Saturday, April 11th through Monday, April 13th, 2009
We were happy to be back in the Abacos. It was like returning home to the big, shallow “swimming pool” of the Sea of Abacos. It really didn’t matter where we sailed next in the Abacos just as long as we were in Marsh Harbour by April 27th to get son Finley from the airport. Also, we had mail forwarded from home (thanks Mom!) that needed to be picked up from the Marsh Harbour Post Office. From our restful anchorage at Tilloo Cay, the winds were blowing us toward the north and west. Marsh Harbour was up that way, but this was Easter weekend and the Post Office would be closed until Tuesday and Finley’s arrival was two weeks away. Both Treasure Cay and Great Guana Cay were an easy sail from Tilloo Cay. We visited Treasure Cay in January on our way south, but Great Guana was last visited by us ten years ago. So, off we headed to Great Guana for a big Easter weekend!
We were happy to be back in the Abacos. It was like returning home to the big, shallow “swimming pool” of the Sea of Abacos. It really didn’t matter where we sailed next in the Abacos just as long as we were in Marsh Harbour by April 27th to get son Finley from the airport. Also, we had mail forwarded from home (thanks Mom!) that needed to be picked up from the Marsh Harbour Post Office. From our restful anchorage at Tilloo Cay, the winds were blowing us toward the north and west. Marsh Harbour was up that way, but this was Easter weekend and the Post Office would be closed until Tuesday and Finley’s arrival was two weeks away. Both Treasure Cay and Great Guana Cay were an easy sail from Tilloo Cay. We visited Treasure Cay in January on our way south, but Great Guana was last visited by us ten years ago. So, off we headed to Great Guana for a big Easter weekend!
Our fresh water supply was running low again, so we stopped briefly at Boat Harbour to fill our almost empty tanks with 65 gallons of water—yay! We also topped off our diesel tanks, but it was hardly necessary—only 6 gallons. Those good ol’ sails were doing their job and we rarely turn on the engine. After about 6 hours of sailing and stopping to load our tanks, we arrived at the mooring field in Settlement Harbour, Great Guana Cay, Abacos. There were only a couple of moorings left and they were in the shallow part of the harbour. We thought briefly of trying to anchor in Settlement Harbour, but there didn’t seem to be much room and it was probably poor holding for anchors. Capt. John called Dive Guana who owns the moorings asking if we could take one and would it accommodate a 37 ft. sailboat with a 4.5 foot draft. The Dive Shop replied that we were welcome to any of the available moorings—all would work fine for us. So we motored over to the available shallow mooring slowly—watching the depth gauge drop from 6 feet to 5 feet to 4 feet. We were still floating as John climbed out of the cockpit to walk up to the bow, but before he could grab the mooring tackle with the boat hook, we were aground. OOPS! Revving the engine and grumbling did no good—we were stuck for at least a few hours as the tide was coming in and would float us off. Michael Franks on nearby sailing vessel (s/v) Chusan jumped in his dinghy and motored over to help. John and Michael decided the thing to do was to have Michael dinghy our anchor out into the deeper water so as we began to float again, we would have control of our boat. It worked perfectly—thanks Mike! We were concerned that someone would come and tie up to the mooring before we floated off so John motored our dinghy over, tied the dinghy to the mooring, and swam back to our boat while we waited. That worked too! Later we got to spend some time with Michael and his wife Barbara—such nice folks.
Great Guana Cay is the major party island of the Abacos and they were definitely geared up for Easter. The famous Nippers Bar and Grill sponsored an Easter Egg Hunt for all ages. Young children hunted for eggs on the beach and older kids/adults snorkeled for eggs in the waters of the reef. The eggs contained coupons for all sorts of prizes and cash money. Nippers had a giant Easter Bunny, their famous pig roast and tropical drinks, two fresh water swimming pools, and about 400 people! It was packed!
Please know that you don’t just come ashore from your boat in the harbour and walk right into Nippers—oh, no, it’s definitely not that simple. Once you get ashore, you have to hike or thumb a ride on a golf cart through the jungle and up a sandy knoll to the ocean beach side of Great Guana (only about 200 yards). Here are some pictures of the hike into Nippers: John with the colorful front-end loader sign (an arrow on the front points towards Nippers), some poisonwood trees along the way, and Penny in front of Nippers’ colorful entrance.
As the mob of people queued up for the egg hunts, we ordered up a huge lunch of roasted pig and all the trimmings. Then when the egg hunts started down on the beach, the fresh water pools emptied out—perfect for us to lounge by the pool and do a little swimming. Here are pictures of Nippers’ Easter Bunny, the deck overlooking the beach (before egg hunters charged out there), and the lower swimming pool without tons of kids!
When the mobs of people returned to Nippers’ pool and deck after the Easter Egg Hunt, we decided it was time to hike back through the jungle and explore Great Guana’s other party spot—Grabbers! Grabbers was fun too! They are on Fishers’ Bay—the banks side of the island. A “rake and scrape” band featuring Brown Tip was providing full volume entertainment at one end of the pool. A “rake and scrape” band, as we’ve learned, is a Bahamian ting (thing) where talented locals make music with saws and wash boards and such. How does one play a saw, you might ask. Well, they scrape a filleting knife along the edge of a regular old saw as they bend the saw back and forth. It’s hard to believe this would make good music, but it does—or maybe it was the tropical drinks! Below are the pictures of us enjoying Grabbers.
On our way back to our Caribbean Soul, we snapped this picture of another Caribbean Sohl. Well, more horse power, but a lot less charm!
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