Author: FloatsOurBoat
Hope Town Lighthouse
From Marsh Harbour, we took Albury’s ferry over to Hope Town on a mission! We were tracking down a rumor of a used dinghy for sale at a great price. Orion’s dinghy was completely shot, and they desperately needed a new form of transportation to get them through this cruising season. It didn’t have to be pretty, and it certainly didn’t have to be new, but it had to hold air for more than 15 minutes. This mission took us to the lovely Hope Town Inn and Marina. It’s the sort of beautifully landscaped and maintained resort that, if you came to visit Sanitas there, would trick you into believing that we cruisers live a glamorous life. We ate blackened fish tacos and the special “Da Stagga” rum punch by the pool while Bob and Laura of Orion inspected the dinghy and practiced their negotiating skills. Ultimately, our mission was a failure, because this dinghy was is worse shape than their own, and not even worth the $200 asking price.
But!
It gave us the opportunity to explore the picturesque Hope Town lighthouse. It’s the only kerosene-powered lighthouse left in the world. And it is gorgeous! Painted in bold red and white stripes like a giant candy cane, in contrast to the tropical vegetation surrounding it, the lighthouse grabs your eye from the harbor, and provides amazing views from the top of its 169-step spiral staircase.
The next time I sail through The Abacos, I’d like to spend more time in Hope Town. The harbor is small, but lovely, and I get the sense there is a very strong cruiser community. Each morning, listening to the cruisers net on VHF channel 68 we’d hear about yoga classes, art exhibits, fundraisers, and pickle ball tournaments. (Capt Mike is intrigued! He ready to invest in a good pickle ball racquet)
Excitement in the Anchorage….
By the end of our stay in Marsh Harbour, the anchorage grew very crowded. Many boats were hiding out from the winter north-easters, and waiting for the swells in the ocean outside of the Sea of Abaco to decrease before heading south. Exactly what we were doing! And with these winds coming from an unusual direction, the popular anchorages outside the harbors didn’t provide enough protection to be safe and comfortable. Mike and I took Sanitas out of the harbor after 8 day’s to attempt to head south to Little Harbor, but the winds were higher than predicted, the waves even inside the reef were high and choppy, and the glimpse of the cut that we could see was a whipped cream froth of white waves and foam. So we turned around, and went back to Marsh Harbour for another 2 nights.
As we selected our anchor spot, and dropped the hook, we noticed many captains sitting in their cockpits watching the world go by with suspicion. We soon learned that the suspicion was warranted. The wind continued to increase, and rain started, so Mike and I hid below decks to enjoy our lunch in peace.
We tend to keep the VHF radio tuned to 16 (the hail and distress channel) or 68 (the Cruiser Net and ship-to-ship channel) as long as we hare making enough solar power to do so. Good thing too! Because our lunch was interrupted by calls of “You’re dragging anchor!” on 16, and blasts of an air horn alerting the entire anchorage to danger. Now of course Sanitas wasn’t dragging. Don’t be ridiculous! But a huge catamaran with no one aboard was no longer hooked, and was drifting unattended through the crowded field of boats.
Bob from Orion hailed us directly to let us know it was drifting right at Sanitas. Bob and the skipper from Compass Rose jumped in their dinghies to see if they could board the cat. Mike and I stood by on Sanitas, ready to fend her off if she drifted too close. Luckily, her anchor caught again before she ran into anyone. But now we had a catamaran much too close to our full-keeled monohull, and to several small motor trawlers. Each of these types of boats swing differently on anchor, and need to have space to swing fully and safely as the wind changes direction.
Bob managed to reach the owner of the catamaran, Southern Passage, who was ashore on Great Abaco, and received permission to board her and power up her engine in order to move if necessary. So the excitement ended well. Bob and Mike got a tour of a gorgeous, 50 foot by 26 foot catamaran (we learned she charters for $15,000 a week!) and had beers with the captain after he arrived back at the boat and successfully moved her to a safer location and reset the anchor.
The winds died down completely at sunset, we we actually were able to put the adventure behind us and could go to sleep at night!
Marsh Harbour, the Hub of the Abacos
After leaving Green Turtle Cay, we intended to meander through the rest of the Abacos, maybe spending a night or two on Great Guana Cay, and Treasure Cay, and Man ‘o War, and then head south to Eleuthera and the Exhumas.
BUT
Winter storm Quinn, which pounded Cape Cod and brought widespread power outages to Washington DC and snow days to much of the East Coast was felt all the way east in the Bahamas. No snow here, of course, but the low pressure cell brought high winds from the north and crazy high seas. And we found ourselves waiting out a weather pattern with a new low following just behind the last one every two or three days; not allowing the sea swells to calm back down to normal levels. So we took shelter in Marsh Harbour, where one night turned into ten nights before we felt confident continuing south.
Marsh Harbour is the third biggest city in the Bahamas, and we each had a need for a “city”.
- SE of Disorder needed a new membrane for their water maker.
- Orion needed to repair or replace their dinghy, which no longer stayed afloat.
- And Sanitas needed to try again to repair our leak (see Tool of the Day … Life Calk)
Even after 10 days, I don’t have much of a good impression of Marsh Harbour. Probably because I spent most of the stay doing chores: walking back and forth to the bank, grocery store, hardware store, and liquor store in the hot sun. And I didn’t really love the Conch Inn Marina where we stayed for most of the time. They are the local Moorings charter base, and I got the impression they thought private boats were second class citizens compared to their charter boats. We did accomplish several boat projects, such as changing the compost in the toilet, removing the rust from much if the stainless steel on the deck, working on the bilge projects, etc. But we did manage to have some fun!
Happy hours at Snappas, where we showed Sharon and Drew how much we missed them.
Cookouts at the Conch Inn Marina pool, complete with Full Moon party, and swim-noodle-water-launcher contests
Whole fish and margaritas at Colors by the Sea
I was introduced to “my former co-worker Justin’s current co-worker Caroline’s parents” (phew) Rob and Sharron, who introduced us to the cruiser community at the Jib Room at the Marsh Harbour marina. We spent quite a bit of time there, enjoying the high speed internet (and the bilge burner rum punches), working on taxes, and celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary at Rib Night and with a limbo contest!
We crashed the beautiful, high-end Abaco Beach Resort one afternoon, and enjoyed a lovely beach day and a first attempt at stand up paddle boarding. And we took a ferry over to Hope Town for a day. But that’s another post …
Tool of the Day … Life Calk
In the latest episode of the quest to PLUG ALL THE LEAKS …. we had a carpenter / captain take a look at Sanitas in White Sound at Green Turtle Cay. He pointed out some small cracks in the teak toe rail on the bow, and suggested that they could be the source of the water intrusion into our forward cabin. You remember that “water intrusion”, aka leak, right? I now admit that we’ve been fighting this leak since the boat yard. So far we’ve:
- Re-set the deck fitting for the head pump-out
- Re-set the deck fitting for the foreword water tank input
- Replaced the mattress and bought three different mattress pads
- Side-tripped to Miami and re-glassed the anchor locker
Now we are trying again to get to the root cause and fix this dang leak once and for all by repairing the connection between the wooden toe rail and the fiberglass deck.
We grabbed a slip at the Conch Inn Marina in Marsh Harbour so that we’d have a safe and secure place to work, protected by wind and waves. Then I made the trip the Island Boy’s Tackle and bought them out of Life Calk tubes.
The material supposedly stays slightly flexible when dry, so it should work for the necessary flexing of the bow when we sail into waves. But it should also be well waterproof, and fill any existing cracks in the decking. Mike spent one entire day standing in the dinghy, tied to Sanitas, scraping old adhesive from beneath the toe rail, all the way from the bow to the beam. He did find several spots where the old adhesive was black and rotten – a good sign that this could be the culprit in our leaks. The black spots did roughly correspond with the places we see water trickle down the walls of the cabin too. Another good sign!
The second day, Mike spent back in that dinghy (core and balance workout?) filling the seam with a new bead of Life Caulk. We let her dry for 48 hours in the sun, and hoped for the best.
I really hope this does the trick. It would be great to be able to leave the mattress in the cabin while we sail. Lately, we’ve been folding the mattress in half, pulling out all of the pillow and blankets, stuffing chamois into the “ceiling” when the water comes in, and laying beach towels along the hull. Oh, and the headliner has been sitting in the salon on the floor leaning against the settee, so that it does not continue to get wet. It will be great to get back to normal, and clear up some of the chaos on Little Sanitas!
Here’s Mike putting the headliner back in place …
What Floats Our Boat 