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"