Merry Christmas from Hope Town

Hi All,
We're back in the Bahamas after a trip to Texas and Connecticut to see friends and family. It was a great trip and really enjoyed seeing everyone. Besides the visiting I played a round of golf, we got to play with all the grandkids, saw my grandson Alec's final school Candlelight Concert (what an absolutely outstanding event) and saw the Rockettes Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

It's Christmas Day in Hope Town and there is blue sky, lots of sunshine and the high for today is forecast to be 80, with a low of 76 tonight. In other words, it's wonderful. It is a bit strange to see people in swimsuits.  At least a bunch of them have on Santa hats.  That helps.

Here are a few pictures we took last night and this morning so you can get a feel for Christmas in The Bahamas. The ones taken at night might be a bit blurry.  No alcohol was involved, though.  NOT!!

Good Morning Vietnam with the moon on Christmas Eve.

Good Morning Vietnam on Christmas Eve.

Good Morning Vietnam and the Hope Town Lighthouse in the background.

Our Christmas tree.

The view from the picnic table at Hope Town Inn and Marina. This is where we watched the song writer concert before Christmas.

While in Connecticut I decided to shave. Sort of.  In stages. Not a great picture but this is how I looked for a couple of hours. Then we heard we'd been invited to the house of some friends of Shaun and Jen's.  I decided to go ahead and shave off the rest. So much for looking like a pirate.

Take care.
Brian

Hope Town

Hi All,
We're in Hope Town still, getting ready to fly back to the US for almost two weeks to see family and friends. The weather here in Hope Town has not been great. The wind has subsided but now it's raining. And raining. And raining. There have been some breaks, but not many.

We did get nice weather on Sunday so we were able to attend a music festival here with eight different Country and Western song writers benefiting several local charities. You've probably never heard of these people because they don't perform their own songs, others do. The likes of Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw and Rascal Flats perform their songs. Before the music started we had dinner with our friends Lee and Randy (Silver Maple) and Brian and Casandra (Miss Informed). It was a great evening concluded with fireworks over the harbour. And right over our boat! Which we weren't on but fortunately there was enough wind to kept the embers from falling on it.

Earlier in the day we took our bikes ashore and rode them down the island some. We stopped along the way to have lunch and watch two guys kite surf. It was cool to watch them get their stuff all lined up and then start out. It looked like a lot of fun but also something you'd need a lot of practice to do well. Like most things. Here are a couple of pictures of our view where we stopped for our picnic lunch.

While it's been raining we've done exciting things like laundry, replace the float switch on the bilge pump and trace down the bad smell we haven't ever been able to get completely eliminated. But we found the source so while in the US we're going to buy the parts we need to hopefully fix it once and for all!

This will likely be the last post for a couple of weeks. We're supposed to be back in the Bahamas on December 22nd and I'll post again once we're back. We're both a bit anxious about the trip. Since July 11, when we left Kemah, tomorrow night will only be the third day / night we haven't been on the boat. Our plan is to catch the ferry from Hope Town to Marsh Harbour tomorrow, stay in a hotel and then get up early and get a taxi to the airport for our flight to Nassau. From Nassau we go to Miami and then on to Dallas.

Take care and if we don't speak to you or I don't post again until after Christmas, please have a very Merry Christmas!
Brian

Elbow Cay and Lynyard Cay

Hi All,
As my brother reminded me it has been a few days since I've posted so here is an update and some pictures.

Monday we sailed over to Hope Town on Elbow Cay and picked up a mooring ball. Hope Town is a pretty neat little town with a working lighthouse on the hill. The lighthouse is one of the last manual lighthouses in the world.  The lamp burns pressurized Kerosene oil with a wick and mantle.  The Fresnel lenses concentrate the mantle’s light into a beam directed straight towards the horizon.  The lenses and burner equipment, weighing 8,000lbs, float in a circular lubricated tub.  This reduces friction so that the 700lbs of weight, when wound up to the top of the tower by hand, smoothly rotates the 4-ton apparatus once every 15 seconds.  The lighthouse keeper on duty must wind up the weights every 2 hours in order for the red and white candy-striped lighthouse to be seen from 17 miles away. It's pretty cool and I hear it is possible to witness the lighting of the lamp.

The weather and wind are really nice so rather than stay in Hope Town we decided to sail around and check out other places after spending one night in Hope Town, including dinner and bingo (actually called JACKS because those are the letters across the top of the card) at Cap'n Jacks with our friends on Panthera (Ritchie, Jane, Dal and Denise). Tuesday we sailed down to Lynyard Cay and anchored off a beach there close to the Little Harbour cut out to the Atlantic. Panthera was there too as they were staging there for their trip to the Virgin Islands. We were able to actually sail the entire way down to Lynyard, about four hours.

This morning, Wednesday, we said Bon Voyage to Panthera. There are taking what is known as the I-65 route to the Virgin Islands. This route is really simple, you sail due east until you get to longitude 65 West (about 600 miles) and the you turn due south and sail another 600 miles and oila! You're in the Virgin Islands! They expect it to take them seven days. Here is a picture as they headed out from our anchorage this morning. Fair winds and following seas Panthera!



Shortly after Panthera left we picked up our anchor and headed back north. Another cold front is on the way and we want to be back in the well protected harbour at Hope Town by Thursday night. Rather than go all the way back to Hope Town we stopped a bit short to explore another part of Elbow Cay, Tahiti Beach.  Here are some more pictures from the day.

Between Lynyard Cay and Elbow Cay someone has done part of their house to look like the lighthouse in Hope Town

I think it's about time for a shave.

Still the house, not the real lighthouse. But look at that water!!

Tahiti Beach, Elbow Cay, The Abacos, Bahamas

More Tahiti Beach

At high tide there is no beach

Don't you always have to have a picture like this?

The other side of the peninsula, still technically Tahiti Beach

Interesting tree on the beach, blown over but still alive

Last picture for today

Once we dropped anchor we put the dinghy in the water, stopped by to introduce ourselves to Silver Maple and invite them over for a sundowner and then went ashore to snorkel and walk the beach. Not a great place to snorkel but we did see a fair number of fish and on the way back to the beach we saw two bright red-orange starfish bigger than my hand. I didn't take my camera with me so I didn't get a picture of them. May go back and get a picture tomorrow before we head back to Hope Town.

That about covers it for now. Take care.
Brian