Crew Log for March 4th – 18th, 2023
Not to keep dwelling on the past, but we didn’t go to Georgetown when we were in the Exuma Cays. If the truth be known, the weather was unsettled and we didn’t want to get stuck there. However, we also were not thrilled with the idea of spending several days with 400 other boats. We aren’t hermits, but we tend to prefer quieter anchorages with natural beauty, to a place described as “summer camp for cruisers”.
Why am I still talking about this’, weeks after we left the Exuma Cays?
Well, we arrived at Hope Town, located on Elbow Cay in Abaco. It is incredibly hard to get a mooring here given it is not uncommon for people to reserve them for a month or more. In fact we met several people who, travelled to Hope Town, tied up the boat to mooring ball, and don’t move until they head back to wherever they came from. I am guessing the reason people get “moored” here, is the same reason people like Georgetown so much. There’s a whole community of likeminded people to connect with.
We stayed in Hope Town for a solid two weeks, more than anywhere else we visited. We were waiting for our friend Lesli from NoMastE to deliver our prescription medications, and well, in the meantime, we took up residence in Hope Town Harbor. We did venture out for a day sail, but other than that, we were Hope Townies. I won’t exactly describe our experience as “summer camp for cruisers”, but it was nice, after being away from our family and close friends for over 6 months, to feel part of a land based community again.
I’ve gone back and forth on how I would describe Hope Town. If you ever watched the movie the Truman Show, with Jim Carry, Hope Town reminds me a little bit like the town in the movie. Another longer term visitor described it as a Hollywood town. It is very different than anyplace else we’ve visited in the Bahamas. Quaint, well kept homes, no litter, narrow streets lined with flowering shrubs, bordered by a beautiful sand beach on one side, and Hope Town Harbor with it’s iconic lighthouse on the other.
This part of Abaco was severely devastated during Hurricane Dorian, including Hope Town. Unlike most other areas however, there is very little evidence of the extent of the destruction around Hope Town. Much of the town has been put back together and things seems to have gotten back to “normal”.
Most of the homes are second or third home, rental properties, and so the population is quite transient. Even the majority of the Bahamians that work in the service and construction industries in Hope Town and Elbow Cay, arrive by ferry each morning from neighboring Marsh Harbor. There are an estimated 500 permanent residents of Hope Town, mostly expatriates.
The most common means of transportation around Elbow Cay is by golf cart, although vehicle access to Hope Town is restricted. The streets are all very narrow so you actually have to step to the side, when the occasional golf cart or other small vehicle does go by. There are no banks or banking machines on Elbow Cay, but most businesses do take credit cards. There is a modest grocery store and bar in Hope Town and, several other restaurants in the resorts and marinas around Elbow Cay. However, don’t miss understand, unlike other areas of the Bahamas we visited, there is nothing “rustic” about Hope Town and Elbow Cay.
The resorts around the island are all high end. There is a local juice bar selling custom fresh squeezed drinks, an ice cream parlor, and a business that extracts drinking water from the moisture in the air. You can enjoy, as we did, world class music at the Hope Town Community Center. There is usually a band playing on the weekend at a beach bar at one of the local resorts. And there is also, much to Judy’s delight, a pickleball group that played every day, except Sundays. Finally, as an added bonus, garbage collection is free three days a week.
One of the highlights of any place we’ve been, is the opportunity to video chat with family back home. We particularly look forward to chats with Mom. She was having a particularly good day today, so it was the perfect way to start our time in Hope Town.
In addition to Phase 2 and Anodyne, Willow were in Hope Town when we arrived, but had plans to leave the following day. I was telling Bruce, on Willow, about the call with Mom. He also has an aging mother, living in Maine. Whenever he calls, she for some reason thinks he is a telemarketer and in Bruce’s words, “puts on her deep man voice” to try to intimidate him. We had a good chuckle.
The group decided to walk down to “da Bar on the Beach” for one last group supper, before we all started heading back to the US and beyond. As we strolled through the streets of Hope Town, I was reminded again of Stuart MacLean’s observation that, you don’t really get to know a place, unless you walk through it. At one point our route came to a sign, indicating it was a “Dead End”, and sure enough, off to the right was one of the local cemeteries. There are several cemeteries in Hope Town, including one where victims of the Cholera epidemic were buried.
The other “perk” of walking is that the conversation ebbs and flows as different people come in and out of the discussion. It was also a great opportunity for Judy and I to learn more about Mike and Debbie, who other than securing our mooring ball, we had only met briefly in Spanish Wells. Debbie had a career in finance and Mike was a software designer in New England, but they now live in Cambridge, Delaware. They only recently purchased Phase 2 and were still getting to know the boat.
“On Da Beach Bar” is exactly as it is described, an open air bar perched on the top of a giant sand dune, over looking the Atlantic Ocean. The company we were with was interesting, the location was beautiful, but the food was just fair. Certainly not one of our favorite meals in the Bahamas. The service was OK, although at one point our server disappeared without a word. He returned a short while later and explained the reason he was missing was he had to leave to go fight a fire.
On the way up to Hope Town, we had planned to stop and snorkel on the reef at Sandy Cay, a protected Park just north of Little Harbor. If you’ll recall from a previous post, the conditions that day were less than ideal, so we aborted the plan. Fortunately for us, Anodyne invited us to join them on a trip down to the reef from Hope Town. It would have taken us 4-5 hours each way to get down there, but we were travelling in the fast lane today, and made the trip in under an hour.
The conditions were calm, perfect for both our trip down and back, and to snorkel. We again reflected on how lucky we were to be spending the day with terrific friends, travelling on a beautiful boat to snorkel a spectacular reef in Abaco.
Sadly, we received news that Judy’s brother wasn’t well, and were jolted back to reality. These moments hit us hard, given we are so far away and helpless to do anything. They do remind us however, of why this trip was important and why we have to take advantage of every minute we have.
Like most places in the Bahamas, many places are closed on Sunday, so on Monday, we decided to explore the area. We seemed to have found the pickleball court fairly easily, which was conveniently located close to Vernon’s Grocery Store. Vernon, is a lifetime resident of Abaco, and in fact has never, in his 85 plus years been to Exuma. In addition to selling groceries, he dispenses a healthy dose of witty sayings on signs posted throughout the store, and is a Justice of the Peace. There is a small bakery attached to the grocery store, famous for its cinnamon buns and fresh baked coconut bread. Even the island’s pastry chef comes to Vernon’s for the coconut bread.
To work off the calories from the cinnamon buns we inhaled in the morning, we hiked up to the top of the Hope Town Lighthouse in the afternoon. Standing at almost 90ft, with 101 steps to reach the top, this red and white striped lighthouse, built in the 1860’s, is the only kerosene powered, hand cranked lighthouse left in the world. While the lighthouse is the pride and joy of Hope Town, that wasn’t always the case.
There was a time when Hope Town’s economy was boosted by the ship wreck trade. Local entrepreneurs would wait for ships or other vessels to run aground on Elbow Reef and seek repairs in Hope Town. The construction of the lighthouse was seen as a threat to the area’s livelihood. Reports indicated that the local opposition was so strong that a barge that was being used to transport construction materials for the lighthouse, was intentional sunk. Despite the opposition, construction continued, and the Hope Town Lighthouse began operating in 1863.
On the way down from the top we passed by several well groomed, heavily scented, young ladies on their way to the top. They were being escorted by the crew from Chasseur, a 160 foot super yacht. The guests arrived on the yachts tender, a 40 foot center console sport fisher. Chasseur’s crew were very nice. Turns out one of them was from Maine and was quite familiar with Nova Scotia. When we shared with them our one and only experience on a super yacht, he immediately asked if the copper bathtub was still in the master suite of Usher. If you haven’t read that blog post yet, you should check it out.
Encouraged by the well groomed guests on Chasseur, Corky set up a hair salon on the dinghy platform of Anodyne. The only person who really needed a hair cut didn’t get one, but Corky went to work on Alex and Judy, much to the entertainment of the neighboring boats. For days later, every time we’d meet someone, Corky would ask them what they thought of Judy and Alex’s hair. Marketing is everything!
We very quickly slipped into a regular daily routine. Judy would go off in the morning to play pickleball and I would amuse myself, dinghying around the harbor, doing the odd boat chore and catching up with our Crew Log reports. In the afternoon we’d wander through Hope Town, walk the beach, and one day hitched a ride with Alex and Corky on their golf cart to explore Elbow Cay.
Everywhere we went, Judy would recognize one of her fellow pickleballers, who were a friendly group of people. It turns out that while pickleball is the main draw, the chatter in shaded seats under the palm trees is also a big part of the morning routine. On one of our beach walks, we ran into “Ed” a pickleballer, and his dog “Nellie”, a corgi. Ed is from Connecticut and had come to Hope Town with his wife for a couple of weeks every year. She passed away a year ago and, rather than spend a long cold winter in Connecticut, Ed decided to rent a house in Hope Town for several months and pass the time playing pickleball and walking with Nellie.
Judy also met the wife of the Manager of Captain Jack’s, a Canadian, and their 2.5 year old daughter. Captain Jack’s is the local watering hole in Hope Town and the owners were looking to get out of the business. The young couple saw it as an opportunity to get into the bar business. We played JACKS, the local version of BINGO at Captain Jack’s the only time we were there, and I was lucky enough to win!
On the subject of money…
We had been in Hope Town for almost a week and despite our best effort, we couldn’t seem to find out who to pay for the mooring ball. It was owned by a local, who operated a fishing charter business called Lucky Strike. I eventual got the owner on the VHF and explained that we had been trying to get a hold of him and wanted to pay for the ball. He told us our friends had looked after it. When we said that was unlikely, he told us it was “complicated” and not to worry about it. In return for his generosity, we decided to donate a portion of my JACKS winnings to the Community Center, one of the many local fund raisers.
Aside from our snorkeling trip with Anodyne and our day sail, our only other trip was to take the ferry to Marsh Harbor to explore the area. We arranged to have lunch with Jay on NoMastE, who was anchored there. The impact of Dorian was certainly evident in Marsh Harbor. While the place was functioning, there were still a lot of damaged businesses and homes.
We took Elizabeth M out for a day trip up to Man-of-War Cay and Marsh Harbor. Our sail reminded me of Sunday drives we used to take when I was a kid. Going no where in particular and certainly not in a rush. Strangely, despite having travelled over 3,000 miles since leaving home in August, it was the first time we took the boat out for a casual sail. It felt nice.
Back in Hope Town Harbor, we met Ian and Michelle, who were on a Saga 43 sailboat, registered in St. John’s Newfoundland, although the boat has never been in Canada. The boat’s name was Mahina, which they said is often confused with marina. Bob is originally from Fredericton and Michelle is from St. John’s. They met in Newfoundland when Bob was attending MUN medical school.
The unofficial Mayors of Hope Town Harbor are Will and his wife Muffin, and their little dog Sophie (to quote Will). Will does the cruisers' net most mornings and seems to be a fixture in the harbor. Need to know something? Check with Will or Muffin. They both can be seen travelling on their separate dinghies around the harbor, Muffin’s complete with a cane and a bow bumper made out of old fishnet and croc shoes she found washed up on the beach.
Other notables in the harbor while we were there were, ParBlue, who we first me in Gloucester, many months ago. We also met, Cody and Therese and their daughter, on their boat, Vinyasa, a Brewer 44 center cockpit. They have a YouTube channel called Sailing Vinyasa. Cody spends the summers and fall working on a charter boat up in Long Island Sound and Therese, who is Norwegian, translates movies for Netflix. And finally, we got to spend some time with Emerson and Suzan on Sensei a beautiful motor yacht.
Despite the lights in the harbor, I was lucky enough to catch a short glimpse of the SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral. I am guessing it was when the sections separated, since the glow got very bright and then faded.
One of the highlights of our time in Hope Town was a cello concert at the community center, featuring Paul Warner, who played with the Atlanta Symphony for 50 years and Barry Talley who was the former music director at the US Naval Academy. Concerts like this were rare in Hope Town given the challenges of transporting delicate stringed instruments. Paul had actually brought his cello over in Barry’s sailboat and even insisted on staying with it in St. Augustine as Hurricane Nicole came through. They were joined by You Ju Lee, an accomplished concert pianist, who was amazingly talented as well.
On our final day, we got to reconnect with our dear friend Maura, who we introduced you to when we were back in Maine. Sadly, Maura and her sister and brother-in-law were in Hope Town to deal with family matters, after Maura's sister passed away suddenly. We were grateful to spend some time with Maura, but were saddened by the circumstances of the visit. Maura and her family spent a lot of time in Hope Town as kids and it was interesting to get her perspective on how different things looked. She commented several time on all the new development and how much bigger the homes seem to be getting.
Our last evening was spent reconnecting with NoMastE. Jay had just arrived from Marsh Harbor that morning and Lesli flew in from Maine that afternoon. We had a wonderful night catching up and sharing a few laughs, before we said goodbye to Anodyne and NoMastE. They both had family visiting over the next several days and so they planned to be in Hope Town for a while yet. We were anxious to start moving again and, sadly, start the plans our trip back to the US. Before that, we had a bit time left to explore Abaco before we left.
But more about that, next time.
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