January 9 – 13 – persuasion

Marsh Harbour

We had a nice sunrise this morning.

First things first…..take down the Q Flag and raise the Bahamian Courtesy Flag. (In our haste to leave GTC and get across the whale to Marsh Harbour before dark, we forgot to change out the flag after we cleared customs).

We dingied over to the dinghy dock and walked up to the BTC. We discussed phone plans with a young lady. The prices have gone down somewhat from last time we were here. That is due to another company that is their competition. We picked out the best for us but will sure miss the great plan we had in the USA. We made a few quick calls to the kids to give them our new number and then met Joe and Yvonne for lunch. We also met their cruising friends, Ann and Bob who came from Green Turtle Cay with them. We had ribs and a baked potato from the Rib Shack and it sure was yummy. Mike took a photo of us at the picnic bench.

All too soon lunch was over. They had to finish their grocery shopping, drive back to Treasure Cay to return their car rental and catch the ferry back to Green Turtle Cay. We want to catch up with all of them when we return from the Exumas to the Abacos in March.

Marsh Harbour is the largest city on Great Abaco Island and certainly is not as quaint and clean as New Plymouth. The streets are narrower in New Plymouth and we saw mostly golf carts being driven. But here they have cars, albeit right hand drive and on the wrong side of the street to us. Lol And they drive very fast. I didn’t take my camera with me and we only took a couple of photos with the phone. This one is of the main supermarket in Marsh Harbour. There is another lower end grocery store, Price Right that is a bit cheaper and is owned by Maxwell’s. There is a much cheaper one up by the airport that the locals all go to, but it is definitely not within walking distance. Be prepared if you ever come on your boat to the Bahamas. Groceries are definitely way more expensive, so provision as much as you can in Florida before crossing over.

Maxwell’s supermarket
Mike took this photo of a little ice cream truck in the parking lot at Maxwell’s. We thought the grand kids and Scot would enjoy seeing it. Scot has his own little frozen treats trailer back home, called Mountwood Milk Bar and if you ever find yourself in Gananoque in the summer, go on down to the waterfront and treat yourself. Frozen yogurt, shaved ice, cotton candy, coffee….all very tasty!

Mountwood Milk Bar

We had quite the sunset tonight.

And a just a few minutes later, the sky looked like this!

Thursday, January 10th

Today is our grandson’s Easton birthday. I can’t believe he is 7 already! We called him this morning to wish him a Happy Birthday before he left for school. They grow up way too fast, that’s for sure! Later, Amber sent us a video of him opening our card. Hate missing the kid’s birthdays!

Everything was closed today because of the Bahamian holiday “Majority Rules” Well, Maxwell’s was going to be open certain hours but all banks and businesses were closed. Mike changed the fuel filters on Persuasion this morning and this afternoon, we dingied over to do laundry at Harbour View Marina. We met a nice couple from LaHave River, NS. (We stayed at the Lahave Yacht Club in 2014.) Their boat name is Quick Sticks and they are beside us in the anchorage. She told me about doing laundry at the marina. There was a laundromat up town when we were here before but it is now closed down. You can buy tokens at the marina to use in their washers and dryers. I had 2 loads to do and it cost $18.00. Ouch!

Friday, January 11th

We met an older gentleman from New Zealand this morning. He was in his dinghy with his water jugs and we inquired about where to buy the water. We invited him on board for a visit. He has been over this way on his boat for 20 years now!

We took a walk up town in the afternoon to get a couple of things at Maxwell’s. We ran into Ken, and he was looking for a computer store. He said his iPad was stuck and he couldn’t get it started. Mike showed him how he could restart it and he was very grateful. We walked a lot because by the end of the day, we had over 10,000 steps.

Here is our sunset tonight.

Saturday, January 12th

It was overcast a bit and rather chilly this morning.

We had rain through the night and it washed a lot of the salt off the boat. Thank goodness! After lunch, Mike got in the water to examine the shaft and the prop. On our way to GTC from Great Sale, our engine slowed down and we thought we had hit something but nothing was around. He also thought maybe we picked up a bit of garbage or a line on it. He went down a few times and pulled lots of tangled weeds off the prop and scraped a few barnacles off the shaft. Then he had to get back in the boat and move the shaft forward a bit. He was glad to have that job done!
You have to buy water in the Bahamas and Ken and Quick Sticks had told us that we could fill our water jugs at Harbour View, so we made a few trips back and forth to the boat with our 5 gallon jugs. The water is only 25 cents a gallon, so that is a good deal. And if you want to use their showers, it is $3.00, so we took advantage of that. The older couple working in the marina office were very nice. Their son owns it now and they help out. It is neat as a pin in their lounge and their washrooms. So if you ever find your self in Marsh Harbour and need to do laundry, get water or have a shower, you can go there. Just grin and bear it for the price to do your laundry though!

So after filling up our water tanks and having our showers, we walked up to Maxwell’s and the bakery. The temperature was 26C and the sun shining so it had warmed up nicely. We dingied back to the boat and the water was much calmer. Here is Persuasion sitting pretty at anchor.

And a lovely home across from where we are anchored

The wind had died down a lot from this morning and before supper we hoisted the dinghy up on the bow. We are getting quite good at this now! Tomorrow we will leave for Lynyard Cay. On Monday, we will cross over the North Atlantic Northeast Providence Channel. We left it on the dinghy tow last time we crossed over the ocean to Eleuthra but decided to put it on the bow this time. It is hard on the dinghy tow if the water is rough. Here’s a couple of shots of the anchorage in Marsh Harbour just before sundown.

Quick Sticks

Ken’s boat is the farthest one out

The sunset tonight

Sunday, January 13th Marsh Harbour to Lynyard Cay

We had a lovely sunrise this morning.

We weighed anchor and left Marsh Harbour bound for Lynyard Cay at 09:00.

We passed by Hope Town on Elbow Cay which really is a beautiful, quaint little place although you can’t see much of it here. Their landmark candy cane lighthouse is in the distance.