A Marsh Harbour Update

The beach at Hopetown on Elbow Cay

Lunch at SeaSpray on Elbow Cay

Roxanne and Joe on Great Guana Cay


Well, we have a new President! We were just watching the inaguration aboard the boat with our guests and as Mr. Obama was sworn in, boat horns throughout the marina blew. We are experiencing gale force winds today as a cold front is moving through from Florida. Tomorrow is supposed to bring significantly lower temperatures - highs only in the low 60’s.

Roxanne and Joe from Pennsylvania arrived last Friday and we have been busy indeed! On Sunday we sailed (mostly motored actually) over to Great Guana Cay for Nipper’s famous pig roast. First we stopped at Grabbers for a Guana Grabber, a rum punch concoction that is addictive. Then it was onto Sea Shore Villas for yet another Grabber and then it was a short trek up the hill to Nippers. WHAT a view! We had Roberta and Steve aboard also from “Indemnity”, a DeFever 49 that is also docked here at Boat Harbour. Another boat, a Beneteau 41 named “Ambition” from Canada with Merrill and Cindy aboard joined us as well. We all sat together enjoying our frozen Nippers Rum Drink as well as pork slices, potato salad, coleslaw, green beans, mac and cheese and many other dishes. The music played was right from our era and Rox and I danced a few dances and then met a local woman who was 78 years young (and looked decades younger) joined us! She lives in Great Guana Cay 7 months out of the year and she was inspiring indeed.

We then hit the beach and the Canadians (Merrill & Cindy), the Pennsylvanians (Rox and Joe) and the folks from Detroit, MI (Steve and Roberta) hit the water while us wimps (Chris & me) watched from the beach. After swimming, we all headed back to the dinghies for a sail back to Marsh Harbour.

Barometer Bob was predicting this front today so we realized that yesterday was the day to explore. We rented a 28 ft. power boat from the marina here and took everyone over to Hopetown. We went up the lighthouse, had a drink at the Hopetown Lodge (an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful spot), then it was onto Sea Spray on the other side of Elbow Cay. We had lunch there - cracked conch, grouper burgers and their very famous Pina Coladas (the BEST I’ve ever had ). From there it was onto Lubbers Cay and Cracker P’s (another bar imagine that) but they were closed. By then the wind was starting to pick up substantially but we thought that we had better make use of the day so we crossed the Sea of Abaco to Man of War Cay. It was ROUGH and we were thoroughly soaked by the time we arrived. We briefly got off the boat and looked around for about ½ hr. but made the decision to return to Marsh Harbour as the seas were growing rougher by the minute. It was a BUMPY ride back, made a bit easier by our “guide” from “Indemnity” who knew the short cut ferry routes. Otherwise, it would have been a really miserable ride back.

Today it’s blowing steady 25 kts. With gusts to 35 kts. We are rocking in the slip. Chris & I got up early and walked to the grocery store before the really bad weather which is forecasted for later today hit.

We miss everyone and have installed “Skype” on our computer so hopefully we can get a great connection and call for $.02/minute! Take care everybody!

PS - Joe and Roxanne say hello to Steve and Yvonne - they said that the weather is “terrible” (not really)!