Home to a few marinas but with a catch, the harbor is a bit shallow (or thin as it’s said in the biz) for us deep-drafted gals. Sure, we went in there last year but had to play the tides. This year, a quick look into the anchorage (iffy for us) shows a whole passel of Cats and monohulls. So, we planned to anchor “outside” of the harbor and the main commercial channel. During our “setting the hook,” one of the pins on one of the shackles on our main bridle broke…. Gee, did it know we were headed for a replacement? Or maybe it knew that Terry and Lynn wanted a new one also and had reached out to friends for a referral?
First order of business after we anchored was to get our gear to Kevin at Island Boy Tackle & Marine, the contact gracefully offered by Kellirae and Bill. Coincidentally, Kevin is cousin to Dale, the kind fella that towed us across the bank last year. Small world.
After delivering the gear to Kevin at Island Boy, we settled in for a few days to wait. The weather was mild, so where we anchored was pleasant enough, except when the big boys used the shipping channel. Then we’d receive a serious wake, the first of which happened daily around 0600 when the large ferry, Lady Daisy, made her first run. We jokingly referred to it as the “Marsh Harbour alarm clock.”
We cleaned and worked a bit on boat chores while passing the time in Marsh Harbour, but all work and no play would make us dull, right? So, we allowed ourselves a daytrip over to Hope Town on the small ferry service. After all, we can’t be this close to Hope Town and skip the Elbow Reef Lighthouse.
You might remember, from our post last year, the Elbow Reef Lighthouse was first operational in 1862 and is the last manned kerosene lighthouse on earth!
It is still kerosene lit, still manually “wound” several times a night to revolve, and still very pretty! This year she’s sporting a fresh paint job and looking majestic as always!
This gorgeous view doesn’t get old. Seems like you can see for miles and miles. Actually, Todd figured about 13.5 miles!
Now that everyone’s caught their breath and enjoyed the breezy view,
Luck? Why?? Oh, yeah. No matter the state of our hips, legs, backs, whatever, we all have to wiggle back through the “doggy door” hatch to the catwalk.
Todd managed to have the camera both when coming out of the little hatch and when going back through. The rascal. He’s not still up there, though. Promise.
After our aerobics on the stairs and post-workout stretching in the doorway, we felt we’d earned a treat. (Right. Time for a drink.) So, we took the path behind the lighthouse over to the Hope Town Inn & Marina for lunch at the tiki bar.
From there, we rented a golf cart to explore the island – Firefly Sunset Resort, Abaco Inn, Tahiti Beach, etc.
The highlight was this guy (gal?)!
After our explorations, we caught the 1700 ferry back to Marsh Harbour, arriving too late to pick up our now-ready gear, both a new bridle and the repaired original. No worries. The 0600 “Marsh Harbour alarm clock” would get us up in plenty of time to get to Kevin’s shop when he opened at 0900. Ha!
With the new bridles aboard, we stowed the dinghy, weighed anchor and headed away from Marsh Harbour. Goodbye, big boat wakes! Next stop, Tilloo Cay.
Our Travels 