Man -O- War Cay and Hope Town -December 24, 2008

Merry Christmas to Everyone,
Actually, I’m writing this on New Year’s Eve. 2009 as a continuation from Dec. 24, 2008

Marsh Harbor, the cay I wrote about some earlier, had a Christmas celebration in their town. It reminded me of the Franklin County Fair but without rides. There were multiple booths of church women and men hawking dinners of rice and beans, chicken, conch fritters, Key Lime pie and all sorts of ribs and other goodies, as well as booths selling trinkets made or brought by people on the idea of a tag sale. The most fun was the entertainment. I have a quick movie clip of the fine stepping, dancing and marching of the Royal Bahamas Marching Band. They looked and sounded magnificent! Young, handsome men and a few women wearing starched, immaculate white cotton uniforms with forest green sashes with gold trim, were playing their band instruments, led by a serious male majorette. Many of the songs included drums and rhythmic marching in formation. In addition to the white uniform the drummers wore waist length cowls of fake animal skin, reminiscent of the African tribal leaders.
Another part of the Christmas at Marsh Harbor was the decorating of the boats in the harbor and a night parade of the carefully decorated entries. There were seven motor boats that may be fishing skiffs in the day, decked out with lit Christmas lights, making a fun evening with lots of cheering, yelling and clapping as they drove by our cruising yachts in the harbor.

But all of this happened a few days before Christmas.
We currently are unable to access the internet we were able to get in Marsh Harbor, so I’m writing this in hopes to send it soon.

My last post was from Great Guana Cay a few days ago. We stayed at Guana for two nights, sampling the restaurants and enjoying the beach walking on the Atlantic side with Windsong, from Windsor, Canada. We were snug in the Fisher’s Bay anchorage and by avoiding putting the anchor directly on grass, we were fine. After meeting with another boat at Orchard Bay Marina, we decided to move on to Man-O-War Cay. We were hoping to anchor, but both entries to Man-O-War are filled with moorings, leaving little or no anchorage. We took a mooring and went ashore for a walk through this pretty Cay. The Cay is small, and from the harbor we could walk the harbor road, containing the small boat yard and a few grocery stops, ice cream shop, and the Albury boat design and sales yards and sail shop/canvas store. Dan was really taken with the looks and quality of the small specialized fishing skiffs made at Man-O-War. We thought what great fishing boats, but what an incredible dinghy the 27 footer would make!

The people of the Cay take fastidious care of their property. The homes were cared for and neat with amazing flowers and shrubs. The greenery looks so unexpectedly healthy and lush with gardening seeming difficult to do on a small, relatively flat and sandy Cay of limestone rock having fresh water limitations. I was telling Dan that the broad leaved shrubs and plants were what Walmart sells to college students for their dorm rooms, only much bigger.

Our next one night stop was at Hope Town Harbor. Again the anchorage was filled with moorings, free anchoring not allowed, so we picked one up, got in the dinghy and explored the famous Hope Town lighthouse- a working lighthouse lit by kerosene. I read in our guidebook, only three kerosene lit light houses remain working; all others replaced by electric or other means. We climbed the 100 circular, winding steps and enjoyed a great view of the entire cay, its approaches and directions, from each level as we climbed. We were even able to crawl out onto a roof ledge and go around the house.