Dec 1
We spent a nice quiet night at anchor in White Sound. We found that we can get a free wireless connection here in the anchorage, so we are enjoying unlimited Internet access. We exchanged e-mails with friend Mike who asked if we had ever heard of Skype. I had, but had never looked into it. Skype is an Internet based phone service. This is not your basic voice-over-IP thing that your local cable company may be trying to sell you. This is using your computer to talk to somebody else on their computer. Not via typing, but via talking. Assuming your computer has a microphone and speakers, you can talk to any other Skype user on their computer anywhere in the world for free. And, if you have Skype, but your friends don't, you can call them from your computer to their regular phone for only $.02/minute, almost anywhere in the world. Beats using my $.43/minute satellite phone. As long as you have a high-speed Internet connection, like cable or DSL, it works like a charm. All you do is go to www.Skype.com download the free software and you're good to go. This will help our communications on those occasions when we do have a fast connection.
I found a map of the Abacos that I was able to copy to the website. Click here to view it. On it, you can see the places we've been so far. I'll keep updating it as we go.
We took the dinghy to town today. "Town" is New Plymouth, and it is about a mile and a half by water from here. We could get there by land too, but it would be a long walk, or require renting a golf cart. There is a water taxi too, but we have our own water taxi. It does mean we have to go out into the open water for a little ways, to get from White Sound to Black Sound or Settlement Bay, but it's not too rough. Once there, we just started walking around the streets. We stopped at a grocery store, just to see what it was like in terms of selection and prices. The prices of most things were about twice what we would expect in the States.
A block past that first store, we came to Harvey's Island Grill. It was lunch time and we had not had breakfast, so we went in. It was a nice little place that would seat about thirty. It looked like it was either new, or maybe had been repainted since the storm, because it was very clean and bright. It was also decorated for Christmas in a blue motif. It doesn't seem like the holiday season at all to me, but we are starting to see signs. Barb had a cheeseburger and I had a blackened grouper sandwich. It was very tasty.
As we were eating, we kept seeing golf carts (the primary mode of transport), old Ford Ranger pickups (the next most popular vehicle), and even a forklift, driving by with cases of goods being delivered to the stores and restaurants. After we finished, we walked in the direction where they were coming from. Around the corner was the Government Dock, where the supply ship was being unloaded. The supply ship is not very large, but it was big enough to carry several small shipping containers, and a few vehicles could have been carried.
We headed down the "main" street that went through the center of town. Along here we found two more grocery stores, a liquor store, a few gift shops, the museum, the post office/customs office/tourism board office/public restrooms building, and the Administrators building. We browsed both grocery stores, again comparing prices and selection. In one, I chatted with the owner about how slow business was. They don't have any idea why, but so far the season for boaters and for house rentals has been dead. There are many rental units on the island and he said that normally Thanksgiving week they are booked solid. This year they were 2/3 vacant. As we have seen with the marinas, there is nobody here. Don't know if it's because people have been afraid with the active hurricane season, or the prices of fuel, or what.
At the Alfred Lowe Museum we paid our five dollars each to take the tour. Alfred Lowe was a prominent descendant of the American Loyalists who founded the Bahamas back in the 1780's after they were run out of the United States due to their loyalty to England. The old house which now houses the museum was one of the few buildings on the island to survive a great hurricane in 1932. The museum is attended to by an old woman who is part of the family. It was worth the five bucks to listen to her tell us the history of the town.
Next to the museum is the post office/customs office/tourism board office/public restrooms building. The post office lady, customs lady, and tourism board lady were all sitting on the porch chatting. Not a lot was going on today. Next to this building was a large lot with a nice building set back from the road with a nice lawn. This was the Administrator's building. The Administrator seems to be like a mayor or governor of each island. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but it is the local government.
Down the street from here we found The Sculpture Garden with busts of famous people in Green Turtle's past. Each bust had a plaque attached with the story of the person and why they were significant to Green Turtle Cay. This park was very much like one we saw in Key West last month. We learned from the museum lady that the same artist did both, and it is not a coincidence. New Plymouth and Key West are sister cities. Both of these unique towns are noted for their independent and imaginative inhabitants. Key Westers call themselves Conchs as a result of their Abaconian roots and, at several points in their history, attempted to succeed from the United States. On at least two occasions, The Abacos entertained the idea of succeeding from The Bahamas. As is popular in Key West, Green Turtle also allows Honorary Conchs, a coveted honor which has been given to Bob Hope and other world citizens. William Curry, born in New Plymouth in 1821, moved to Key West and became South Florida's first millionaire . On the other side of the coin, Bahamian hotel and cruise ship mogul Ted Arison became South Florida's first billionaire.
We went back to the boat and dined aboard.
GPS N 26-46.757 W 77-20.174 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3658.
Dec 2
We had no wind overnight, so we had a good quiet night's sleep. But, the batteries are now down about 350 amp-hours. I started the motor and ran it for over three hours to recharge. The motor charges us at about 70 amps, so it would take five hours to fully recharge. Maybe even more than that, because it's not a linear thing. I started thinking about moving into the marina for a day or two so that we could be plugged in. Around noon, we dinghied over to the marina to inquire about the rates. They charge $.90/ft plus $6.50/day for electricity. Not bad. But, it gets better. Since their business is so slow, they have a special deal going. If you eat in their restaurant (which we had thought about doing one night anyway), your food and drink bill is offset against the dockage. So if we spend over $44.50 on food, the dockage is free. Well, duh! That made the decision a no-brainer. There is one other sailboat in the marina. We had met Tom & Linda from Tomlin Too in town yesterday. Jan and Lynne from Rubaiyat came by in their dink as we were leaving the marina office and we told them about the dockage deal too. We both ended up moving into the marina later in the afternoon.
We headed off in the dink to New Plymouth again before moving the boat. We had cut our visit short yesterday because of dark clouds coming. We had left the boat open, and didn't want to get rained on, but no rain ever happened. Today we walked through the rest of town. We saw the old cemetery and walked past the school. Around on the other side of the harbor, we found Pineapple's Bar and Grill down a dirt path through the mangroves. Pineapple's is a small open air bar that seats about a dozen at the bar, and then has ten picnic tables around a pool, all right on the shore looking west out over the Sea of Abaco. There were a few people finishing lunch when we got there. We ordered a couple of drinks and chatted with the bartender and a guy who was repainting the picnic tables bright yellow. They love their bright colors in the islands.
We headed back around the harbor to where the dink was. We stopped in one of the grocery stores to get some fresh bread, and the liquor store to get some rum. At the liquor store, the rum price is reasonable - $12.00 for a liter. Not as cheap as in the Virgins a few years ago, but I expect it will be even cheaper in the larger towns.
We got back to the boat about 15:00, and called the marina to tell them we were coming in. We hauled anchor and moved over to the fuel dock first. The fuel dock was a little tricky because it is shallow at the end. So instead of being able to come up alongside nicely, I had to come straight at it and turn at the last second so that we slid up next to it. The first time, I was too far away from the dock, but I circled around got it perfect on the second try. Once fueled we moved into the slip next to Rubaiyat. I went up to the office to check in and was pleasantly surprised to see that they took American Express. We have found few places here take Amex. I prefer to use Amex to get my reward points. I checked in and took the dinner menu back to the boat for Barb to look at. As is the custom in most island restaurants, you have to make reservations for dinner by 17:00, and you make your entree selection when you make the reservation, so they know what to cook. We called our reservation in on the VHF and went to take good hot showers. After that we enjoyed a couple of beverages on the boat while chatting with the neighbors. At 18:45, we went to "cocktail hour" at the bar which includes complimentary hors d'oeuvres. Dinner seating was at 19:30. Even though we had all made separate reservations, the manager arranged a table for all six of us to sit together. We were surprised at the number of people who were there for dinner. The place was only about half full, but there were probably thirty or forty people dining. They must be staying at the rooms here at the resort, or other rentals. Or perhaps they were locals. At any rate, dinner was excellent. I had tuna and Barb had grouper. The resort manager, Ben, stopped by the table to ask us about our boats. He is American and has been a sailor, so he took an interest in us. We ended up chatting there until about 22:00. We were the next to last to leave.
GPS N 26-46.757 W 77-20.174 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3658.
Dec 3
I didn't know it until we got to Green Turtle, but there is a reason people are holding up here on their journeys south. The next island south of here is Whale Cay. The water between Whale Cay and Great Abaco Island is too shallow for most boats to go that way. So, you have to go around "The Whale" which means going out into the open ocean. Depending on the conditions, this can be untenable. The last few days there have been "rage" conditions at Whale Cut, so nobody has left here. Even people in large powerboats are waiting. It turns out it is a daily morning topic of "what The Whale is doing today." Some of the boats have various reasons that they need to be in Marsh Harbor by a certain time. We don't really care when we get there. This morning looked like it might be an ok time to get around The Whale, but it sounded to me like tomorrow morning would be even calmer. The three of us (the sailboats) listened to the morning VHF radio net to see what others said, and what those who can actually see the cut said the conditions were like. Two powerboats and a large sailing catamaran left. They called back on the radio and said it was doable, but as the tide changed and ran against the incoming swell, it would get worse. So if we had left then, it would probably be ugly when we got out there. We all agreed to leave in the morning and time our departure so we leave here on a rising tide, so nobody should go aground, and that will put us at The Whale at slack tide, which will help the conditions.
We spent a pretty lazy day. We went for a walk along a dirt road from the resort thru the mangroves to the north and came out on a nice quiet bay with a few houses built along the shore. There were also some lots for sale. We found out later that they probably go for about a half million. The road we were following eventually circled around and we accidentally wound up right back at our resort.
We had lunch at the restaurant, and then came back to the boat and read and relaxed. Somewhere in there the refrigerator got defrosted too. That was the boat chore for the day. We decided to splurge and do dinner at the restaurant again, so we made our reservation and entree choices before 17:00. Tonight, Barb is having the salmon, and I'm going for the lobster tail. Jan and Lynne from Rubaiyat are going to eat there again tonight too.
Mid-afternoon, a young woman came down the dock and started chatting with us. She was from a sailboat anchored outside the bay in the open water. She and her husband are from Canada, although she is originally from Germany. We spent at least half an hour in a very interesting conversation with her. They are waiting to get around The Whale too.
The dinner crowd tonight was much smaller. There was the four of us at one table, and a party of six from a powerboat that came in today at another. That was it. We enjoyed another excellent dinner and retired to the boats about 21:00. Tomorrow we expect to head out.
GPS N 26-46.757 W 77-20.174 Miles made good this leg 0. Total miles covered 3658.