April 29, 2009: Treasure Cay, Abaco, Bahamas

Tom and I got up early to see the 33 fishing boats slip quietly, in single file, out of the harbor at 6:30 AM this morning. The Blue Marlin Fishing tournament has begun. We decided to spend an extra day here having discarded the possibility of snorkeling again do to the high winds. So this morning we are spending lazy hours by the pool at the marina. Some local yardmen were carefully edging the grass along the sidewalk, swinging machetes so reminiscent of Central America. It is very quiet at the pool this morning. This was really a day of rest.

Mid morning a long white Hatteras 60 GT fishing boat with an enclosed fly bridge pulled into the marina. This beautiful boat is built in my hometown, New Bern, North Carolina and is a very high end fishing boat. Tom walked by the dock and said that the outside fishing decks were all sleek fiberglass, but through the salon doors, he could see very plush interior. They were offering demo rides to the fishermen on the Hatteras on the layday of the tournament.

Tom and I ate our lunch on the patio under a model of a 1030 pound Blue Marlin which was caught in 1996 and the largest that they have on record. It was huge shiny blue and white hanging form the ceiling. We whiled away the afternoon and around 5:00 fishing boats began returning to the marina. It was interesting to us as non-fishermen on the logistics of the tournament. The fish under 9 feet in length were caught and released after taking a video of them including a colored ribbon to guarantee the day that they were caught. There were 15 marlin caught and released today plus fishermen were coming on shore carrying bluegreen dolphin fish caught for their supper. The buzz around the pool was that someone had caught a blue marlin large enough to weigh in. So we waited to see the boat, Daymaker, out of Georgetown, SC come in with her catch.

The winning fish for today was a 10 foot long, 576 pound billfish. The blue shirted Tournament Official boarded the boat for the official measurement before they hoisted the huge fish onto the dock. It was amazing to us to see a fish that large in the real although clearly it was not a record setter. It is the first Blue Marlin I had ever seen – amazing. I am glad that they catch and release the smaller ones so as to not decrease the population in the environment.

Tom and I headed back to our dinghy and enjoyed watching the sky over the boats in our anchorage. The sun sank quickly making a beautiful dramatic contrast with the clouds.

April 28, 2009: Hope Town to Treasure Bay, Abaco, Bahamas

This morning we were lucky to find the Wynonna Malone museum in Hope Town open and we spent a few minutes delving into the history of the local islands. The museum provided information about ship building in the area including a model of a three masted sailing ship built in the 1800s without any power tools. We had seen a memorial to the Loyalist, British sympathizers during the American Revolution, who migrated here in 1785 from Massachusetts bringing ship building skills with them.

There was a video message that gave additional insights into the construction of the lighthouse including the fierce objection of the local wreckers who saw it as an end to their profession on the island. Apparently the building of the lighthouse was one of the stimuli for migration to Key West.

We continued our tour around town and walked out on an ocean access path to watch the ocean. The St James Methodist Church was high above the water there, but had bright yellow shutters to close against bad weather. Several shops were marked “closed for the season”, so we assume the season is the winter. There was a charming playground fenced in by the water front. The focal point was a huge Madera tree gnarled and growing near the ground molded by the wind. It was the climbing tower and high point for a little yellow slide for the children.

We passed the fire department with a big red, modern fire truck. Tom priced a quaint yellow water front two story cottage, Sweet Landings, with flowers growing by the porch. The realty listing was for $1.3M.

We had lunch of grilled grouper and shrimp at Captain Jack’s. It is a little restaurant with a porch overlooking the harbor and was pretty filled at lunch time. Yachties, coming in from the boats in the harbor and docking there, were most of the crowd.

After lunch, we headed out from Hope Town northward to Treasure Bay on the Great Abaco Island. We traveled with the wind which gave us a pretty smooth ride. We anchored out in the harbor here and amongst a handful of sailboats, and took our dinghy to shore. The Treasure Cay Hotel Marina has a great pool and it is a short walk to a beautiful beach. Walking in the deep very soft sand was a workout in and of itself. We saw some kids wind surfing in the late afternoon hours there.

And we have now stumbled onto an exciting event. The Marina here is sponsoring the Bahamas Bill Fish Central Abaco Championship. It is a tournament that will run for the next several days and the docks are all filled with large fishing boats from as far away as Texas and Florida. We saw people interviewing captains on the dock for video cameras and matching tee shirts for competitive teams. The tournament starts tomorrow at dawn... hope the fishermen slip out of the harbor quietly!

April 27, 2009: Hope Town, Abaco, Bahamas

This morning we took our dinghy over to the short pier at the base of the Elbow Reef Lighthouse. Some other boaters as well as the guide book had recommended this as a must-do activity. The red and white horizontally striped, lighthouse is 146 years old and perched on the peninsula of Elbow Cay facing the Abaco Sea. It is very rare in that it is still manned by a lighthouse keeper. We entered through a double door in the base and climbed up the spiral staircase to the top, 101 steps. The light house is 120 feet above sea level and 89 feet tall.

We were fascinated that the lighthouse, as most along the east coast used to be, is lighted by a kerosene lantern with a wick that you light manually. It is very similar to a camping lantern except that it is larger and also magnified by huge Fresnel bull’s eye lenses. Each panel was probably three feet across and mounted on a rotating chassis. Tom and I were familiar with the story of the Confederacy removing the Fresnel lenses from the Hatteras Lighthouse during the civil war to darken the lighthouse and prevent something of that value falling into the hands of the Union. There was a speaker at a Kiwanis club meeting who had researched the history of that lens and Tom is the proud owner of a book on the subject. The lighthouse keeper lights the wick and winds the rotating mechanism every 2 hours between 8:00 pm and dawn. There is a pattern in the shades so that we could see five bright flashes as the lenses completed a rotation every 15 seconds. The light can be seen for 17 miles out at sea.

From the parapet of the lighthouse you could see the harbor, the cottages of the island and across to the ocean, a magnificent view. The harbor was full of boats on mooring balls including our own.

There was an Abaco dinghy on display which had been built here. It was propelled with an 11 foot sculling oar or sailed in favorable winds. Getting back into our dinghy we spied a conch shell thrown under the dock. It was glistening pink and calling to us, so Tom gallantly worked with the oar to retrieve it.

Dinghying across the harbor, we also briefly walked around Hope Town, two parallel streets each about 8 feet wide separated by pretty little beach houses in the Caribbean style colors. There was an occasional alley cutting between the roads, sometimes steps down. We found the St James Methodist church where we had heard the bells chiming out a hymn at 6 PM last night as we entered the harbor. I loved hearing the tones wafting across the water.

This afternoon we took our bikes back to shore and unloaded them on the government dock. We were amazed at how low the tide was hence how tall the pier was from the water level. It was an adventure just getting the bikes up the ladder. There were three boys there fishing the way I like to – constantly catching fish and letting them go. They said they came to Hope Town every summer, sort of like Montreat or Emerald Isle for us.

Then we rode the length of the island which turned out to be about 4 ½ miles up and down hills and through the gusty wind. Inevitably, if there was a turn in the road, it was at the bottom of a hill with sand across the asphalt. Our skinny tires make a unsettling whirring sound in sand. Thanks to the last hurricane, much of the road had been recently resurfaced. There were majestic sweeping views of the angry Atlantic on the ride. We finally reached the other end of Elbow Cay to see the famous Tahiti Beach. The tide was out and the water is low, so the beach looked like the Sahara desert. We hiked around the edge to the ocean and back and it was interesting to see the wave patterns marked in the sand from before the tide went out. I found another sea urchin.

The Abaco Inn was on our path and we stopped and made reservations for dinner including a van ride from the government pier. The woman who picked us up as 7:00 was a local. So local, in fact, that she grew up the daughter to the light house keeper, one of 10 children. She said her Dad made the kids set an alarm and every two hours two of them took the turn to climb the stairs and wind up the light. She said they never left the island during hurricanes even though she acknowledged that a lot of damage was done. She and most of her siblings now run the Inn and she was also our waitress. We sat on the porch (windows closed) facing the ocean watching the massive white capped waves pound the shore. Dinner was delicious and the end of a very unique day.

April 26, 2009 Sunday: Marsh Harbour to Hope Town, Abaco, Bahams

The Bahamian, American and Canadian flags were standing out straight as we walked up the dock this morning. The dock master suggested that Carolyn in the office might know where the church was, so biked to the office to check with her on the location of Aldersgate Methodist Church which we had seen online. (http://www.wesleycollegebahamas.com/aldersgate_methodist_church) She actually knew where it was! So with her directions we rode through Marsh Harbour out Don McKay Boulevard to the edge of town. It seems that Marsh Harbour is really a distribution depot from the Abacos. In this tiny town, we passed four huge hardware/ plumbing/ auto parts kind of stores. There was an ACE hardware, a True Value and a couple of unknown brands.

We arrived at Aldersgate at about 10:30 am for the 11:00 morning worship service. So here was a real Bahamian experience – the parking lot was empty. So we parked our bikes and sat on the steps for a while wondering if perhaps the church did not meet every Sunday. So we read some scripture from John 1 and from Genesis 1. It is amazing how vivid the creation story is after living on a boat in seclusion for a week. And we sang the hymn “To God Be the Glory, Great Things He Hath Done”; still no one. We were discussing how long we should wait when at about 10:55, a white truck pulled in and parked. A lovely black lady came up, unlocked the church and welcomed us in, and began to play the electric organ.

The high peaked ceiling of the sanctuary was natural wooden paneling channeling your eye to a large cross in yellow and blue stained glass at the front. The wooden pews were padded in blue green fabric and we sat down and opened the hymn book. It was an old edition with the words to the hymns printed but without the musical notes and staff. This building was built and dedicated in 1988 although the Methodist have been active in Marsh Harbour since 1845.

So at 11:00 am there were three of us in the sanctuary- but the swelling hymn music was heartening. Several others slipped in and at 11:10 a woman came in who walked to the pulpit and called us to worship. Two of the congregation came forward and led us in some sweet praise songs and members read the Bible from their seats as called for. The message for the day was the hallelujah that Christ has risen from the dead and appeared to many of his followers in the weeks after Easter (Luke 24: 30-35). We enjoyed being with God’s people so purely there to worship Him. By the final greeting time, there were perhaps 15 present and accounted for.

After church we went back to the boat for lunch and a little more internet time before casting off to head across the Abaco Sea to Elbow Cay for the night. We could see the Hope Town light house as we crossed, and with our depth finder barely edging over our keel depth on the bottom, we entered the harbor at Hope Town. The harbor here is filled with pastel houses with ornate porches overlooking the water. Currently we are sharing the harbor with two dozen sailboats all on mooring balls.


The candy striped lighthouse was built in 1863 and is one of the three hand wound kerosene burning lighthouses left in the world. Tonight at 8:00 pm we saw the lantern lit from a distance and tomorrow we plan to see it up close.