What's Happenin' in Hope Town

Hi again. We're still here in Hope Town in the Abacos. Have met dozens of great people on land and in boats and gotten involved in a bunch of things happening on shore. So unlike previous years where we kept moving, we've stayed put. A huge advantage here is the very pretty and protected harbor. Many cruisers pay for a mooring ball for a month, or for the season, and then come and go on short trips elsewhere when the weather is favorable.

So, as usual - lots of photos!  In this photo taken from high above the earth, the Bahamas is easily distinguished by the very shallow pale blue or white of the water around the scattered islands. The dark blue of the surrounding ocean is sometimes three miles deep, but the water around the Bahamian islands is typically between just a few feet to about 20 feet deep. We are where the little red circle is drawn, in the Abacos at the norther end of the Bahamas. Florida is on the left side of the photo and Cuba is at the bottom. From the westernmost islands of the Abacos to the Florida coast is only about 75 miles.

The shallow water of the Bahamas has always been dangerous to vessels. Many hundreds of wrecks have occurred here because of the numerous reefs and narrow channels. So about a dozen lighthouses were constructed, one of which is called Elbow Cay Light Station in Hope Town. This lighthouse is famous among the more than 16,000 lighthouses around the world as being the last kerosene-lit, manually operated lighthouse in the world. The keeper must climb up to the top to light it at sunset and then climb the tower again every 1.5 to 2 hours to hand-wind the device that turns the light.

On a sort-of related note, I've been painting quite a bit, sometimes with a group painters here in Hope Town. Once a year they put on an exhibit to raise money for the local school. I submitted three watercolors and the most popular one is on left below - the lighthouse with an Abaco dinghy sailing past it. The exhibit was a big success, making over $5,000 for the local school.

 

Every week the Hope Town Sailing Club holds dinghy races, which are very popular. There are several classes of dinghies and the Club includes Sunfish, like the ones below.

A propos nothing, this is my obligatory sunset scene for this post....

We have lots of friends, old and new in the harbor. One couple we met recently - Janet and Mike - are from Austin TX. They are cruisers, but just purchased a tiny cottage in Hope Town. It's a total fixer-upper called Pineapple Cottage. They plan to do a lot of the work themselves and it will be awesome when they get it done!

One very calm day we joined Janet and Mike for lunch, taking the two dinghies about 3 miles along the coast to a restaurant called Firefly. Firefly has a snorkeling platform and very shallow water with a man-made "reef".

 
The Abacos, and Hope Town especially, has beautiful flowering vegetation and lots of birds - it's very different from the Bahamian islands further south, which are generally dry and pretty barren. Because it's so much more hospitable here to settle, many people have bought and renovated homes at Elbow Cay to live here part-time or even full time. And tourism is booming, with a relatively new Hope Town Inn and Marina which is expanding to include more cottages, like the one below,  to buy or rent.

This is part of Hope Town Lodge, where we go three times a week to do water aerobics in their pool.

The settlement wraps around the harbor, with many pretty little laneways and walking streets. People use bikes and golf carts to get around, but all of it is very walkable. In fact, golf carts are not allowed in the center of Hope Town.

 Gorgeous bougainvillea in so many colors!

 And lots of trees, shrubs and other flowering vines that I don't know the names of...

Unfortunately there is expansion on the outskirts of the settlement that is shockingly different from the little cottages and homes in Hope Town. One family is building two homes at the north end of the island that are thousands of square feet each. The same family plans to make a huge resort at the south end of Elbow Cay.

Anyway, for now it's still just a small community trying to keep its head above water by supporting the schools, the lighthouse, the community center, the library, the church choir and other parts of the community by lots and lots of volunteerism and fund-raising. I joined a group of sewers who are making wine bags to sell at the lighthouse gift shop. Here we are at Betty's house, which we refer to as the local sweatshop :-). A few people here have sewing machines and right now they're all at Betty's...

I took the photo below on a day the tanker delivered fuel to the marina.  It was amazing to see the captain turn this immense vessel around in the little harbor to come alongside the marina dock.  That rusty anchor on the bow is one of two and each weighs 1,500 pounds.

Near our boat is another sailboat from Annapolis and we realized one day that there was a little rubber duck floating behind it. We thought it had fallen from the boat and went to retrieve it. But it's attached with fishing line.  The couple on the boat call it their Guard Duck.

We had a big storm recently and the boat that delivers goods to the two little stores here missed a delivery. We kept going back but every day the shelves were even more empty than before. Then finally the delivery boat showed up in the harbor and everyone made a mad dash to the store. Look what we got!! We felt absolutely rich - grapes, squash, red pepper, an avocado, mushrooms and even - good lord - STRAWBERRIES AND BLUEBERRIES!!!! Amazing!!

Lastly, here are a few more pretty laneways and houses in Hope Town. We will probably be here another week or two, waiting for a good weather window to start the long trip home with Neverland. Not sure if I'll have a chance to post anything else, but thanks for coming along on this trip!