Ft. Lauderdale – Friday, May 20th to Friday May 27th, 2011

Back in the US(S)A…boys, you don’t know how lucky you are boys…

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale Friday afternoon after a smooth and warm cruise from Bimini.  On the way, we actually saw a “baby” funnel cloud about 2 miles off in the distance!  Otherwise, the trip was uneventful, until we got closer to the Ft. Lauderdale inlet.  It was a typical Friday afternoon in Lauderdale, with fishing boats, cargo ships and the usual radio banter.  I guess you know you’re back in the US when both radio and boat traffic is “back to normal”!

We have been on our mooring at Las Olas City Marina for a few days now.  We have already put our dinghy to get brand new tubes!  Very exciting, since it will be “like new”, even after falling in the water upside down.  We expect to get it back on Friday.

We also got our bimini repaired.  When we were in Man-o-War, we had a brief but fierce squall with wind speed over 35 knots!  We had to re-anchor our boat, and in the storm, our bimini got shredded.  We tried to get it fixed in the Abaco, but given our schedule (and the much higher price) we decided to bring it here for the repair.  We already have it back and mounted, so it is very nice to have some shade on the top deck! 

 We have been enjoying the Ft. Lauderdale scene; people watching on the beautiful beach (lots of college kids), eating in restaurants, doing laundry, and generally hanging out.  Weather has been absolutely wonderful, although it is VERY hot here!  Most days it is well in the upper 80’s, but we generally get a nice breeze in the mooring field. 

We saw our good friends Karen and Dave for dinner on Monday night.  We had a great time, and even though we hadn’t seen each other for five years – we saw them the last time we were in Ft. Lauderdale when we bought Auriga in 2006- it seemed like it was just yesterday!  We are also seeing Rolf tonight for dinner, to say thanks again for helping us out with our dinghy purchase back in March. 

Tomorrow, Friday, we have a busy day.  We will get our renewed dinghy back, and then we will get stocked up at the grocery for our journey back.  On Saturday, we will head out to Stuart, then keep moving north home. 

Yesterday, we left our mooring briefly to fuel up with diesel for the return journey.  They have a fuel barge here in Lauderdale, just like the one in New Bedford where we fueled up at the beginning of our journey.  Whereas in New Bedford, the barge ties up to us and we “float” around the harbor as we refuel, here in Lauderdale, since the river is a bit less deep than New Bedford (10 ft vs about 30!), the fuel barge has “spud poles” which it lowers into the mud at the bottom of the river to hold it in place.  Chris did an amazing docking onto the barge, and we took on about 500 gallons of diesel.  Once we were done, we came back and picked up our mooring again. 

I won’t get too philosophical about our adventure, since it is really not quite the end yet.  Suffice to say, we are feeling a bit sad about not being in the beautiful Bahamas, but also pleased to be closer to home.  We have been listening to the news every day, and while we didn’t get much news when we were in the Bahamas, nothing much seems too different.  The government is still almost running out of money, we are still in a mess in the Middle East, and the economy is still not great.  The biggest news is that Oprah is going to retire, but we don’t feel very strongly about that!!

Hope Town, Snake Cay & Lynyard Cay, Abaco, May 13 to May 17, 2011

We moved the boat from our anchorage at Man-O-War Cay to the very sheltered harbor at Hope Town.  At Hope Town, there is a fully functional original lighthouse that was built over 100 years ago.  The light functions with an original mechanism which has to be primed and lit each evening by the lighthouse keeper.  The view from the top of the lighthouse (after climbing over 100 steps!!) was pretty spectacular.

Hope Town Lighthouse

View from the top

After the weekend in Hope Town, we moved on to Snake Cay.  We anchored there for a couple of days and went into the creek behind the cay to explore.  We did see a few turtles, rays, and a few fishermen!!

Hope Town Breadfruit Tree

We also went to the coral gardens off of Sandy Cay to snorkel.  It was almost as good as the Exumas!!  We saw many stag coral heads, which were enormous and really looked just like antlers.  We also saw a very large grouper – over 6 feet long- a giant angelfish, and two eagle rays that were over 10 feet long with their tails!

After anchoring at Lynyard Cay, we took the dinghy to the famous Pete’s Pub in Little Harbor.  There is a foundry there where the artists make bronze sculptures using the “lost wax” method.  In any case, we didn’t get a tour, but checked out the shop, had a couple of drinks in the beachside bar, and took a long walk on the beach.

Tomorrow, we will set off on our return voyage to Ft. Lauderdale.  We will post our final blog once we get there. 

Great Guana Cay, the Sea of Abaco, Sunday, May 8th

The weather here has been tremendous, with warm sunny days and NO WIND!! We have stayed anchored at Man-O-War Cay, and are using our (actually working quite well) big dinghy to visit the cays around us.

Yesterday we went to Great Guana Cay, home of the famous Nippers bar and Sunday pig roast!  We had a flat run of about 7 miles to the island, and docked our dinghy with the famous Bahamian stern anchor. 

Road sign showing the way to Nippers

World Famous Nippers Beachside Bar

We walked through the village (quite small, only one street on the harbor!) and up to Nippers.  We had a drink, went for a swim, and a walk on the beautiful beach.  We passed a group of beach walkers, and Chris swears one of them was Warren Buffett (wearing a Berkshire T-shirt!!)!! Seeing Warren is not quite as good as seeing Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell in George Town (way to go Dirk!), and we didn’t get a picture, but we are quite sure it was him!!

Chris having a drink at Nippers...

We left Nippers, and walked to the other great attraction on the island, Grabbers Bar at the marina.  We had another drink there, and listed to the great “rake and scrape” band.  As you can see, they actually “play” the saw (from Ace Hardware) with a rather large fishing knife!!  Good advertising for Ace Hardware!!

Chris having a drink at Grabbers... (do you sense a theme?)

Rake & Scrape....note the saw from Ace Hardware!!

Way too many rum drinks!!

Anyway, we had another easy ride back to the boat on the dinghy, with the sea very flat and smooth.    Later in the evening, during low tide, we went for another dinghy ride in the small dinghy (wow! We have so many toys!!), and collected several sea biscuits from the shallow waters.  They are so unbelievably perfect; they almost look like someone made them!  We are going to bleach them and bring them home with us. 

Today we are going to take the dinghy to Hope Town, which is on Elbow Cay to our southeast.  We will likely move Auriga further south to Lynyard Cay toward the end of the week. 

Abaco - May 3 to 7, 2011

We arrived into the Sea of Abaco on Tuesday afternoon, after a rolly and not so comfortable cruise from Spanish Wells.  We left Nassau on Monday morning and cruised to Spanish Wells at the Northern tip of Eleuthera.  We have been there before, on one of Bandit’s moorings, almost 10 weeks ago, and that is where we met Dirk and Nancy and Dan and Ruth.  We went into town for dinner, and bought some fish.  We reminisced about the last time we were here, which was at the beginning of our adventure.  Now, we are slowly making our way back home.

We anchored in the Sea of Abaco just south of Man-O-War Cay.  The Sea of Abaco is a body of water that is surrounded by a number of Cays to the north, and the Great Abaco Island to the south.  It is almost like a lake, and is quite calm.  We plan on staying here for a week or so, and visiting the surrounding cays and villages with the dinghy.  We also are planning to do some snorkeling and fishing!!  We will then move South to visit Little Harbor in the main island, before starting our trek back to Florida.

Tomorrow we are going to Guana Cay, to Nippers Bar, where they have a famous pig roast every Sunday.  We will begin the day with a call to Mom, and wish here a very happy Mothers Day!!

We don’t have any photos, but will work on the over the next few days.

Nassau, April 30 to May 2 2011

We finally left George Town on Friday morning, and traveled north toward Hawksbill Cay.  We had a long cruise, almost 10 hours, but it was lovely weather, and we had a very calm and uneventful passage.  On the way, we spoke with many of our Selene friends who were moving around the Exumas, including Wayne and Sharon on My Sharona, John and Kathy on Mystic Moon, and Uncle Luc on Innu.  We said good-bye as we are all slowly moving North to our respective destinations either in the North of the Bahamas or Florida.

We also had a little visitor on this run, a lovely little bird who decided that our boat looked enough like an island to take a rest on his migration route.  He stayed with us for almost an hour!  We also saw four dolphins! They came right up to the boat and swam in our bow wave for several minutes!  

Our little stowaway!

After a nice swim on the beach at Hawksbill, our night started out very quiet, but the anchorage got very uncomfortable after midnight as the wind and the tide were in opposing directions.  We rolled around a lot, and woke up at about 5:30 am and decided to hit the road!

We arrived in Nassau at about noon after another nice cruise.  We entered Nassau Harbor, and Chris docked the boat with amazing grace and precision!  Even the dock master was impressed!!

We had dinner Saturday night at Café Matisse, which is with no exaggeration, the best restaurant in Nassau!  We had a lovely table in the courtyard, and a fabulous meal.  The scene at this restaurant did not disappoint, as the place was hopping with the “beautiful people”.  We’ll come back again!!

We spent a couple of days in Nassau, cleaning the boat (which it sorely needed), charging up batteries (which it sorely needed) and some walking around to take in the sights and shopping in Nassau…a very welcome and good interlude.

We went to find some of our old haunts from the last few times we were in Nassau.  We had a drink in the beautiful British Colonial Hotel.  We found the Dunkin Donuts that Alex used to have breakfast every morning when we were here 24 years ago!  Alas, though, the wonderful British pub, The Green Shutters has been converted to an Indian restaurant, the Taj Mahal!  

Alex's Dunkin Donuts!

The sign is still there...

But a British Pub no longer...!!

Today, we are planning to head out to Spanish Wells.  We hope to get a mooring in Bandit’s mooring field, before heading out to the Abaco tomorrow.