Spending Time in Port Lucaya

NautiNell sitting pretty in Port Lucaya!

Beautiful colors in the Bahamas

Port Lucaya Lighthouse

Okay, I can learn these steps!  Just give me a minute!!

Hanging out on the beach - never gets old!

It's Wednesday, June 20 and we're still at the marina in Port Lucaya having a great time. I thought I'd share some of the things that have been going on here (not in any particular order). LOL!

Beautiful sunrise over the canal

Having dinner on Coral Beach with Barry and Larry

Chef Antoine and Bernie at their Tiki Bar on the beach!

Enjoying a potluck dinner with other boaters!
Can anyone say "yummm"??

As I posted earlier we arrived here on June 2 intending to leave in a couple of days. However, it turned out to be such a nice place and even cheaper than the marina in Stuart, we decided to stay the month. We should be leaving sometime next week whenever there is a good weather window for crossing. Right now the weather has changed and it's pretty windy and somewhat rainy. Hopefully this will move out soon!

We've made a lot of friends while staying here at Ocean Reef. Several of the boaters here stay for months and have been doing so for years. Bob and Carol from England and their son Richard have been coming here since the '70s. They built a house here but they missed their boat so much they leased out their house and moved back on their boat ("Getting' Lucky")! Larry is here in his sailboat "Rio Dulce" – we met him while we were in Marsh Harbor. He's also been staying here for years. There are so many here, that I can't mention them all. Now, the real character here is Barry on the sailboat "Figment". He's the one whose boat was struck by lightning the other day. He is quite the storyteller.

Yes, Mike actually sang Karaoke!
"I Walk the Line"

One of Mikey's catches!
Spanish Mackeral - dinner tonight!



Our home for the month of June
Ocean Reef in Port Lucaya

Barry has been coming here from England for over 15 years. A few years ago the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies were being filmed here. Several of the extras for the movie became seasick while filming so the word was sent out to anyone that would like to be an extra. Barry decided he would give it a try. He has quite a few stories of the six months he spent on the movie. I wish I could repeat them all. He did say that Johnny Depp was very friendly and an all-around nice guy. Nice to hear!!

We've been eating rather well – went to Red Beard's with Larry and Barry one evening. Nice place – local hangout. Hope we get to go back again there before we leave. Good Food!

Every Wednesday evening there is a fish fry at Smith Point Island. There is a bus here that takes you over there. This is on Taino beach which is really a pretty place. The fish fry is billed as a local hangout but I was hard pressed to find any locals there other than those working. It was quite interesting though and we did get to taste turbot for the first time. In the states it's known as triggerfish. Not bad, I guess. Glad we went but doubt if we go back again.

We've gone over to Coral Beach and had dinner on the beach there. Wow! The food was great and the view spectacular. Highly recommend it especially if Mango is playing. He's pretty good! We went with Bob and Carol in their car but you can walk over there easily from here. In fact, we may go back there tonight if the weather clears up.

Now one of the best meals we've had over here was our boater "pot luck" dinner. We all got together one Sunday evening at the pool and held a pot luck dinner. Wow! Barry fixed a turkey and another couple (Hank and Diane) supplied us with lobster! They had caught them here and needed to get rid of them before they headed back to Canada by plane. There were 22 of us there so there were a lot of different dishes to choose from. Very Goood!!

A few days ago we visited the east end of the island and went to Banana Johns. Another great place with a beautiful beach. They specialize in BBQ and did not disappoint us! Also we tried the coconut water and  coconut jelly that is fresh from the trees there. Not bad!

Mike caught Spanish Mackerel here so we got to try that for the first time! I think my favorite though was the Marlin. I didn't even know that you could eat Marlin!  However, the couple in the boat next to us caught a 70 lb. marlin and shared their catch with us. There have been a lot of firsts here for us.
We've eaten lobster at a little tiki bar (Bernie's Tiki Bar) on the beach just a short dinghy ride from here and have enjoyed fresh bread from Esther who operates the pool bar here.

Okay we do more than just eat here. We hang out at the pool or the beaches. Mike fishes from the dinghy. There is a weekly pool tournament and Mike has played in that too. He and Hank even won last week! Bragging rights – but hey – they had fun. Now they're the defending champs! HA!

We've gone to the Port Lucaya Marketplace where I got to do some shopping while Mike hung out at Rum Runners. I saw a lot of things that I'd like to have. We are definitely going back soon! There are several stores and restaurants there along with the local straw market.

We haven't been to the casino yet. For those of you that know Mike – you know how excited he is about going there. NOT! However, I want to donate some money there so I think we're going this weekend. They are supposed to have a really good steak special there on Friday night. Again we are driven by food. HA!

Once a week there is Esther's Native Show held here. It's a mixture of Bahamian music and dance with limbo and Junkanoo costumes. It's a little hokey but fun to watch. They also have bingo three times a week. I've played once – just really not my thing. I did win a T-shirt though. LOL! Line dancing is big here. Every event seems to either start with or ends with line dancing – everyone doing the electric side or the Macarena. Hilarious! But fun!!

Oh and before I forget – every Tuesday night is Karaoke. AND Mike got up and sang last night! He did a very original rendition of Johnny Cash's "I WALK THE LINE". Hmmm! Hope Johnny Cash's estate doesn't sue us – heard they might. LOL! Too bad they didn't have the recording of "Stagger Lee" or he would have sung that too! I'm wondering if the emcee, Charles, will let him have the mic next Tuesday. We'll see!

It's going to be hard to leave this place but we both are feeling the itch to head home to the USA. We plan to spend the Fourth of July somewhere in Florida - leave the boat for a couple of weeks and go back to Joplin for a visit. See ya' all soon!

Till next time!

Admiral "C"

We all took a dinghy ride to the Tiki Bar for dinner

Little Pink Houses?

Beach as far as you can see.......

Anyone ready for fresh coconuts?

We are no longer in the Abacos!

Walking the back streets of Rosie's Place - looking for the bakery!

Crossing the wide open waters

"Center of the world" - rock out in the middle of nowhere!

Rosie's Place - quite colorful!

Tied to the wall in the Lucaya Canal
Got a little tight when the tide went out -
see the extension of the wall under the water?
We didn't!

One of the few homes that did build in the canal

Made it to Ocean Reef - Port Lucaya
Would be our home for the month June

Local tavern and "Aquarium"!

Interesting two story houseboat - and look at the two story deck!

We are no longer in the Abacos. We are now on Grand Bahama Island – last stop before we head back to stateside.

Last Wednesday (May 30) we left Crab Cay about 8:30 a.m. after a pleasant anchorage with three other boats. It was a beautiful day so we headed on to Grand Cay about a 45 mile trip. We arrived at Rosie's Marina about 2:30 p.m. Of course, true in Bahamian style – no one would answer the VHF. We just dropped a hook out in the harbor. We had heard this was quite an interesting place and we weren't disappointed. It's a very colorful area! Rather poor but well-kept and friendly. We could even get WIFI in the harbor! We walked around the small town – hit the bakery and had a drink at Rosie's Bar. The guides had told us that there would be lots of stingrays. They were right – we couldn't count them all. Some were huge! We met a couple on a sailboat anchored out by us. They were from Florida and helped us with lots of information about where to stay when we get back there.

We left Thursday morning for Lucaya Waterway. We passed Mangrove Cay – a popular anchorage because several passages criss cross here. We traveled about 45 miles today – saw a few sailboats early but as the day progressed it became obvious to us that we were by ourselves.

We stopped just outside the waterway in Dover Sound to anchor. It was early in the afternoon and Mike decided to check out the waterway in the dinghy. He found that it was a great place to anchor – there was even a wall there we could tie up to. SO we decided to move in there – the guides say it's sometimes used as a hurricane hole. Great protection from the winds. We tied up to the trees near the wall and spent a nice quiet evening.

The Lucaya Waterway was built by developers in the 70s who had a vision of a great Florida type housing community with docking for your boats in your backyard. Several lots were sold (over 5,000) and work began only to come to a grinding halt when the new Bahamian government ruled that only Bahamian citizens could own property here in the Bahamas. What a mess! It took years and years for things to finally be settled. However, the housing project with the waterway never really took off after that. There are some houses built along the canal but most of it is undeveloped. Some houses are just sitting there vacant and never finished. What a loss! It would have been beautiful.

We woke up to rain on Friday June 1 – another Bahamian Holiday! This one is Labor Day. We decided to just stay through the day waiting out the rain. We would head for the marina in Port Lucaya in the morning. BUT at low tide we found ourselves resting on the wall foundation – no harm done – just a little off – about 4 degrees list – "tilting"! We took a nap and the tide came back up and all was good! No worries!

Oh, and our pet hermit crab "Kerm" almost made his great escape! A small twig from the trees had fallen in his Tupperware bowl and he climbed up it and almost made it to the back of the boat and into the water. This means he had to have fallen about 4 feet or more – twice! That's pretty far and rather adventurous for such a little guy! Mike found him just before he took his last "Geronimo" dive into the water. We gave him some extra lettuce since we knew he must have been worn out! HA!

On Saturday morning it was easy traveling through the rest of the canal however it was quite choppy once we left the canal and moved into the Atlantic. Fortunately it was only a short trip to the Ocean Reef Resort from there. We found a great slip (no one answered the VHF here either) but some friendly boaters helped us land. Our slip is right in from of the Olympic size pool – one of two! There are several weekly activities – we may stay awhile – we like it here. It's even cheaper than the marina in Stuart! Now if we could only find cheap beer!

We spent Sunday cleaning up the boat and regrouping. We took a dinghy ride out to Port Lucaya – there are some really nice beaches here.

They had a shuttle on Monday morning to the store and liquor store. Of course, we needed to restock. We then hung out at the pool – meeting several nice people on boats as well as those in the resort's villas.  Monday Madness was at the pool that evening - FREE food and rum punch! We met several more crazy boaters and danced till my feet hurt – which really didn't take all that long!!
Mike even played in a pool tournament with his buddy Hank. They ended up winning the tourney! Bragging rights only but hey! - he won! There are tournaments throughout the week so he will have to defend his title soon.

On Wednesday there was a whale of a storm. One of the sailboats at the dock (belongs to Barry from Jolly Ol' England) was struck by lightning. His mast is about 70 feet so it is the tallest thing around here. It is a steel hull so he was fully grounded but it completely disintegrated his VHF antenna on his mast. What a noise that made! A little too close for me!!

Hopefully the rain will move out soon. Tomorrow we plan on going to the beach……!

Till next time!

Admiral "C"

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"