Man-O-War---What An Island !

Man-O-War....Sounds kind of creepy, war-like etc...but the island is actually one of the most beautiful islands I have ever seen. It was founded in the 1700's by Royalists from England. There are about 300 full-time residents and another couple hundred part-time residents that come in the summertime. The island has scenic trails through forests and flowers...There are incredible homes and some very humble abodes...The entire island seems manicured and well, perfect. It is a dry island...no alcohol or cigarettes sold...You can bring it in....you better come supplied. There is 2 small grocery stores, a boatyard(with a 50 tone boatlift), 2 ice cream stores, gift stores, a ball fiield ,one restaurant...and a wonderful elderly woman by the name of Lola that rides around in a golf cart and sells cinnamon rolls and bread. You can walk from one end of the island to the other in a couple of hours. The anchorage is either right outside the northern entrance or inside at the marina or mooring balls...Take a look at some of the pics to see why it is so amazingly scenic....

Drift Snorkeling

When you have 2 divemasters on your buddy boat and one happens to be a marine biologist...lots of great experiences come of this friendship. We went to Snake Cay off the island of Great Abaco (northern Bahamas) and we dinghied into an inlet just south of our anchorage. The inlet has about 20-25 feet at the entrance..lots of water in the Bahamas. As we went in we decided to drift snorkel out with the tide...what this entails is holding onto the line that is attached to the dinghy and drift out with the current...no motor. When we got in the water we immediately saw 2 huge (5-5 1/2 feet across) eagle rays swimming about 15 feet below us. There are so incredibly graceful..the we saw about 2 turtles also swimming underneath us...Great snorkel...Then at happy hour on Bravo...we were all sitting and enjoying the sunset when a sting ray jumped out of the water...3 times. He was all of 10 feet away...it is a wild thing to see. They (marine biologist)do not know why they jump out of the water...Wonderful day!

Oops! Here are the Hopetown Pics

The pics attached are:
Amazing Sunrise
Laura The Great Fisher woman
Hopetown Lighthouse

Hopetown...What a Gorgeous Place

The day start with a fairy tale image of a lighthouse, add charming pastel painted houses, palm trees, soft, white beaches and you get Hopetown. We arrived on a windy morning at hight tide due to the skinny waters at the entrance. All 3 boats...Blue Blaze, Cloud Messnger and Seafox was already there to meet us. The days leading up to Hopetown were full of fishing and adventuring...Laura, the Great FisherWoman of the Abacos caught a 12-15 lb grouper...Wow, very exciting! Then John and the guys joined forces to catch 4 large lobsters and 3 conch...YUM! If you can beleive it, we had lobster ravioli...Paula has a manual crank pasta machine...we (royal we) all helped to make the goat cheese, lobster ravs...Amazing..!The day before we arrived in Hopetown, we anchored in some shallow waters to get us ready to go to Hopetown at high tide..The sunrise was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen...It was the payoff to getting up a 5 to be ready to move the boat...

The Weather outside Is Frightful....

Okay, the holidays are over BUT it sure is cold here! We have a high of 60 with 20-30 knot winds at the moment....(9 am Mon)....with the wind chill factor it is in the 50's. The Bahamians have not seen such cold weather in a long time. The cold fronts have brought close to or up to gale force winds. That is why we are in a marina so we can get off the boat for a walk etc....of course hot showers are a real plus! I have included some pics of this crazy weather, a beautiful sunrise and a pic of Jason(Blue Blaze) with a huge lobster he snagged. John, Laura, Cheryl and I actually went snorkeling in our wetsuits (water temp 60) on Mermaid reef...a walk from the marina....Even the fish were moving slow...we saw a Nassau grouper, parrotfish, grunts and snappers....

A Beach To Dream About

As my last blog stated, we are at Treasure Cay in the Abacos. The island has an amazing 3 1/2 mile beach...white soft sand and the water is the color of seafoam with a little turquoise. The island is well developed with condos etc. Fortunately the beach has only a few condos and one restaurant, the CocoBeach Bar. Since my last blog was totally void of pics, I have included some of the beautiful sites for you to see. We have another boat with us, since Green Turtle Cay. Their name is Cloud Messenger...a beautiful Crealock 38 sailboat. The owners are Cheryl, Dave and Ollie(a chihuahua)...a very cool couple from California. It is great to have Seafox back in the fold..off the dock and anchored out with the rest of us. As you might remember, Seafox is a motor yacht with paula and Barry from Rhode Island. They stayed in the Abacos for the entire summer...luckily that worked out very well. We did quite a bit of adventuring with them in April and May. We just got back from a dinghy ride where we caught a mutton snapper...Yum! Dinner tonite....

It's about time...

Sorry for the lack of blog updating....We are in Treasure Cay with 3 other buddy boats. It's awesome to have such great friends along for the ride. We have managed to make Mexican nite for New Year's Eve and italian nite for John's b-day...(Jan 2nd)Hey Rick, Happy B-day!!! We watched the movie The Hangover for John's b-day...not for everyone but it was pretty hysterical. The cold fronts have been quite often and are accompanied by 20-25 knot winds...It makes it hard to make any kind of distance plus you want protection from the winds...also difficult. We are in Treasure Cay for a few more days. This island has amazing protection from bad weather. We finally realized that being in a hurry is totally unnecessary. We did do some great snorkeling before the cold front came...We saw puffer fish, a flying gurnard (look it up), lionfish,parrot fish, trigger fish....lots more. Pretty cool! All is well!
Happy New Year to all..lots of good health and happiness in 2010....