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