Good-Bye and Hello!

Farewell to the Abacos!

Looking back from our plane towards Marsh Harbour and Hope Town in the distance. 

Passing over Green Turtle Cay where we use to store New Horizon. After that we headed over the ocean, which was really calm.

Hello Daytona and the Land O' Plenty...plenty of people, traffic, supplies, food, and restaurants!

We flew right over Halifax Marina on the Intracoastal Waterway which looked like it had plenty o' boats.

After installing a new battery in the Buick (apparently we were away a bit too long, lol), recharging the air conditioning unit in the car, taking care of some business, and a couple of trips to the real land o' plenty...Walmart, today we headed west to Blue Springs State Park. It was a gorgeous afternoon there with very few people. Dave went snorkeling up to the head of the spring while I walked the boardwalk (boy, did that feel good!). 

At the entrance to the 'stream' as we heard one lady call it, Dave was swimming with a whole bunch of 3-4ft. Florida and long-nose gars, that you can barely see in the bottom of this photo. One of the fish had a chunk taken out of its side, and another one had its tailed chewed off. 

Luckily Dave didn't run into any alligators today. Better yet, they didn't run into him!

This little girl and her mother were kayaking down towards the St. John's River and saw this turtle. I have never seen anyone get this close to a turtle without it jumping in the water. It must be used to people or maybe it knew it was in a wildlife protection area. At least when the girl said that she wanted to pet it, the mother voiced an emphatic no, and they paddled on.

Tomorrow is Flea Market Day and then Sunday it is road trip time, heading north to home, hitting all the fast food joints we haven't been to in three months along the way. 😉 We are ready to continue our endless summer...if the snow is melted! 

Two More Days

In two days we'll be flying back to Florida. In those two days we still have lots of last minute preparations to do. However, Mother Nature isn't cooperating. Since my last post it has been stormy and very windy and we can barely get out onto the front porch. It whistles through the jalousie windows and howls through the masts on the sailboats at the dock, making everyone wind fatigued. This morning it is raining again with thunder in the distance (would I like a little cheese with my whine?!), so last minute really will be last second. At least on the day we fly in the seven seat plane, conditions are predicted to be better. Plus, it isn't snowing! More from the "Land O' Plenty"...

The Last Hurrah

Our season in Hope Town is rapidly drawing to a close. We've had our last sail and both the Abaco Dinghy Dandy and the Daysailer Suja are stored away for the summer. Yesterday we took our last kayak adventure and went down to the north end of Tilloo Cay. Transporting the yaks in the skiff is easy and a quick way to get to our destination.

Gotta love my new sun protective mermaid outfit. The pants have scales imprinted on them. That is the wood charter sailboat Barcelona Explorer way in the background.

We paddled around the bay north of the Castle which is also known as Scare Air (I don't think they have a sea plane anymore) and the Farside. This property has at least four houses on it and looks more like a resort. 

We also took our last Walkabout trip over to Man-O-War. Yesterday afternoon it was hauled out with the forklift and left for Dave to "summer-ize" it this weekend. He has already cleaned the bottom back to original condition and we flushed the engine with fresh water. Now all the mechanical systems will be checked and lubed and it will be ready for next season. 

After checking the weather at dinner time, the prediction was still for windy and wet weather until the day we leave! Since it was so calm last night that there were no-see-ums out, and with it being lighter later, we decided to haul the kayaks from the back dock, up onto the porch where we store them for the hurricane season. Since they were dry, we even put them in their protective sleeves and secured them. Sure enough, we woke this morning to wind and thunderstorms.

I have to say, we are feeling a bit smug again.

Growing Up

The 5 chicks from earlier this season are growing up fast. Although they have left their mother hen (probably because she was sitting on more eggs), they still stick together. The other day I found one on the porch trying to figure out why it couldn't get under the rail like it used to....maybe because it is now a 'teenager'?! They still like climbing up the tree out front though.

Then:

Now:

They sure are going to miss us in another week. At least we'll be leaving before they learn how to crow!

112 Feet!

Remember what I said in my last post about all the big yachts having to go past our porch? This is what a 112 foot 'boat' looks like trying to get out the entrance of the harbor...

Check out the website all about the Lyon's Pride by clicking HERE:

It's a good thing I took photos of all the boats yesterday because several left today, as did many of the cruising sailboats. The harbor is finally starting to thin out. A three day weather window to cross the Gulf Stream is being predicted and lots of boats are heading back to Florida. It's all part of the migration process, but we are still glad we fly!

BIG Boats

The Hope Town Inn & Marina is filled with large yachts right now. We've seen some of these exceed 100 feet long.

Big!

Bigger!!

Biggest!!! Irish Ei's owner is the owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers. They tow the 31 foot Bertram that's next to it!

Even the Queen Mary is docked here...

Well, almost anyway.😉 It's amazing that all these yachts can actually make it into small Hope Town Harbour. The best part is that they all have to go right past our porch! 

Slow Migration

We are slowly getting things prepped here for our migration north. We still have about 10 days before we leave, but that time will go by really fast. Next week we are supposed to have some perfect kayaking weather, so most of our boats will stay in the water until the last minute.

Yesterday we had a very exhilarating sail in the daysailer. I wish someone would have taken some photos of us as we would catch the gusts of wind and heel over to the point of water coming in. That might have been our last sail of the year, but that's okay because we certainly would be "going out on a high note."

Meanwhile Dandy has been hauled out of the water and is covered and ready for summer storage on its newly painted trailer (thanks to Craig who borrowed it to move his Abaco Dinghy Winer Malone, and when he returned it, it was all painted!).

A little bit of paint touch up next season and Dandy will be ready to be on display and sail through the harbor again. Hopefully everything else will fare that well too.

Bath Time

Now that it is really getting warm out, my makeshift birdbath is a busy place. These birds go wild in the bowl with water going everywhere. They have become so used to us sitting on the porch that they ignore us and continue with their routine. In fact, when our friend Barb was here doing her morning yoga, they joined in and got her wet. Even our P.I.T.A. West Indian Woodpecker enjoys it.

Mockingbird

The Bananquit water dance...

I love the call of the Red-Winged Blackbird. It reminds us of when we used to camp and boat in the Everglades.

Unfortunately our hummingbirds have already moved on, and in a couple of weeks, so will we! All our birds will miss us...or at least their fresh water baths.

Eye Of The Storm

Literally! Today we had a cold front come through with the skies darkening and thunder in the distance. I was standing on our porch as the wind shifted to the west, telling our marina manager that this is the place to be in a cold front, with the wind behind us. I was proved wrong this time when two seconds later he looked up into the sky and said there's a waterspout forming over our heads! I don't think the second floor is the best place to be in a tornado! Sure enough, the clouds were spinning and the spout was trying to come down. An announcement went out on the VHF so everyone could take cover, but I on the other hand, ran inside for my camera (see how devoted I am to keeping you all posted? 😉).

It swirled over our heads for several minutes but luckily it didn't come down any lower. All the workers came out with eyes to the sky and several other clouds tried to spin, but no spouts thankfully materialized. 

The front line that formed was scary. 

When the rains finally came there was a white squall. Once again, the porch is THE place to be in this wind and Dave is out there not getting wet at all...until he has to go bail out Dandy of course. 

Rock On!

Yesterday afternoon we went to a benefit concert at the Hope Town Inn and Marina, with the proceeds to help with the medical costs of one of their employees who is battling cancer. The band that played is called Jib Sea Sol, formerly known as the Bilge Rats. These guys got together earlier this year for a jam session and have entertained everyone doing benefit concerts three times to help different causes.

The place was packed and the music was actually quite good with songs we knew and could relate to.

Even Elvis the lighthouse keeper joined in the eight person band.

What a treat to have rock music here in Hope Town, and so commendable of the guys to do this. You could tell that they too were having a good time.

Rescue and Recovery

This morning was action packed when we heard that an Albury 20 was found bashing against someone's dock at the north end of Elbow Cay. The name they gave on the morning Cruiser's Net sounded a lot like one of the club member's boats, so we jumped in the skiff and headed out. Sure enough, the name Kestrel had been mispronounced and we found the boat hard aground at low tide. Anchors were set to keep it off the dock, and Dave and I went back home to wait for the tide to come up.

At 11 AM, Kestrel was floating and we rigged up a two point bridle to tow it over to our back dock in the pond, where it can stay until it gets hauled out in the morning. Ironically the boat was scheduled to be put into storage on Monday anyway.

Kestrel had a bimini top on it, which wasn't damaged, but all the straps that hold it up were totally chafed through from being under the dock. The main damage was on the outboard motor where it rubbed right through the engine cowling, damaging some of the internal components.

Meanwhile, we discovered why the boat ended up where it did. It was actually stolen from the North End boat basin and it was headed out to the Sea of Abaco. The owner was smart and had a fuel shut off that the thieves couldn't find, so they abandoned it, and it washed ashore at the dock on Nathan's Beach. Then we were told two other boats were stolen last night, all of which had Yamaha engines on them, which is what the 'teefs' are looking for. Luckily a BOLO (Be On The Look Out) went out and both were found in the back creeks by Snake Cay before the engines could be removed. This is all such a shame to see happening here in Abaco, and we sure wish the culprits would be caught. Dave takes extra precautions on both our boats with chains, locks and fuel shut offs. Then we just keep our fingers crossed that they are still at the dock in the morning.

Fire On The Beach, Fire In The Sky

The last cruising event of the sailing club's season was a bonfire held down at Tahiti Beach on the south end of Elbow Cay. About 20 people showed up after it had postponed a day to let the firewood  dry out after that torrential rain. We took Walkabout there with Ken and Noah, plus two other friends of ours, Marcia and Barry. We had to anchor off the beach and wade in, and the event was planned so that we started at low tide and as the tide rose, our boats would be in deeper water and eventually the water would put the fire out.

Marcia had her Capris on so Dave helped her get to shore. Needless to say, other members were quite jealous!

Group shot...Dave and I are in the center with me in pink, of course.

The sunset was spectacular!

The fire was super hot with the kindling and pallets that were brought down, and it burned quite quickly.

Marshmallows and hot dogs cooked fast too.

When it came time to leave, the north wind had picked up and we decided to take it slow, since the moon was not up yet and it was pitch black out. Check out the map below. We were headed to the flashing sea buoy off of White Sound (where the southern arrow ends), because there is a shoal we had to avoid. For some reason, we missed it or it wasn't lit, and we ended up going further out into the Sea of Abaco to the next flashing white light. That's when we couldn't figure out why the floating buoy was up so high, when we realized that it was on a pole. We figured we had missed White Sound and we were at the southern end of the Parrot Cays (the island chain above the Elbow Cay lettering)and we needed to go closer to shore. As we headed closer to the lights of the houses on Elbow Cay, I picked up another strange flashing light that was bright blue this time. As I tried to get my night vision I kept seeing a dark spot of land to our left that shouldn't have been there. Thank goodness we were only traveling at 8 knots. It suddenly came to us that the other white light was actually Porgie Rock (the dot on the map below the E in Elbow Cay lettering) and the blue light was the end of Parrot Cays. All these lights are just privately maintained lights that may or may not work and you don't notice them during the day. Boy, were we disoriented, especially with all the anchored boats close to land, that we had to maneuver around and blended in with the shore lights. What was really strange was as we were going along we kept seeing what looked like a lighthouse replica flashing to our right on land in White Sound. Why would someone do that to mess up navigation? It couldn't be the real lighthouse, because it was in the wrong spot. No, WE were in the wrong spot! We sure had a laugh about it when we finally made it back to Hope Town Harbour. Another couple in their boat had followed us the whole way, because they weren't sure where they were going either. I guess we weren't the right people to follow, but at least if we had gotten trouble someone would have been there to help..."the blind leading the blind?" We now joke about how we were all headed to Treasure Cay in the northern Abacos if we had kept going. 

Next time we take a GPS with us!

Lots Of Little Mermaids

Yesterday morning was a perfect time to go to Mermaid Reef, which is a little inshore protected coral reef along the eastern shore near Marsh Harbour.

Apparently lots of other Easter vacationers thought it was a nice idea to go there too. We have never seen so many people snorkeling at this site, most of which were little kids...mainly little girls all decked out with bright colored outfits and gear.

It was great to see them so excited about seeing all the fish come right up to their masks.

Dave, Ken, and Noah joined the crowds, while Terri and I kept an eye on the ominous approaching shower clouds that eventually chased us away.

This made it even more memorable as we were racing this huge band of rain that enveloped the land, but stayed just a touch south of us, enabling us to make it back to our dock in Hope Town without getting wet...from above anyway. The guys were are all salty anyway!😎