The Adventures of Adriana1: April 2012

Hello again. It's been a while. We are currently at "Old Bahama Bay marina and resort" near West End, Grand Bahama Island preparing to make our way back to Florida. We are also waiting for the winds to quiet down .So the weather window looks favourable this Thursday, April 26th. The plan is to do an over night trip to St. Augustine.
Before we tell about the Eleuthras and Abacos Islands of the Bahamas , we want to share with you that our daughter Lydia and her husband ,Adam were blessed with a healthy baby girl, Mya Addison on March 30th.God is good!We were also able to see most of our children and grand children during our stay at home .With a hockey tounament in Markdale and family time with Easter and baptism of Mya it was special all around. It was also a blessing to spend Sundays in our home church. as an extra bonus we enjoyed Bahama weather while home.
On Monday April 9th we had the pleasure of travelling to Buffalo with Bob and Ann Gillies. Thank you so much!. Early Tues a.m. we were shuttled to Buffalo airport after breakfast at the hotel.Tuesday at about 5:30 we were back on our boat. Steven , the boater right next to us invited us to go for supper to Mangoes with him. We were told we missed some gale winds while we were away. The marina staff looked after our boat very well.
We need to back track a little . From Nassau [our previous blog] we sailed to an anchorage in a bay on Royal Island. This is near Spanish Wells, one of the bigger communities on the Eleuthra Islands.We did take the dingy through the channel and river along Spanish Wells and checked out this busy town.Lots of boats, boat shops. Quite a few Americans make this place their winter home. The popular vehicle on these islands is the golf car[t]
Thursday a.m. we planned to head up to the Abacos Islands.Our early departure was held up for 2 hours while we tried to resolve an engine problem.Bill found a loose wiring connection. We were thankful it wasn't a serious problem.So we sailed the big seas to the bottom end of Sea of Abacos and were happy to anchor inside the Sea behind Lynyard Cay in quiet waters.The next day we were able to sail this sea to a lovely inlet or bay. We passed lots of anchored boats to our marina [across from the town of Marsh Harbour.] this marina included the Jib Room that served the best steaks every Saturday eve.and ribs on Wed. eve.and it had a lovely swimming pool.--a great meeting place of fellow boaters.Bill received lots of advice from many who had dealt with sciatic nerve issue as he was currently dealing with. It was a good thing sitting was not giving him pain since we were at this point preparing to fly home on the Monday.I could write a book on all the people we met here and all their stories but not now.Except for the line ups the flight home went okay. Ryan and Elissa and Jacob were there to meet us in Buffalo with our SUV. After supper we made it home to Markdale.

Coming ashore at Spanish Wells

Shrimp boats at Spanish Wells

View of boats moored at Marsh Harbour

Okay back to Marsh Harbour. We spent the rest of the week there meeting many new people-lots of fun.Getting provisions and ready to go again. Slowly but surely Bill's back and leg are improving. The advice and exercises the Owen Sound physiotherypist gave and the muscle relaxants all paid off . He is also faithfully doing these exercises.From Mon. April16 to Friday the 20th we explored the Abacos Cays[islands] .We explored Hopetown on Elbow Cay, Man- of- War Cay and town and also New Plymouth on GreenTurtle Cay. Many United Empire Loyalists settled here.The museum at Hopetown gave us a lot of history of these cays. After these Cays we anchored out 2 nights before coming here.
While we were in Marsh Harbour we came to know John and Pat Jones from Colorado. They also sail a Hunter.We were delighted to be welcomed by John when we arrived at our current marina and plan to do the crossing to St Augustine with them.
Plan to update again in Florida where we will also have regular cell phone use again. Having said that our satelite phone did help us some, for out-going calls.

Mya, our newest granddaughter