Crown Haven via car

Yesterday we rented a car and drove up to the northern tip of Little Abaco. There were less interesting places to see along the way which was a bit of a let down. Up north of Treasure Cay there are a few towns but it seems that people are not as well off as they are down south. There are actually some ports on the main island North of Marsh Harbour and we visited them by car since they are not large enough to accomodate Freedom.
There are a couple of shanty towns and people are less friendly looking than they are down south. But we went to Marsh Harbour and restocked on food and ran into some folks we'd met and had a good time with them over lunch.
The internet connection has been severed from the marina here so this connection I have has no Skype ability and it is very slow. We heard something about upgrades being performed so perhaps this will be restored shortly. We've seen some trucks around all weekend.

Yo Ray? What're you doing out here?

Today we took an early dink ride before the tide went out and the sun got too hot. Along the west shore south of Treasure Cay there are some small bays, etc. that you can go into with a dink. The first one we went into had a strong tidal current running out and smack in the middle of it was a group of Rays. If you click on it you may be able to see their spots.

Along with the Rays we saw schools of fish, snapper, angles, grunts, rass's, and at one point, a young hammer head shark.

Quite the nature trail this morning.

Dinkin' round Don't Rock

Today provided us with some photos that made it difficult to choose which one I'd imbed. So instead of going for lots of content I went with this one. Every where we went in the dink today it was like we were suspended in a perfectly maintained pool of crystal clear fresh water. This particular image is looking South East towards the Southern tip of Whale Cay with Guana Cay off in the distance.

The dink ride today took us out to Sand Bank Cay where we did some shelling. This was a great stop and just south of the rumb line around the Don't Rock passage. In fact several center consoles zipped by while we were walking around on the Cay. But Freedom will never see this route going back North. While high tide might provide safe passage, I'm thinking no way. It's too risky. We saw a catamaran hung up using the route on the lee of Whale Cay when we got out there. They were smart enough to try it on a rising tide and so it was not long before they were under way again. Given the conditions at the Whale I wonder why they bothered to cut it short and use the inside route. I hope we have conditions like this when we come back around the Whale.

So we spent some time at Whale Cay and it was great but we could not find a path to the Atlantic side. Perhaps another day. From here we went over to Don't Rock and this shot was taken as we left Whale Cay. After having a look at the rock in the middle of no where, we shot back to the marina and took a dive in the pool.

Life's tough. Hope it stays that way. Don't Rock is the first image, and the second is the shot of leaving Whale Cay.

Back To Treasure Cay from Orchid

We spent Saturday on Guana Cay at Grabber's and enjoyed a local band. For three pieces, one of which was a saw, they did a great job. They almost got me up to dance. Don't tell Deb ok?

While we were at Grabber's we had lunch and it was one of the best we recall having on the whole trip. It could be we had a few frozen drinks along the way therse inffecting our jurdgement but I think not. The lunch was really that good. Seared tuna and a blackened grouper burger. The price was right and we had free entertainment to go with it!

The other photo is different story.

We have satellite tv on the boat and it's been fine until we got to Marsh Harbour at the Harbour view marina. That was where the reception started to act up. We pulled in and as part of settling in I went to align the dish. It refused to get signal. I looked over the dish and saw that a sailboat mast was perfectly lined up with the dish (from my weary eye's point of view). When I moved the boat forward a couple of feet by adjusting the lines the problem was gone so I figured that I had it shot.

When we crossed over to Treasure Cay from Marsh Harbour and went through the alignment the process once more it was a royal pita to align the dish and it would wink out every once in a while when the boat was still. But it was not bad and we had heard rumors of satellite reconfiguration affecting reception.

Over at Orchid bay where the docks are subject to surge from the Sea of Abaco and ferry wakes, the reception was bad. No news in the morning. And Gawd forbid no Nascar in the afternoon. Given it was so rough we ignored it.

And then we came back to Treasure Cay today and the dish refused to connect with the satellites. Looking at the photos one might conclude that the connection had soured.

That would be correct.

I suspect it was due to the rough ride we had going into Little Harbour. I kid you not, we had a mess of spray all over the boat when that ride was a done deal. Some of it found its way into that connector as well.

Fortunately I had spare connectors and my coax tools. Nascar is back online, Biffle has been dismissed and Stuart is well, holding his own.

Barefoot Man concert at Nipper's

The water on the way over to Orchid from Treasure was choppy but Freedom handled it very well. In fact since we had not opened her up in quite a while we took her up to 14 knots for about a 1/2 hour. Heck it probably scrubbed a mess of growth off her bottom. Now all I have left is the trim tabs which remain quite furry.

Once here we realized that time was of the essence and that Nipper's was calling. Over at Orchid bay we could hear people cheering and we could sense the show was about to start so we hustled off the boat and up to Nippers.

It was definitely worth while in a frivolous sense. Is that an oxymoron? We don't care. We all laughed quite a bit and really enjoyed the show. The man has a good sense of humor and has many parody style songs that all have a punch line. Since there was no cover charge we considered the day well spent even tho, well, we did nothing. Fun none the less!

And yes, he also has a problem identifying Alice.

Treasure Cay Beach and Orchid Bay

The Barefoot Man is having a concert at Nipper's. It's perhaps a 10 mile trip across the sea of Abaco from Treasure cay so hopefully this goes smoothly.

While we've been here, we've walked the entire leght of the beach and this photo is of the other end of the beach. The marina is behind that other end. Along the walk a couple of fun things happened.

We paused to look out towards Whale Cay for a couple of minutes and towards the end of the gaze a spotted eagle ray jumped clear of the water right in front of us! It was about 10 yards off shore but right in front of us. Deb must have thought it was going to land on her. Next and a little further on we saw a couple of small turtles swimming in the small waves. So in spite of the fact that there were no shells to be found we had some interesting breaks along the walk.

Marsh Harbour To Treasure Cay

Today we moved her up north a bit to Treasure Cay. As you can see from the photo the water looks choppy. The wind was blowing a sustained 25 knots and occassionally it hit 35. Since it was out of the SSW it amounted to a quartering following sea thus the ride was about as smooth as it could have been under the circumstances.
It was only two feet of chop but it had a short wave period so we popped quite a bit of spray up onto the bow. It hit the bridge enclosure a couple of times but over all the ride went well and we are now in the Treasure Cay marina where we intend to stay for a month to capitalize on the reduced long term rates. GPS data updated.