HOMEWARD BOUND

           

Back in Ft Pierce, we went to the Oyster Festival, had lunch at 12A buoy and visited with friends on F dock.  We were anxious to get back to Brunswick and left with the first weather window.

Carpaccio at 12A Buoy

                         If you've never tried 12A Buoy, you owe it to yourself to try it. 

Bill and Maureen, s/v Kalunamoo

  

Kathleen's friend, the oyster

The oyster festival is going to the dogs!

We left Ft Pierce at sunrise; saw another sunrise on the ocean and were safely docked at Brunswick when the sun rose again 47 hours after leaving Ft Pierce.  We spent a couple of days getting stuff off the boat—who would have thought one could put so many things in so many different places?  The car was stuffed and we still had to stop at Total Wine for a case of rum!

               We were pleased to find that silliness is not limited to the Bahamas.

Picasso step aside, the manatees are painting!

 

Elmo and Cookie Monster in the woods near my house---drinking beer?

            

Back home, we had to find a place for all the stuff.  Apparently, we didn’t want to leave the Bahamas since we must have brought most of them home!  Twenty-seven pounds of seashells, 48 pounds of coral, assorted conch shells, air plants, a pile of driftwood, flower pods and fronds from coconut palms, sand, sea fans, etc.

And so, another season in the Bahamas has come to a close.  Now it's time to move on to summertime adventures!

DON'T WORRY . . .

. . .go to the ocean!

            Our last days in the Bahamas went by fast with whirlwind stops.  We left Marsh Harbor, headed for Great Guana Cay, Manjack, then Great Sale and finally West End.  Most of the trip was plagued by very light winds.  Never-the-less, we did get a little motor-sailing done.  Great Guana is home to Nipper’s, the most famous bar and grill in the Abacos.  Alas!  Weather prevented us from being there a couple of weeks earlier, so we missed the Barefoot Man’s concert.  Nipper’s rum punch was good anyway.  The beach, the reef and the rocky outcrops were beautiful.

  

Milo had the usual assortment of shellcraft and other geegaws.

We anchored at Manjack Cay and went ashore.  Manjack is a nice place; inhabited by a homesteading couple who have cut paths through the jungle and posted colorful signs to keep you from getting lost. 

 

  There are neither stores nor any kind of commerce on the island.  Truly, “Don’t worry, go to the beach.”

The forest is populated by curly tails

and strange critters

.

            After a restful night at Great Sale, we headed for West End.  The resort there was busy because of Spring Break; lots of families.  A two mile walk into town provided a respite from being cooped up on the boat.  We saw shore birds

 

and witnessed seagulls feeding frenzily on something in the water. 

 It reminded me of a scene from Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”  West End Settlement is a relic from better days.  Years ago, the town enjoyed greater prosperity.  Today, the town consists of rundown buildings and ruins.  The Blue Marlin Club, a large hotel, restaurant/nightclub establishment sits empty and roofless.

 We had a litany of final this-and-thats---

a final conch salad

a final tropical drink

a final combing of the beach

a final shorebird

final sundowners with our friends Bill and Maureen on their "back porch"

 Just like our welcome at Bimini, we got a great send-off, complete with a junkanoo band. 

  We set our alarm for 11 PM (what kind of nut sets his alarm for 11 PM?) to get ready for a midnight departure.  And then our Bahamian adventure was over.

But they say that if you've got sand in your shoe, you will be back!

RED SKY AT NIGHT . . .

. . . sailor's delight!

           The trip from Spanish Wells to the Abacos was 1) exciting, 2) easy, 3) fun, 4) uneventful, 5)  and not so UNeventful. We had anchored at Royal Island and left before sunrise.  Kathleen was still recovering from some kind of infection that had taken a mind to give her a hard time and we almost returned to Spanish Wells.  In the end, we headed North to the Abacos and as the sun rose over Egg Island, we bid “Goodbye” to Eleuthera.

            Stiff southeast breezes drove us along at 7 knots, woohoo!  We did wing and wing for a couple of hours. 

That is such a peaceful point of sail; you hardly feel the wind and the boat hardly feels like it is moving.  Things went that way for most of the day until . . . yikes, squall!  Suddenly the wind veered and really began to blow.  So much for the slight chance of squalls.  Thank goodness I had reefed the mainsail prior to getting underway.  The thing about squalls is that you can really make time if you can put up with the discomfort and thankfully, they don’t last very long.

            At any rate, we came through the cut at Little Harbor and anchored off Lynyard Cay 10 and a half hours after leaving Royal Island.  The sunset was beautiful.  After a good night’s sleep and a leisurely breakfast, we headed to Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island.

            We connected with Lee and Sherry on Alesto, a couple I’ve known for several years.  We rented a car with them and headed south.  We stopped at Pete’s Pub at Little Harbor and Cherokee Point.  Little Harbor was settled by sculptor/artist Randolph Johnston.  He and his family lived in a cave for a while.  If you time your visit well, you can be there on a casting day at his foundry where he creates his amazing sculptures.  Today, the tiny community consists of a handful of cute homes.

            Cherokee Point was settled by Loyalists who left the US in the 1780s.  It is a neat little community of a few hundred souls.  Their homes are well kept, the streets are clean and flowers abound.  The 770 foot wooden pier is a sight to behold.It spans sand flats where the water is only a foot or so deep at high tide and ends in water deep enough to allow dockage for boats.

  

            We were glad that we were too early for lunch at Pete’s Pub because we had a delightful lunch at Sandy Point—grilled lobster with a spicy butter sauce!  The restaurant, a modest place on the beach looks west over the ocean. 

The beach provided some of the best shelling yet.

            The ride to Marsh Harbor took us through one of the numerous forest fires that have plagued the island for some time. 

The low-lying island, like Florida, gets more than its share of lightning strikes which ignite fires that race through the Abaco pine forests.  Kathleen and I saw more of them the following day when we drove to Treasure Cay and points north.