Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abacos

Yesterday, the last day of March we dropped the docklines in Marsh Harbor and started our 7 mile journey to Hope Town. This is a stop everyone says you can't miss.  It was a short trip and unfortunately the wind was directly on the bow making us unable to sail. We had to enter the harbor before high tide. the deep draft route is rather convoluted, heading you to shore south of the entrance with the lighthouse as a marker. Then you turn 90' to port and follow the coastline to the very narrow entrance. We entered 1 hour before high tide and saw 1.8' under us so that was not too bad. We followed our friends on s/v Ceili since this was their 4th trip into hope town. We picked up a first come first serve mooring and went ashore for lunch and a stroll around. This is a really lovely little town with pastel painted houses and lots of flowers blooming.

Another "Lover's Lane"

 The lighthouse is a famous landmark since it is 1 of 3 lighthouses left that are gas powered and lit each night by the keeper. The view from the stern of our boat is just beautiful!

This morning we went ashore and did a self tour of the lighthouse. It was only about 100 steps to the top. Once there you had to go through a small half doorway to get outside. The view from the observation deck was stunning. We never get tired of the color of the water here.


We had to crawl through this to get outside

Looking up inside the lighthouse.
Like the inside of a conch shell

Looking North

Looking East
Kinvara second boat from the left

Looking South

Part of the lens

The clock mechanism for the kerosene fired
light

 In the afternoon we split a golf cart rental with Bill and Linda,  just $50 for 24 hours, and we drove to the end of Elbow Cay to have a picnic on Tahiti Beach (no shells though) and stopped halfway back at Fireflies, a beach resort, restaurant, and bar.  After returning to the boat we decided to relax, read, and blog before dinner.


almost high tide





Just a man and his dog...
sailing home