3/1/17 thru 3/17/17

Mangoes Marina, Corkscrew on left

Lofty Fig Villas across street where Lynn & Dawn stayed

Gazebo & Pool area;  Marsh Harbor

Lynn, Dawn, Marena

Marena loves Dawn

Beautiful rainbow

Lighthouse @ Hope Town

One of the many parrots we saw.....

Marena loved the beaches....

OK...................enough of Pete's! Time to move on. We released the mooring ball and had a 15 mile ride to Tahiti Beach on Elbow Cay which has a reputation for great shells. It didn't disappoint. We dinghyed in and walked the big area. The tide was out so there was a lot of exposed area with great shells. We found a live starfish, sea biscuit, and many conch shells. We also took the dinghy across the sound that night to Cracker P's and had drinks and appetizers.
We left this anchorage heading for Mangoes Marina on Marsh Harbor. It was only a 12 mile ride and beautiful as always. The water is like a swimming pool only a more beautiful color of turquoise, sometimes with more of a green hue or blue hue depending on where you are. I've taken pics but not sure how true the color will be. Marsh Harbor is where the airport is, so this where we boaters come to pick up our friends and loved ones who are visiting us. Lynn & Dawn will be here on the 3rd for a week. They are staying in a villa across the street from the marina. Our plans were to leave here when they do, but they changed. As it turned out, we are here 17 days because of the weather. We also hoped to take them out on Corkscrew, but the winds kept us from doing that. Taking the ferry, walking and taxi was our method of travel.
We went to Hope Town, what a cute little town! There is an old lighthouse there that still uses kerosene! Fascinating.............104 steps to the top too.
Today we will be in the smallest ever St Patrick's day parade..........just to say we did! LOL
Our plans are to leave here tomorrow and make our way back north through the Cays and make our crossing back to the states. Hopefully! The weather has been difficult for us slow-goers, so we will keep our fingers crossed. I'm ready to go...........
I'm not going to have pics for awhile, because they won't upload, but I will post them when I can. I'll let you know when, but wanted to at least let you know where we were. I won't have internet until we get to the states and that won't happen for at least another week and access will be spotty. We will be on the move a lot headed to New Bern, NC for the rendezvous in late April.We hired a tour guide to show us points of interest on the island.

Funky sign

Cracker P's

View of Sea of Abaco

Sonny with a "Primer" rum drink

So bye for now; talk later.................

View of harbor & Mangoes Marina where our boat is 

Cute, huh?

Lynn & Dawn, this tree was 3 times the height you see

Blue Hole

One of several beaches our guide took us to

White cheeked Pintail Duck

Blue Hole sign

Gathering area at beach entrance for residents of the community

Check out the boat that washed up on pier

Nancy's Restaurant where guide took us for lunch @ Sandy Point

Dawn, Lynn, Sonny & Reggie the guide

Hope Town

Unusual tree

Hope Town lunch

Isn't this the cutest name??

Sonny, Me, Dawn, Lynn

Beautiful church

2/25/17 thru 3/1/17

After several days of high winds, plus spending the worst day & night of our trip; we leave Guana Cay on a beautiful day. Our anchorage at Lynyard Cay is 29 miles away. There are several boats anchored here and more to come through the late afternoon. We are all looking for protection from the east wind...............We pulled anchor the next morning @ 7:15 for only a 1 mile trip into Little Harbor. It is a small harbor with probably 20 mooring balls. We get the last free mooring; lucky us! Pete's Pub & Gallery is located here and that's it! But it is a cool place to be. Pete's parents moved his family back in the 50's to this island and lived in a cave at first. He did metalwork and now Pete carries on his tradition. He has a gallery close to the foundry where he makes his gorgeous pieces. We walked to the beaches and rode in our dinghy lots.

Anchored @ Tahiti Cay

2/19/17 thru 2/24/17

What a view!!!!!

Me & my baby.....

View across harbor

Leaving this dock proved to be a challenge as we knew it would. It was somewhat windy and shallow getting around the poles. So we waited until high tide before leaving. It was still a tight squeeze so another boater got down his dinghy and came around to push our bow out from the dock, where the wind was pushing us into, and kept us going in the right direction. Amazing what other boaters will do to help out!
We traveled 18 miles to Orchid Bay Marina in Guana Cay. We had to go through an area called Whale Passage, which took us out into the Atlantic then back into the Sea of Abacos. The waves weren't so bad but it was still very windy. When we arrived at the marina, getting docked was a huge challenge. There were dock hands, plus several other boaters grabbing lines and pulling us in!
There are 2 famous restaurant/bars here and we have tried them both; Nippers and Grabbers. Both are very good, and of course the scenery is perfect! Our hope was to get our dinghy down and ride to these spots, but that didn't happen because of the weather. A storm with heavy rain and wind prevented that from happening. So we walked or rode bikes when it wasn't raining. It was always too windy for the dinghy..........We were on the end of the pier, so we got the heavy hits of the waves, and rocked so bad that we were up moving anything breakable or packing towels around glassware in cabinets. Two nights of this!!! Today is beautiful and calm and lots of boaters left. But we stayed to hopefully catch up on wifi duties. We are riding bikes back to Grabbers for another Guana Grabber b4 we leave. I've not had a rum drink in years, but these are awesome!!!
Today we leave for Little Harbor..................

Group of friends @ Grabbers (Us, Kellirae n Bill on Ocean Dancer, V n Ronny on Corporate SailOut, Dave n Tracy our new friends from Georgia)

On porch trying to hook up to wifi

view of harbor

Funky tractor on the road

Funky building

Nippers for lunch on the Sea of Abaco

2/12/17 thru 2/18/17

Waiting for our Conch Salad to be made!

Miss Violet @ The Blue Bee Bar

We left on the 12th along with 3 other boats. We have made so many new friends, we are all going to the same anchorage @ Great Sale Cay (pronounced key). The next night we anchored @ Powell Cay. We were going to spend another night and day (there was a beach and walking trail to a bluff; I know my back and legs are in bad shape right now BUT I'll do as much as I can for as long as I can),  but the wind was getting rough, so we decided to go in to the marina just a few miles away, Leeward Yacht Club.
This place is absolutely beautiful, super nice and clean, restaurant, gift shop and great people working here. On Valentine Day we took our dinghy across the sound to their town, New Plumouth, and walked to Harvey's for a good dinner.I had to climb up and down ladders to get in and out of the dinghy. It wasn't real easy especially with my back issues, but I made it! If someone had taken a video, I'm sure it would have won a prize.................lol
Two of our days here was so windy that we just stayed close to the boat and didn't venture out. I love love the wind, and the nip in the air................but getting in and out of the dinghy would have been difficult.
On Friday we took the dinghy over to another marina at The Bluff House in White Sound to visit with our friends (Scott n Marilyn on Lady Catherine and Bill n Kellirae on Ocean Dancer). On Saturday we left Marena on the boat (I hate leaving her, she wants to go so bad); took the dinghy across the sound (Black Sound) and walked into town. Ate breakfast @ McIntosh Bakery, toured the town and grocery shopped. They have 3 here but are tiny ............We stopped where a fisherman was cleaning the Conch and he showed us how to get the meat from the shell. Educational. We bought his fresh made conch (pronounced like konk, if you don't know) salad, that he made while we waited. Very good.........Now for the highlight; there are are couple of small bars that we had been told to visit. We went to Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar, home of the world famous Goombay Smash that she invented! Miss Emily passed in 1997 and her daughter Violet runs the restaurant n bar now. We had one.........and if we hadn't had groceries and had to climb down a ladder into a dinghy, we would have had two!!!!! lol   She sells it by the gallon to go ($80), but we didn't go that route. Anyhow; a fun, fun day! Things here are pricey (food items), which is why we stocked up on as much as we could. We only needed some produce items................
Tomorrow we leave, heading for Orchid Bay @ Guana Cay. Hope we have wi-fi service. If not; I for sure can't blog, these international rates are horrible. We could spend the kids inheritance in just a few days!!! lol

CorkScrew's bow looking @ Marina office and Bar

"Lady Catherine"

Violet 

Harvey's on Valentines

Ye Olde Jail

Quincentennial Park

Me...............

Hair Salon 

John Lowe House

View of street as it winds around the water

My man...............

Cemeteries intrique me.....