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| Ene-Mai at Powell Cay |
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| Powell Cay |
It’s been about five weeks
since my last post from Spanish Cay, time that we’ve spent cruising in the
Abacos. We left Spanish Cay on February 28th and anchored at nearby
Powell Cay. From there we moved on to Manjack Cay (pronounced in the Bahamas as
“Munjack” or “Nunjack”) where we anchored at the north end of the island. In
the morning a guy named Frank came by in his dinghy and invited us to come to
his house on the beach for a cookout that afternoon; he said that a bunch of
his cruising buddies were coming over.
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| Powell Cay |
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| Powell Cay |
Sure enough several boats
showed up in the anchorage and we dinghied over to the beach. Frank and his
wife Vicky are from Ontario. They have been long time cruisers in the Abacos
and recently bought the property on Manjack Cay and built a house. It turned
out that many of the other guests at the cookout were also cruisers that had
put down roots on Manjack, settling on other parts of the island. And they
seemed to enjoy an active social life there.
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| Frank's and Vicky's house, Manjack Cay |
There were some serious
cruisers there, including a Swiss couple that had completed a circumnavigation.
When their diesel engine recently gave up while in the Bahamas, they thought
nothing of sailing off to Venezuela without engine, because they had found that
they could have a new engine installed more cheaply there.
The other interesting person
that we had a chance to talk to was a woman who had decided that she needed to
do something after a divorce, so then sailed singlehanded from New England to
Ireland in a 28-foot boat, not even stopping in the Azores. She lived in
Ireland for a while, then moved to England and married a Brit and together they
built a 46 foot catamaran (a James Wharram design) which now serves as their
home on which they divide their time between Rhode Island and the Bahamas.
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| Ene-Mai at Bluff Houae Marina |
Our next stop was Green
Turtle Cay, where we tied up at the Bluff House Marina, which brought back some
vivid memories from some thirty-odd years ago. Back then we were sailing on a
bareboat charter and were returning to our anchored boat in the dark by dinghy
after a very nice dinner ashore, when Ene-Mai felt something around her neck
choking her. Her first thought was that I was trying to kill her. She then felt
a stab of pain in her hand, which turned out to be a fishhook that had
penetrated the fleshy part between thumb and forefinger; the fishing line had
caught her in the neck. Someone had carelessly left a line out in the dark,
with nothing to mark it.
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| New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay |
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| New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay |
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| Picket Fence in New Plymouth |
After Green Turtle we passed
through the Whale Cay Passage and anchored for a couple of nights at Bakers Bay
on Great Guana Cay. I went ashore to walk around the attractive beach and ran
into some pretty tight security. Apparently the entire bay is an exclusive private
resort. By Bahamian law everyone is entitled to land on the beach and transit
as far as the high tide line, but every time that I tried to venture further, I
was told to leave, finally by a woman in a golf cart who insisted on driving me
back to my dinghy on the beach. It was so unlike the normally friendly
reception that we’ve everywhere else in the Bahamas.
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| Bakers Bay, Great Guana Cay |
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| Bakers Bay, Great Guana Cay |
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| Bakers Bay, Great Guana Cay |
From Bakers Bay we had a
spirited sail to Marsh Harbour, having to tack twice. We tied up at the Jib
Room (aka Marsh Harbour Marina). Where we saw Sue and Charles Springett’s boat Ariel on the same dock. A few days later
Sue and Charles arrived, returning from a trip to the Netherlands. Our stay in
Marsh Harbour got extended to eleven days when Ene-Mai got sick with a respiratory
tract infection. She was able to get medical help from the Auskell Medical
Clinic, where they prescribed antibiotics, medication to control her fever and
cough medicine.
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| Sailing to Marsh Harbour |
When we left Marsh Harbour
on March 23rd, Sue and Charles stayed on waiting for a part for
their malfunctioning chart plotter. We headed to Hopetown, where we picked up a
mooring and eventually met up again with Sue and Charles.
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| Ariel in Hopetown harbor |
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| Hopetown |
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| Hopetown |
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| Hopetown colors |
On Sunday morning the 25th, in Hopetown, we awoke to find that we had no pressure water, with the pump running. The
water tank was close to empty. I spent the day troubleshooting the pump,
faucets and couldn’t figure out where the water had drained to and why the
system wouldn’t hold pressure. I made several trips to shore to ferry water to
the boat and that evening discovered the source of the problem. A hose clamp
from the water supply to the hot water heater had come loose, allowing water to
drain into the port engine bilge. At least the solution was easy: tighten the
clamp. But another problem also appeared. The diesel generator stopped
producing power. The engine runs fine, but there is no output from the
generator.
The Springetts left Hopetown
to continue further south to Andros and on to the Exumas, and on the next day we
sailed down to Little Harbour, the southernmost point in the Sea of Abaco. The
food there at Pete’s Pub was so good that we stayed an extra night before
leaving to head back north. Unfortunately, my camera broke in Little Harbour,
so I won’t be taking photos for a while. The problem is a “Lens Error” display
that disables the camera, something that seems to plague the Canon S100, which
I learned when I Googled “Lens Error”. The only solution is to send it back to
Canon for repair, which I will do when we’re back in the States.
We anchored for a couple of
nights at Lynyard Cay and then at Tahiti Beach on Elbow Cay. And at this
writing we are enjoying three days in Man-O-War Cay, where we tied up at the
Man-O-War Marina. We’ve tried to get some repair for our generator problem, but
no luck, so at this time we’re resigned to making do without it.
Man-O-War is a community
with a strong religious tradition and one result is that there is no alcohol
for sale on the island. We thought that dinner in restaurants might not be so
enjoyable without wine, but no worry, it turns out that the restaurants don’t
mind if you bring your own bottle.
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| The royal wedding |
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