We're still here - reporting in from Hopetown.

     It's been some time since I wrote last - but that's life "in da Bahamas mon". If the sun shines, or even if it doesn't, it's so easy to put it off until..........?    Eventually "until" becomes "today" though!

Today is a day of fragile calm after a storm-tossed night of raging winds tearing at mooring lines and hopeful anchors, and skies lit up by strobes of lurid light.  But don't think for a minute that, after last night's sleepless hours, we have changed our opinion of our lovely haven here in Hopetown Harbour.  Where to start on our saga of the past two weeks? Well, here goes: I've made a list (and checked it twice), and here is as abbreviated a version as I can manage.

The harbour of Hopetown is an ever-changing community so we are often saying "hello" to new friends - many from Canada - and "au revoir" to old ones.

Ron and Jane on 'Rachel' are from Maine. They have been on the same trajectory as 'Southern Vectis' since we met up at Green Turtle Cay.  Now, in Hopetown, we are close mooring neighbours, and have discovered that our partying habits run along similar lines!  We continue to share adventures and fun with them. Tomorrow we'll go on a dinghy jaunt with them and others to have lunch at the lovely 'Firefly' resort.

We met Steve and Debbie at Green Turtle also at the beginning of our trip. In Hopetown we were moored beside 'Tosmo', their 50 plus foot, splendid 'floating condo' and spent many good evenings together. They have moved on now, but we hope to meet them again sometime, somewhere.

Also here are friends from Fort Pierce and Toronto, Ross and Valerie with their faithful, and very well-behaved  hound, Madison.  And then , of course, there are Sigita and Martin, our gulf stream-crossing boat buddies, who are always around and about somewhere in the Sea of Abaco on their
boat 'Jumasi'.

Yesterday we hitched a ride to Marsh Harbour with Benoir and Margaret from Kingston, Ontario on their handsome Hunter, 'Diva'.  Old friends from four years' back are also in the harbour - Glen and Louise on Gray North, and David and Jill on 'Jilly Q'.

Events of the past two weeks began with the arrival of a boat with RCYC (Royal Canadian Yacht Club) emblazoned on the stern and a young Quebec man, Guy, at the helm. The boat, Solera - a C&C 29- seemed familiar to us from our days docked at the RCYC. Guy caused quite a stir in the harbour by first anchoring in the middle of the mooring field,  and secondly arriving with several bikinis flapping from the life lines! He provided good entertainment value for a few days.

Other notable events have been  our visit to the brand new Hopetown Inn and Marina. It's all pink and splendid and seems always to be full. Then, one night, the Hopetown Lodge invited the whole town to an open house to introduce its' five new owners. Great fun, especially as the drinks and appetizers were on the house.

The Abaco Inn, further south on Elbow Cay held an Art Show last Saturday - a beautiful day. We had lunch there and met up with Pat and Peter, friends from our trip four years ago. They kindly invited us to a 'Bloody Mary Party' on their boat the next day. There we met a whole group of 'almost locals'. In fact there are many 'almost locals' here, either in boats or cottages. They've been enjoying winters in Hopetown for many years. How very sensible!  That same day we joined a 'dinghy drift' around the harbour.  It was miraculous to see 28 dinghies floating around the jam-packed mooring field without careening into even one boat!

The high point of the past two weeks has been the 'Barefoot Man' concert held at Guana Cay.  A group of enthusiastic party-goers boarded the Albury Ferry on a beautiful day for the half-hour trip to Guana Cay. Once there, we climbed the hill to Nipper's Bar, perched on a ridge overlooking the Atlantic. It was an entirely perfect day, though many felt a little the worse for wear (or rum) at the end of the day.  Some even missed the ferry home!

I've saved the following event to last as it took place over such a short interval of time, but could have meant the end of this blog and its' writer. Bill and I were beach walking one day of high seas and crashing waves, and were caught up by a rogue wave which came from nowhere. If Bill hadn't grabbed me the force of the wave would have washed me across the vicious coral into the ocean.  He did grab me luckily,  and I limped back through the town soaking wet and dripping with blood from a graze on my leg. Long story short - my leg is healing slowly but my camera is not.  My course of anti-biotics means I can't drink alcohol for ten days!  On the whole, not a bad thing! But no pictures for the blog at the moment.