2011.01.24 Hope Town!!!

WOW… swinging from a hook…I had forgotten the feeling!!!!

Here we are our first night in Hope Town and although we have not been ashore yet, we are thoroughly enjoying the magic of swinging from a hook with the light house flashing around astern of us.

We are sitting in the cockpit enjoying fresh mint tea ( I knew I was not growing this mint for Mojitos since we do not have any Tequila on board!),  everyone in the harbour has gone to sleep it seems, Capt’ Jack’s bingo night is over but we have been chatting over supper and a bottle of wine by the light of our little oil lamp and listening to “Sleepless in Seattle” and “Space cowboys” (thanks Sharon).

Johnny's Cay...

Do I see the light house?

We left Marsh Harbour this morning and had an easy motor (no sailing…wind on the nose!) over here...picked up one of Rudy’s moorings first shot, I was afraid we’d lost our touch with all this marina nonsense!

Tomorrow I want to do one thing and one thing only …THE BEACH… I still love the beach in Hope Town more than any other in the Abacos,,, can’t say for the Exumas yet.

Then we may go over to see Vernon and Bobbie and maybe buy a pie.

The back yard

We launched the dink but have not explored the harbour yet but we do know that “Sea Echo” is right astern of us and “Orient Express” and other friends boats are around us…we are happy to be tucked in as we are expecting another big blow on Wednesday but then the skipper tells me it is good for the rest of the week. The weather has really been quite unsettled the last couple of years but we are not complaining.

We miss our friends from Green Turtle Cay and hope that they will get over here soon.

Good night.

2011.01.25

Well we did not get to the beach yet…the tide was too high, so we walked around town, rediscovered all our favourite places and people….. We saw Margaret (The Chopping Block) and made an appointment for David to have his hair cut, finally…he had been saving himself for Margaret! We then dropped by Vernon’s who was looking just fine and had a nice chat…the streets seem a little emptier than usual,  I guess they are hurting here as well. Rolf and Susan came by in their gig, it was just great seeing them again

Which sweet lady puts out this lovely sweet water....am I a humming bird...too large....  not sure....

Find  Soli (not Waldo!!!)

Even the weeds (sorry landscaping ) is colour coordinated

Bougainvillia?

Nice addition to the neibourhood....don't you think?

Karen and Steve (Sea Echo) had invited us for drinks (I know I know…it seems like that’s all we do eat and drink!) and we caught up with their news, they also drove across Canada this past summer, it was fun comparing notes.

We had another huge rain storm but not as high winds as had been expected …

2011.01.26

I spent a good part of this morning on Skype…it is working quite well this year with Bahamas Wimax. Spoke to my Dad, Wendy, Danielle and Marilyn and of course David had his daily dose of Veronica, she is doing very well.

David went to see Margaret and got a gorgeous haircut…chatting with the ladies, Susan was having her hair done….no wonder he did not want to go to the barber in Green Turtle Cay!!!!

David with new haircut!

First beach walk....

Do we read this right...she was 17 and a wife and mother...how sad!

Although I pride myself on being a thoroughly modern Millie, modern technology still blows me away…as I said I was talking to Wendy on Skype and she was telling me about a winter coat (a what?) that she wanted to order from Land’s End, of course I was immediately on their site and here we were shopping around comparing 2 coats, she then called them on conference call (with me still on Skype) …so here I was floating around Hope Town harbour, part of a conversation about selecting a coat as I was flipping between 2 pages comparing the merits of pockets and thickness of down!  Totally amazing!

After lunch we did finally go for our beach walk and David started perusing the “wrack” for his yearly lucky sea bean…none to be found, nor any sea glass for that matter.

We met a lady who had adopted a “potcake” , a local breed of dogs, pretty much Heinz 57,  very smart and this little bitch was very sweet, she started to dig a hole in the sand and probably dug herself in a couple of feet deep, looking for a crab, we were told, she had already dug up and eaten 5 today….I thought she should give them to her mistress who could make potcake crab cakes (I know that was not funny but I could not help myself!)

We then ran into Susan and Rudder…who asked us to lunch tomorrow (Susan did, Rudder just wagged his tail and licked my hand)…that’s about it folks, we are back on board, the skipper is happily snoring in the cockpit getting his strength to grill a little jerk chicken for our supper. I must wake him up soon ‘tis happy hour !

Tony, this one is for you.... what is it?