Cay. We traveled a whole 15 miles that day! We wanted to stop there for the beach. Plus, we had heard that it was a great stop. We heard right! The beach is listed at one of the top ten in the world by National Geographic. It is beautiful! We hung out there most of the afternoon. We had dropped a hook in the harbor and it was well protected. There were several turtles in the harbor that kept checking us out. The Beach Bar even set off fireworks that night. Not sure if it's a regular thing or what but it was a really nice display. We hated to leave the next morning but knew we must head on – besides the weather is still iffy.

Sunday we traveled a whole 15 miles again! Starting to see a pattern here! HA! We went to Green Turtle Cay where we got a mooring ball for $10 a night. Cheap enough! The mooring balls are managed by Donnie of Donnie's Marina. An interesting guy…. Anyway we hung out on the boat most of the day – it showered off and on – nothing is open in town on Sunday anyway. The town on Green Turtle Cay is New Plymouth. It's a colorful little town that has such a great atmosphere. We had been here once before years ago when we chartered a boat with the Smiths. Nothing much has changed.

On Monday we found out that it was a holiday – Whit Monday – which meant nothing much would be open today either! We ventured into town anyway hoping we could find somewhere to eat lunch. Yea! McIntosh Restaurant/Bakery was opened. The only place in town open! We remembered eating there before and knew it was really good food! Like I said - nothing much has changed – the food was wonderful and so were the bakery items I had to try! We walked around some and also rode around in the dinghy. The weather was nice and we enjoyed just hanging.

Tuesday we decided to go back to town before we headed out. We wanted to get a few things at the store and take some more pictures. We made it to the market only to have it start raining while we were trying to get back in the dinghy. It's a short ride but we got soaked! We made it back only to realize we really needed to go to the bank. When the sun came back out we headed back to town. Oh – the bank is only open on Mondays and Thursdays here – oops! No ATMs either! We finally talked this sweet lady who runs the hardware store to give us some cash on our credit card. You would think that the bank here would put in an ATM. Guess not! By this time it was almost noon. So we got to eat at our favorite spot – The Wrecking Tree! It's a great local hangout.

We finally were leaving out mooring ball about 1:30 this afternoon. We were heading to Spanish Cay where we planning to anchor. There is nothing at Spanish Cay but a rather expensive marina/resort. We knew we could anchor out around the marina. However, when we got there – we decided that it really wasn't protected enough. The winds were starting to pick up again. We went a little farther to Crab Cay and anchored on the lee side with three other boats. The anchorage is beautiful and we sat out on the sundeck taking it all in.

Tomorrow we will be heading to Grand Cay or Great Sale Cay - about a 45 mile trip this time. Both are good anchorages and are on our way back. It will depend on the weather where we stay. In a few days – we will be near Freeport where we will stage for the crossing home. Pray the weather holds out!

Till next time!

Admiral "C"





 

Here at Marsh Harbor – Week Three – The Smiths Visit!

NautiNell standing proud in Hope Town

Here we are at Nippers!

Nippers rock

Nippers beach - gorgeous!

Having dinner with our buddies
Guys why so serious?

Doing a little shopping at Milos

Which way?

Beautiful day at the beach!

Best way to get around on the Island

Nice mutton snapper - dinner tonight!

Beautiful scenery all around the Island

Hope Town Lighthouse

May 6, Sunday – The Smiths got here around 6:30 p.m. We met them at Snappa's. It was so good to see them! It had been nine months since we had a chance to visit and catch up with everything. It's going to be a busy week!

On Monday Basil "fixed" our generator. (We thought). Wow, I'd like to make what he gets per hour! Well, it is the Bahamas, huh….. We all walked up to Jaime's for lunch and shopped our way back to the boat. We enjoyed visiting and hanging out on NautiNell.

Tuesday we left Marsh Harbor for Guana Cay. It was a beautiful day for travel. We trolled outside of Man of War Cay on our way over but no luck. We did have a couple take the bait but didn't hook them. We had planned to catch a mooring ball in the harbor but after we did we realized the generator wouldn't stay running. No generator power = no anchoring. SO over to Orchid Bay Marina we went. No big deal. It's a nice marina and was only a $1.25 a foot – (unlike the guide stated as $1.95). There is a shark that lives in the harbor – our guidebooks stated that when snorkeling – be sure to stay close to your dinghy. Hmmm! No snorkeling here for me! We did see the shark from the safety of NautiNell and several stingrays though.

We had planned to go to Nippers so we called on the VHF for the "Nippermobile". We were told that no one could come get us – that the Nippermobile wasn't running this evening. No big deal – we just planned to walk up to the restaurant at the marina. However, on our way to the restaurant – here comes Johnny in a golf cart to take us to Nippers. It turned out that Johnny owns Nippers. Now that's service! We all enjoyed a wonderful evening hanging out and having dinner. Since it was a Tuesday night, it wasn't very crowded – mostly locals at the bar. The last time we had been there was four years ago on a Sunday when they have the pig roast – AND it poured down rain! At least the weather cooperated this time! A local guy there gave us a ride back to NautiNell. What a night!

Wednesday morning we walked over to Bambi's Café for breakfast. A very nice little place with excellent food. We walked around the town and bought fresh tomatoes from Milo. We then left for Hopetown on Elbow Cay – it was looking pretty rainy so we knew we needed to get going. Of course, it rained on us on the way and again once we landed. We got a slip at the Lighthouse Marina about 2:00 p.m. Once the rain passed we went for a dinghy ride and had dinner at Harbor's Edge. We saw several people there that we had met at Marsh Harbor. The boating community is so neat – we have friends now from all over! Finally we made it back to the boat and played a mean came of Mexican Dominoes.

On Thursday, we took the dinghy over to Captain Jacks for lunch. It rained again but we didn't mind – just more time to drink margaritas. The rain didn't last too long. Before long we had rented a golf cart and were on our way to tour the island. We went to Sea Spray Resort (on the other end of the island) and stopped in at a new resort called Firefly. It turns out that Firefly Resort is now where the house used to be that we stayed in four years ago. They had taken the houses and turned them into several suites and built a tiki bar. They had turned the rooms downstairs where we had stayed into a restaurant. It was déjà vu all over again! Really glad we had stumbled into the new resort and had found our old "home". Finally we made it back to the boat and fixed BLTs. We all had a little too many rum drinks this afternoon! HA!

On Friday the sun was shining and we went back to Sea Spray in our rented golf cart for breakfast. We came back to town to find Rock Chalk (Loopers, Marc and Shelley) had parked by us at the marina. We hung out some more at Captain Jacks until we decided it was time to head back to Marsh Harbor.

We decided that since it was such a nice day that we would go outside again around Man of War and troll. We really didn't have much luck – they took our bait again - UNTIL we were back into shallow water – about 40 feet – then it was FISH ON! Dick ended up landing an 18-20 pound mutton snapper! That was so cool! We were using ballyhoo for bait. It was another version of the keystone cops but we got it on the boat. We really need to maybe develop a plan of what to do when we get a fish on…. – Nah! That would be too easy! HA!

We made it into Marsh Harbor back at Harbor View Marina just in time for happy hour. They had put a catamaran in our slip so we got the slip just across from where we had been. Mike and Dick cleaned the snapper and we had some of it for dinner. What a great way to spend their last night here. Fresh fish on the grill – cocktails on the deck – great conversation.

Our company left about noon on Saturday. We missed them before they even got to the airport. Keeping up with them though must have worn us out! Mike took two naps that afternoon! I think we were both a little drained but in a good way! LOL!

Our plan now is to find out why the generator keeps shutting itself down. Hopefully it's something besides it losing oil pressure. Mike is going to check it out and perhaps call Basil again for advice.
We would like to be able to fix it before we head stateside. If we can't run the generator, we will be forced to stay in marinas every night along the way. We would really like to anchor out some. Oh well, we might have to wait till we get stateside to have it fixed. We'll see.

Till next time!

Admiral "C"

Here in Marsh Harbor – Week Two

What a view this place must have!

Another beautiful sunset in Marsh Harbor!

The Scurvy Few - unfortunately we never met any of them.

Hundreds of starfish here!!

"Black Gold"  112 feet long!

"Hay FU"  80 feet long and 30 feet wide!   

Here we are at HarborView in Marsh Harbor

Celebrating "Cinco de Mayo" at Snappa's Bar 'n Grill

Mermid Reef - great place to snorkel

Yet, another beautiful sunset

Another week has passed here in Marsh Harbor. Now week two is history. The time is flying by so fast! I guess that's the way it is in Paradise, huh!

We found out that the parts we had ordered and were supposed to be delivered here on Monday didn't make the flight. They didn't have all that we needed so they didn't send anything. Now the parts are scheduled to arrive on Thursday. However, Basil will be off for a few days because of his daughter's graduation. Oh well. So IF the part comes in on Thursday - Basil can fix the generator on Monday.
Keeping our fingers crossed!

There's plenty to do here in Marsh Harbor. And Dick and Debbie will be here Sunday! We are really looking forward to their visit. The last time they visited us was in August when we were on Lake Michigan. Wow, what a difference, huh! No sweatshirts and jeans this time!

It was rainy the first part of the week – not much to do when it's raining. Not complaining though – it's warm! Mike painted our bicycles. They are only a year old –but the salt water has been really tough on them. They were looking pretty rough. Now they look all shiny again! He lubed and tuned them up too! Except mine didn't have any brakes for a while. Oops! Don't worry – I managed to stop! They just needed a minor adjustment – LOL! Now so does my flip-flop!

We went to an authentic Bahamian Café with a nice couple (Tom and Joyce) from New York. They have the sailboat (Barefoot) across from us. The food was great. They had a car so we got a tour of the island too. And of course, a stop at the Island Bakery. That place is wonderful!

Mike spends a lot of time "fixing" things on the boat. They're not always broken – a lot of them are just "needed improvements". There's always something. Although - NautiNell is looking pretty good right now! He did make a "prototype" rope ladder for the dinghy. When we get out in the dinghy to snorkel or whatever – it's next to impossible to get back in it when you're in deep water. Now if I'm snorkeling and I see a shark I want to be able to get back in the dinghy! LOL! Actually if I saw a shark – I'd probably not need the ladder!! Anyway, we went out to check out the ladder in the "field". After a few minor adjustments it was deemed a success. Hope so!

We plan to stay here in Marsh Harbor for a couple of more weeks. While our friends are here we will visit Hopetown and, of course, we can't miss Nippers. We'll probably do some fishing too, outside of Man of War Cay.

Our plan is to be back stateside in late May and in the Daytona area around June 1. That's the plan – but we all know how these "plans" are written in sand.

Happy "Cinco de Mayo" everyone! Isn't it crazy that we're over in the Bahamas and celebrating Cinco de Mayo! We still have a hard time believing we're doing this!

Till next time!

Admiral "C"