Quick Real Time Update / TLDR;
It’s been over TWO MONTHS since last blog. Wild. Where did the time go?? Well, we’ve been hosting visitors – good friends Scott and Denice Toney came to visit, followed by my parents, Terry and Patricia, followed by son Liam and daughter-in-law Maggie. We left Abacos nearly a month ago and have been in the next island south, Eleuthera. Eleuthera will be a whole other blog. We’re actually getting to the end of our visit in Eleuthera and will be heading over to the (in)famous Exumas in a week or so.
So Long, Abacos! We Had a Great Visit!
We spend almost two months in Abacos. We had a great time there but it’s a big planet and we have a lot of places we want to go and things we want to do.
We developed a circuit of favorite spots we liked up in Abacos and ended up going back and forth between those spots. We have a gadget on board called a PredictWind DataHub. Among other things, this gadget tracks your position and allows you to see a historical view of where you’ve been. Here’s what our track in Abacos looks like:
Here are some descriptions of our favorite spots.
Ruined Marina / Treasure Cay
I described this in my previous blog so I won’t re-hash here. The combination of creepy ruined marina plus epic white sand beach was hard to beat. In addition to our first visit with just Terri and I, we ended up going back there two more times with visitors.
Hope Town
Also described in prior blog. The lighthouse, cute little harbor, and lunch on the waterfront at Captain Jack’s make a great visitor day. We ended up here three different times with three different sets of visitors.
Tahiti Beach / Thirsty Cuda
This is a sand bar about half way down Elbow Cay, just an hour’s sail south from Hope Town. This beach is notable because it is 90% underwater at high tide, but then emerges as one of those great Bahamas white sand beaches at low tide. There’s a hilarious beach bar on a barge there called “The Thirsty Cuda” that motors down from Hope Town in the mornings and motors back in the evenings. Lower key vibe than Nipper’s on a Sunday though! We visited there with both Toneys and my parents.
Nippers / Pig Roast Sundays
This was unexpected (for us) chaos and a hilarious experience. We went here initially on a Saturday in February, when we first arrived with daughter Sophie in tow. That was ok but super low key. There were just us and a few other people there.
Whilst there on that first visit, we noticed advertisements for “Pig Roast Sundays” and made plans to return on a Sunday one of these days. When my parents came to visit, we made that return visit. Based on our first visit, I didn’t have high expectations. I thought there’d be a little more of a crowd and maybe a pig roasting in a pit that you could get a slice off of.
Nope, it was utter pandemonium. The bar area was shoulder to shoulder. They had a dance floor going, which was packed with people in their beach attire, and a super loud DJ playing all the club hits from my misspent youth (Usher, Flo Rida, Lady Gaga – if you’re “of a certain age”, you know the ones). And all of this at 1 pm on a Sunday!
They didn’t have a pig roasting in a pit as I was expecting, but you could order their “pig roast platter” for $30. Which consisted of servings of: pulled pork, barbecued sliced pork, mac’n’cheese squares, potato salad, rice and peas, and beans, served on a platter the size of a small cookie tray. Terri and I split one and finished less than half of it between the two of us.
Sailing with My Parents
We are starting to get “just a little bit” better with the sailing, By this I mean, we are starting to be able to pick out good wind and good swell days (well, 50% of the time) and make a sail day out of it if we want to. We had one such day whilst my parents were visiting. Sunny and probably 75F / 24C, 15 knots of wind on the beam, calm seas. We were able to sail for two and a half hours right across the Sea of Abaco from Hope Town to Guana Cay.
At one point a few days earlier, I found my mother sitting up on the “princess seats”, as the little seats right at the bow were called. As she got up and turned around, I noticed she was actually a little teared up. Concerned, I asked “Umm, is everything ok?”. Mom responded, “Everything is great. I just can’t believe how beautiful this place is.”
Aww! It makes us (both Terri and I) feel good to be able to share these experiences with friends and family.
Boat Work in Exotic Locations
In between visitors, there have been boat projects. (As cruisers do). Most notably doing the 250 hour maintenance on our Yanmar diesel engines. This involves: changing engine oil; changing engine oil filter; changing primary fuel filter; changing secondary fuel filter; changing sail drive oil; changing alternator belts. x 2 engines. That took several half-days (I only have about four hours of engine room work in me per day, haha), hunched over dirty diesel engines in hot and sweaty engine lockers. Gross.
Epilogue
So that’s it! Had a great time in Abacos, had several visitors, got some boat projects done. Next blog (which may or may not be, next week), let’s talk about our time in Eleuthera.
