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"