Hope Town Arrival - Finally!!!!

Today we motored from Marsh Harbour to Hope Town - our original, final destination...
The trip was fine, except that we had to get up for high tide at 7:50 am (left at 7am to get to Hope Town at high). The difficulty is that the water at the entrance to hope town is very shallow (5ft) and we haven't been in with Wind-Lass before. We followed the routes for the deepest water and found that at anything but low tide, we should be able to get in.

The shallowest water is between the Parrot Cays and Hope Town - I mention the Parrot Cays since our good friends Maggie and Charlie stayed there many years ago when they were first together. Charlie tells the story of a cottage and a friendly landlord that basically let them have the run of the place...

Upon arrival in Hope Town, we grabbed a Hope Town Marina mooring - we knew which one they were form our friend Doug and Betsy on Surfsong - whom we met last year when we chartered out of Hope Town. Then came the ominous dingy to the marina office to straighten out our lost mooring contract. The proprietor, Rudy, was very nice, apologized for his brothers booking a mooring he didn't have and explaining that he was full. The best we could do was sit on a mooring while his other boats were out and hope someone canceled. At least he honored our deposit from last year!

So we have no home base, but Roger is easing into the nice cruising life here in the Abacos. Marsh Harbour provides a very nice and protected anchorage to use in bad weather, and not in bad weather - well, there are hundreds of beautiful places to go and see!

Since we arrived early we had the whole day. The captain finished his MURI proposal, but alas there are more proposals due in the coming weeks :( Around lunch time the gang dingied in and took a walk around town and bought some groceries. There are two stores on island - Vernan's and Harbour View. Vernan's has fresh bread and a good selection of cheese, Harbour View has a little more variety - just to orient everyone, 7-eleven has 2-4x the amount of stuff this place does! We also found a nice coffee shop and the fresh fish shop.

Later that afternoon the crew split up, the captain taking his kayak, loaded with a beach chair, towel, and book and kayaked around the harbour. He then went ashore (this is very tricky to get out of a kayak in the water and climb a ladder at a pier!!) to find some fish. Fresh snapper and grouper ($13/lb) and fresh lobster tail ($16/lb). he bought a few pounds of grouper and then paddled back to the boad - while loading he realized that he was a bit slower than the go-fast boats, as they waited not so patiently for him to get out of the way - they were hoping though, that he would fall in!

In the meantime, Ginny and Roger went for a long walk in town. The captain went back ashore and to the beach, which is just 1 block from the harbour, to sit and read his book.

The crew assembled at Capt'n Jack's for happy hour - very nice and low key, booze is cheap for the islands. Then back to the boat ( a little shnockered ) and the captain made fried rice and indian-spiced, sauteed grouper.