When’s the last time you drove 60 miles? Wasn’t too bad, was it? As it turns out that’s how far it is from West Palm Beach Inlet to the west tip of Grand Bahama, one of the larger islands at the north end of the Bahamas. With any luck at all we’ll be making that trip around the end of this year; taking a side trip to the Bahamas as we go around the Loop. I’ve been to the Exumas but had never been to the Abacos, which are just east of Grand Bahama, so in early March we hopped on a plane and flew over there to check it out. I knew it was a popular boating destination but I wanted to see for myself what was there, check out some marinas, find out what amenities and things like fuel availability looked like. And to see how it was recovering after being wiped clean by Hurriicane Dorian only 6 years ago. The island is maybe 60% put back together, every building on the island is less than six years old, including our AirBnB. Unfortunately devastation is still apparent everywhere. We got worn out just looking at destruction everywhere. (If you want more about that, google “Marsh Town Hurricane Dorian” on youtube. Wow.) The Bahamians we met, including one who just built a restaurant at waters edge, all were upbeat and seemed to be recovering in good spirits. So while it was a massive tragedy both economically and personally to many, they are past it and moving forward.
Cheryl found us a great AirBnB in Marsh Harbor on Abaco, the largest island. It was on a hill overlooking the bay so we had a great view. We also rented a car, which meant I got to pull out of the airport onto the highway while remembering to stay on the left side! The car was a pretty nice one for a rental in the Bahamas, it was about a 2004 Buick, with only 160,000 miles, with one warning light on all the time, another one that only came on once in a while, and a front end that rattled like a box of spare parts every time we hit a rough spot. Which was all the time as the roads there are simply incomparable to US roads. Rough as h***, all the time. Not to mention narrow. But hey, the AC worked! Driving on the left was no problem, Cheryl only had to yell at me in panic a couple of times when I ended up in oncoming traffic. Another feature of driving there is that there are no maps. No one had a paper road map of the island. Cheryl figured out how to download a google map of the area we were in when we had wifi and use that, or we’d still be driving around looking for our AirBnB. There may not be any maps because there are no street signs, or stop signs. When you come to an intersection whomever is bravest goes first. There is no mail delivery, no pizza delivery, no Amazon. Our host told us how to find our house by giving us GPS coordinates. Next time I guess I should bring my sextant.
Great Abaco is a slender island running mostly north and south, about 120 miles long, with a population of about 17,000. Same as Alcoa, where I live. The biggest town, Marsh Harbor, is around 5-6000 people. That’s it. Pretty small compared to what we’re used to. There is another string of barrier islands maybe 5 miles east of Abaco and inside this protected area is where all the good boating takes place. The water is that stunning Bahamas blue; there are coral heads to snorkel around loaded with fish, rays, turtles, and more fish of every electric color, marinas for fuel and dockage, restaurants, blue holes, caves, white sand beaches, all that great boating stuff. It’s basically a big lake. Once you go outside past those barrier islands is the mighty Atlantic, with huge waves and a deep deep blue color. We won’t be doing that.
We met some folks currently doing the Loop, they had taken a side trip to the Abacos, and in fact were headed back to the states just a few days after we met them. Smooth sailing Kenny and Sherry! We also met some cruisers living on a catamaran who gave us a ride over to the lighthouse one day, and some locals, the folks who own our AirBnB. It was great to meet them all, and we learned something from all of them.
We also shared a lunch table one day with Peter and Sandy. Peter is 85 and Dutch. He told us an interesting story, when he was about 4, living in Holland, a V2 rocket fell short of England and landed and exploded in their backyard. He was totally hairless and said he had been that way since the rocket explosion. How many people do you meet that can tell you a story like that?
Our basic itinerary was simple, one day we drove south, one day we drove north, two days we took a ferry across the bay to Green Turtle Cay and Elbow Cay where we rented a golf cart, two days it was really windy so we had lunch with some boaters we met and drove around, exploring. We hit all the “sights”, the famous bars, beaches, lighthouse, all that. I am amazed at how many youtube videos are out there covering the Abacos, seems like everyone lately has a drone and a youtube channel, so if you are interested you can travel virtually there. I recommend taking a few minutes to do that so you can get the feel of the place. Others have done a far better job than I can describing the islands so I’ll skip it and just show you a bunch of photos. All in all we rated it a successful trip, and are looking forward to being there on our own boat. Which we’re still working on. I just installed AIS, solar is next, then probably Starlink. We’ll pull the boat sometime this spring and make sure the props and everything under the waterline is good to go. The new dingy is still wrapped up in the basement, now that it’s warming up we’ll get that assembled and on the water. There are another half a dozen small projects yet to do, but we’re about to wind up the bigger ones. (Unless I think of another one.)
Only one stop light on the whole island! And it’s tiny. The blue house is where we stayed. The lighthouse is the last and only still operational kerosene powered lighthouse in the world. We hitched a ride with the couple in the dingy. Yes frozen pizza is really that price. The streets are that narrow, so golf carts only please. That glass of the Fresnels of the lighthouse is six inches thick. That assembly weighs tons, yet you could turn it by hand as it floats on oil. Some beaches were gorgeous, some you couldn’t walk on without good shoes.
“The antidote for self-pity is to witness real suffering.”
Awesome
Great pictures!
The sunshine!