Worn Out

Location: Great Guana Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
Position: N26 40.237 W077 07.387

Update:
4/30/08: WE went to Pete’s Pub in Little Harbour, Abaco for lunch (N 26 20.885 W077 00.174). Sculptor / artist Randolph Johnston settled here with his family. They established a foundry in the 50s and still produce beautiful bronze castings. Randolph’s son Pete continues in the family mold, maintaining a gallery of his and other local artist’s work, and runs “Pete’s Pub”, an outdoor multi-level restaurant and bar. We then sailed up to Tilloo Cay (N26 28.454 W076 59.573) to anchor for the night to escape the rolling at Linyard Cay. We finally had the first good night’s rest in a few rockin’ rollin’ days.

5/1/08: We left Tilloo Cay and sailed to Marsh Harbour, famous cruising hang out in the Abacos (N26 32.833 W077 03.597). There we caught up on laundry, provisioned, and met up with friends.

Marsh Harbour is the largest town in the Abacos, and the third largest in the Bahamas after Nassau and Freeport. Upscale eateries, souvenir shops, multiple large grocery stores, marine supplies, a street vendor serving up an excellent conch salad, and loads of American tourists all contributed to a few somewhat over stimulating days for us.

Marsh Harbor is also one of the primary settings for the book “Out Island Doctor” by Evans Cottman, a great read that provides an excellent snapshot of life in the Bahamas in the 1940s and 50s. This guy was pretty amazing. He was a biology teacher in the Midwest who was struck by wanderlust and moved to the Bahamas. Because there were so few doctors here, then under British rule, the government created a special ‘Unqualified Medical Practitioner’ license to practice medicine allowing pretty much anything except major surgery. The book is an autobiography by Mr. Cottman who became one of these limited license practitioners and sailed around the islands providing medical care to those who would otherwise not have had any.

5/3/08: We moved over to Hope Town across the bay (N26 37.649 W077 03.053) where we picked up a mooring in the tiny harbour (which we can only enter at mid-to-high tide). This was followed by more eating out and drinking for 2 days and nights with old friends and new. Sheesh!

Hope Town was founded by Loyalists escaping the American Revolution and is one of the most picturesque settlements in the Bahamas. It’s also very touristy, which comes as a bit of a shock to us after having just spent 3 months in the Exumas, Long Island, and Eleuthera. We’ve heard the Abacos referred to as “Florida East” by several visitors and we can see why. Not that it’s bad, it’s just much more “Americanized” than the other parts of the Bahamas we’ve been visiting lately.

The bank in Hope Town is only open for a few hours one day a week. We figure the bank sign is probably one of the most photographed signs in the Bahamas – ‘bankers hours’ for sure! The town is actually pretty small, mostly consisting of a couple of parallel streets with about 6 or 8 lanes between them. Most of the houses are rentals or have the upstairs or downstairs available for rent.

One of the coolest things to see in Hope Town is one of the last operational kerosene-fueled lighthouses in the world. The 120 ft high red and white striped lighthouse was built by the British Imperial Lighthouse Service in 1863. It still uses a small pressurized kerosene-fueled mantle and a huge rotating Fresnel lens to send out a beam of light which can be seen for up to 20 miles away. The lens assembly floats on a bed of mercury – it’s great mass moved easily with the push of Mark’s fingertip – really quite impressive. The Elbow Cay Reef Lighthouse is one of only two (possibly the only one now) manually operated lighthouses left in the World. It has a counterweight mechanism that has to be hand cranked every few hours to maintain the 5-flash sequence of the light. It was a lot of fun to figure out how the counterweights, gears, lens mechanism, and fuel system all work, and we really enjoyed the 360 degree view from the top.


5/5/08: We leave Hope Town at 7am to get out of the harbour on a rising tide, and sail up to Fowl Cay where we drop the anchor for a few hours. We go snorkeling on the reefs there, eat lunch, and then head up to Great Guana Cay for the night. After several nights and days of “socializing” we are worn out and are glad when our friends on Diva say they would also like a quiet night. Aaah, finally - a lovely relaxing evening. Mark’s mahi mahi grilled with mango salsa and peace and quiet. We’re getting too old to socialize EVERY night. Though we do try to keep up…..