I have fallen quickly behind to share because of all that we have to do and see here. Rachel came out to visit us for a week. We had bought her a ticket for her graduation present to come and join us. She was flying into Nassau and then we were going to sail down there and pick her up. The winds have not been favorable to do that. They have been right on our nose the whole trip. So, we got her a flight from Nassau to Marsh Harbor in the Abacos. This is the 3rd largest city in the Bahamas. That isnt saying it is huge though. I THINK it has about 1700 residents.
We have done some grocery reprovisioning here, done laundry and filled gas and water. We have also found most of the restaurants here have wifi. We chose Curlytails. Our waiter as he told us, was "get you drunk Joe". Lol! I am guessing that won't be happening here, though we did enjoy our stay and we got a lot posted within a couple of days. Internet is spotty here. They sell two internet services to cruisers like ourselves so that it is available along your passages. Though from word of mouth, those are spotty as well. They are oii bahamas and the other is bahamas wimax. The wimax has a 10 min free trial period. It must know your computer because it only lets you do this once. Darn. We are purchasing a week on wimax for $35 so that we can skype with Molly and Drew. They have different levels that you can purchase. An hour to a year.
We went to dinner with Rachel at Conchy Joe's which basically means a white guy cooking Bahamian. It is famiky owned and run by them. Food was pretty awesome. I had lobster salad that was amazing. Rachel had cracked conch (deep fried) and Mark had a hamburger. Yep, a hamburger.
We took Rachel the first day snorkeling over mermaid reef. That was an excellent dive. They have mooring balls on the reef. So dinghy out, hook up, and go. We saw so many different kinds of fish here. Wrasse, rainbow parrotfish, 4 eyed angelfish, lionfish, spiny lobster, trunkfish, yellowtail snapper, and many many more. It was a great place.
Then we went to Man-O-War. This is a small boat building community. They design them and make them right there. We got a sneek peek on a few. Very neat. We had lunch on the water here overlooking he harbor at The Dock and Dine. They had deliciously big "meals in a bag". You could choose from different selections of meat and they were piled on top of french fries and then covered with ketchup and hot sauce. Sounds weird but it was tasty! We walked the town, did a little souvenir shopping, lots of photo taking, and then found a beach. This beach was beautiful. It was called North Beach. We have found that is a common beach name around here. We have been on three North Beaches so far in our travels. We found neat shells, got some excellent photos and watched a golden retriever play in the ocean.
The next day we went over to Hopetown. It is famous for the hand wound lighthouse that works like a grandfather clock that turns with the weights. It is super impressive. We walked up the internal spiral staircase to the top. It was cool seeing all of the working parts. Rachel was the only brave one of us to go outside and take in the 360 degree view. We did the same but from the safety of windows. We spent the afternoon walking around this beautiful town with its gingerbread style of houses and lots of cute little shops. There was pinkish sand on North beach and a great yellow and white church. Perfect for a wedding.
We headed over to Fowl Cay for some snorkeling and diving. Snorkeling for conch on the inside in the Sea of Abaco and on the outside scuba diving off the reef in the Atlantic. We swam and got 4 conch and I made some conch salad. It wasn't very well liked. I was very disappointed. Now I will need to find some Bahamian made and see if I just didn't make it right.
It was a pretty windy day and a bit choppy out there in the Atlantic. I wasn't feeling very comfortable with the idea of going out there. I chose to stay on the island, suntan and read my book. There was a small 12'×12' personal dock on the rocks that I was able to watch Mark and Rae go out. I was the only one on the island. Pretty cool. When they were done with their dive they came back around and picked me up. I guess it was a little nerve wracking out there and Mark threw up before his dive. But they enjoyed their time.
We headed back to Marsh Harbor and stayed the night moored before Rachel's flight out the next dqy. That night sleeping I was awoken by a huge explosiin. I peeked out and saw a huge 45' boat engulfed in flames. It was quite horrific. We prayed that everyone was okay. we heard later that no one was on the boat and some guy decided to hotwire the battery at 2am in hopes of stealing the boat. I guess he got burned pretty badly and was flown out to a clinic. There was nothing left of the boat in the morning but the hull.
In the morning we walked around and grabbed some lunch at the Golden Grouper. Rachel leaves today. We have had a great time with her here. She didn't get the best of weather while she was here but we did send her home with a sunburn from the Bahamas. Life is good,
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