Man of War Cay

No smoking, no drinking & nothing open on Sunday .....and they do boat building and Kathy had to have one of the really nice bags they make. Tom has enjoyed seeing all of the Lignum Vitae trees. The island is quiet and the beach is beautiful. Did I tell you it's quiet? HaHa! We relaxed and watched a couple of rental boats run aground at the entrance and then their docking skills. We enjoyed a good laugh at the fire drills...only because it wasn't us! Tom has just loved the navigational markers as well.

 It was a relaxing 2 days with cooking ,cleaning, laundry & beach combing. The sea beans are still a quest & fruitless so far. We have found other sea treasures though. As food is eaten, shells & coral take their place. We left Man of War this morning and Tom decided to drag a fishing line while we were sailing and .........Snapper! It's what's for dinner! It was 5-6lbs and fileted while it was still flopping. We are safely anchored in Treasure Cay to wait out forecasted thunderstorms.

Hopetown & Tahiti Beach, Elbow Cay

Five days at this stop has gone by very quickly. We leave tomorrow for Man of War Cay, as we start making our way north west towards Florida. The Elbow Cay Lighthouse was a fun visit. Tom went twice! The 120 ft. 101 step candy striped lighthouse was built in 1862 to warn sailors of the nearby reef. It is still operating today by a kerosene light. The views at the top were breath taking. We explored the settlement with it's tiny shops and beach. We rented a golf cart and went down to Firefly resort for lunch, which had awesome views and fantastic food. We then headed to Tahiti beach which has an enormous sand bar at low tide. With the full moon it was extra low. We found sea glass, sea biscuits, sand dollars and some other cool shells and coral. The Hopetown Inn & Marina where we have stayed is a nice resort marina with 2 pools and hot tub which we have put to excellent use. Some boats have come in with plentiful catches of Mahi, so we hope to get the line wet on the way to our next stop!

Marsh Harbour and beyond

Mangoes Marina has been a nice spot for us to sit out some unsettled weather and do routine boat stuff, shop, restock, have pool and play time! We have met up again with Dennis and Claire on Cinnamon Girl and have met so many other cruisers doing the same thing we are doing. We went to Snappas a local bar to watch a Rake and Scrape band and everybody per Tom were "Junkanooing... Junkanoo is a local mardi gras type celebration several of the islands have. We shared a rental car with Dennis and Claire today so we could explore Cherokee Sound and Little Harbour. We all had a blast. We went to the longest dock in the Bahamas and the longest dock I've ever been on. Claire and Kathy found sea biscuits and sand dollars on the very large sand bar. We then headed to Little Harbour and the famous Pete's Pub where we all had a delicious lunch of conch, grouper  & burgers. The site is where Randolph Johnston settled in the 1950's with his family after arriving by schooner. Initially living in a cave, then he built a forge and studio where he created spectacular bronze castings.

Few more pics of Treasure Cay

We really enjoyed  Treasure Cay and headed over to Marsh Harbor today and will stay at Mangos for a few nights. It's getting hot,hot,hot in the Bahamas! Thank goodness for the steady breezes and water everywhere!

Treasure Cay

Green Turtle Cay was such a nice stop on our journey we did not want to leave. The golf cart rental for 2 days ended up being such a treat. We were able to see parts of the island we would have missed. We pulled into many out of the way areas and explored. Tom searched for sea beans and Kathy found some unique shells and small pieces of brain coral. We are getting some cool decorating ideas from the locals also. It is also hard not to notice how the last 2 hurricanes to hit here have impacted these small island cays. The people here are resilient and keep building things back up; so many things like docks and homes are new. Many trees are lost and erosion evident, but the beauty remains. TOMKAT voyaged off to Treasure Cay on Saturday and anchored down before we were hit with a good thunderstorm. We held good and did not need to put out the big "mother"! The next day we headed to the beach which is rated as #4 out of the top 10 beaches in the world. We quickly saw why. The water is aquamarine and the sand is so soft and like powdered sugar and it is about 3 miles long. We chilled under the tiki umbrellas and went to the pool later. The area is a nice resort that mariners are able to use for a small fee. We think we'll stay here for several days, it's so pretty and relaxing. The biggest treat besides the beach has been the turtles in the harbor! We love watching them. All the ammenities we need are close and and the wifi is the best we've had.

Reporting in from Green Turtle Cay

We are in Green Turtle Cay and enjoying some fabulous weather! We headed out last week from the West End(We have renamed it rip off end...they overcharged for everything including custom entry)  towards the Abacos. We stayed at Great Sale Cay for a couple of days to weather out the Cold fronts and Thunderstorms that lasted for a few days. Great Sale Cay (pronounced "Key") is an uninhabited Island and at times we were the only boat which was cool. We saw an incredible rainbow and sunset after the last front pushed through. On Saturday we arrived at Spanish Cay to beautiful weather and feel this where our Bahama vacation started as we pictured it. It was exciting to see Cinnamon Girl tied to a dock when we pulled into our dock. Cinnamon Girl is a "Panda" s/v from Freeport, Maine who has been at our last few stops and Dennis and Claire are great people to visit with. We enjoyed the dock,pool, hot tub and walking the private island. We enjoyed a conch burger and grouper fingers which was so yummy. Chuck and Anita who run the island were so informative, gracious and made sure we were well taken care of. We tried fishing off the docks but.....we attracted a shark and caught a bird mid flight and then the shark circled the bird. All ended well, the bird was able to untangle itself and fly away and the shark swam away to our delight! On Monday we headed over to Green Turtle Cay. After the tide was mid we were able to get in the channel it was so shallow and we'll stay inside Black Sound on a mooring for most of the week as we explore the Island and look for turtles and sand dollars. We walked to town yesterday and explored the 18th century settlement with all of the unique cottages and shops. We went to a bronze sculpture garden and many shops are set up in little cottages. We bought some fish (still tramatized over the bird!) and some incredible coconut bread that was so fresh and wrapped in wax paper. We'll rent a golf cart tomorrow and explore the north end off the island and it's beaches.....maybe do some fishing!

Arrived in Bahamas!

4/2/13: Captain Tom wanted to leave last night and do a night crossing. It was a rolly 12 hours but we arrived as the sun was coming up. We are staying at a marina resort with beach & pool. Will upload pics later. We are safe and it was worth it! It was interesting today dealing with everyone on Island time and customs. We have been told the Abacos is much better than where we are so we are looking forward to it. Will not have wifi for a couple of days so next update then MON!

We

Waitng for our weather window

Thursday March 28th and Friday March 29th we stayed at Vero Beach Municipal Marina on a mooring. Excellent stop and we will plan to stay there on our return also. We went through many bridges to get to Palm Beach and needed to be very patient at times.

Saturday Night, March 30th we stayed on the anchor at Jensen Beach, a little rolly at first then the wind and waves calmed down for a restful sleep. We enjoyed our trip to North Palm Beach on Easter Sunday March 31st. We saw turtles, dolphins, eagles,etc. Plus many, many magnificent homes on the water. We stayed at North Palm Beach Marina at a dock and enjoyed our Easter dinner of ham & potato salad. Communicated with family & friends. We hoped to leave on Monday, but Kathy is not in favor of burying the rail today. Our decision was easy when the dockmaster offered us free night with power tonight since he needed us to move to another dock early this am. We had planned to anchor out tonight and cross the gulf stream tomorrow when the wind and seas calm down a little more.