Hanging out in Hope Town

March 8, 2009

Hanging out in Hope Town

It seems a long time since I last updated the blog. We certainly haven’t moved very far – maybe just a few feet as we swing on our mooring here in Hope Town harbour. What have we been doing? Well…..we’ve fallen in love with this pretty little town and have been busy partaking of everything it has to offer. We’ve spent time on the lovely Atlantic beaches, we’ve snorkelled, (though the only exciting thing with fins I saw was Bill!),we’ve wined and dined at Capt’n Jack’s, at the Harbour’s Edge Restaurant, at the Hope Town Harbour Inn, and we’ve cycled the length and breadth of Elbow Cay, which is where Hope Town is situated.
We haven’t been short of entertainment either as we’ve attended a poetry reading, a choir concert, a couple of street fairs, and we’ve even taken a ferry over to Great Guana Cay for the ‘Barefoot Man’ Concert at ‘Nippers Bar’ on the beach. (Barefoot Man is the Bahamas equivalent of Jimmy Buffet.)
We’ve also met lots of great cruisers and toasted many a sunset with a cocktail or three on board. In fact, we’ve had such a good time that we are planning to do what a lot of the other cruisers have been doing for years, and that is to reserve a mooring buoy for a more extended stay next year. Some of the cruisers have been regulars here for many years, and other ex-cruisers we’ve met on shore have graduated to renting cottages for the winter. Strangely enough, most cruisers we’ve met are either from North Carolina or from Canada! We’ve also noted that quite a few cruisers leave their boats in the Bahamas for the summer – usually at Abaco Yachts on GreenTurtle Cay, though one boat will be left on a mooring Man ‘o War Island. We are not ready to do this yet…..though who knows how we’ll feel after our re-crossing of the Gulf Stream at the end of this month!
The weather has been quite mixed – colder than normal say the locals. But this coming week is forecast to be set fair – so we will tear ourselves away from this lovely place and see some more of the harbours and anchorages in the Sea of Abaco. Tomorrow we’ll leave with the high tide at around 8 a.m. and move around the corner to an anchorage off Lubbers Island. After that we’ll head to Man ‘o War Cay for a couple of days….but no longer, as Man ‘o War is a ‘dry’ island……no alcohol served! (We have stocked up the boat though and won’t feel a thing!)