It’s Friday and time for us to say goodbye to Marsh Harbour and make our 1.5-hour sail/motor over to Hope Town. We had good winds coming out of the harbor but then made our turn towards Hope Town and had the wind pretty much at a 30-degree angle, so we had to turn the motors on and bring in the jib. Along the way a catamaran that was passing us going out of Hope Town was flying their spinnaker.
As we approached the anchorage John threw me a curve ball and made the decision to go on the inside to the anchorage to grab a mooring ball. I had not mentally prepared for this because the previous discussion had been anchoring would be fine. When he made the turn, all that I could say was, SHIT, let’s do this! I told Bubba to get the mooring lines ready because we are going on the inside.
It was a bit hectic going into the cut as there is a lot of power boat traffic and most of them have the Bubba syndrome, impatient, and wanting to be the King of the road. I read the water and how the current was behaving and picked my path. As I am coming in this huge fishing boat decides he wants to play chicken with me, and I say game on.
When we got on the inside the mooring field was intimidating as you had to decipher which ones were okay to pick up, which ones were reserved, which ones were broken. We picked ours up closer to the front of the line.
As we settled in and I looked around the harbour all I could think is what a charming area. The homes along the harbour were painted different colors and most of them looked freshly painted or new thanks to hurricane Dorian.
The homes and the streets here remind me alot of Key West. They use golf carts and there are some cars. We ate dinner the first night at Cap’n Jack. Our drink for the night was a jack hammer. While at the restaurant one of the You Tube channels we follow who are also Leopard owners came in. You can check out their channel Folsom’s Ocean View although she is no longer publishing videos. We chatted with them for a few minutes and took a lovely walk through town.
Tracey and I are both still working full time, so the weekends are the only real, good, quality time we have to get out and explore. After a few morning chores we got up and hit the town again. As we were making our way through the anchorage Tracey stopped to ask one of the boats who she needed to pay for their mooring ball. We got to talking to the couple, Patti and Lance, and shortly after the conversation started and we said we were from Arkansas Lance said, do you know Dale. Then Lance says, ARE YOU BUBBA. Like seriously, every island we go to someone has heard of Bubba. Not sure if this is good or bad.
Our next stop was Hope Town Inn and Marina where Tracey paid for their mooring ball. We were given permission to leave or dinghies there to walk over to the Lighthouse. We made our way through the boatyard, up the stairs and to the top. Well, some of us did, Bubba sat the Lighthouse stair climbing out.
The Elbow Reef Lighthouse is the last manual, kerosene fueled, intact and complete Lightstation on the planet. It is the only manned lighttower in the world who’s burner has not been electrified. Its lens is hand wound and it is fueled by kerosene. It has been manned and hand operated since 1863.
While I was at the top of the Lighthouse a couple that I knew from Brunswick Landing Marina walked up. I say hey guys I know you! She immediately turns to John who is standing beside me and says, Bubba, your not Bubba. Good grief!
After our walk over to the Lighthouse we stopped back at Hope Town Marina and Resort which is a beautiful little spot. After that hike and climbing the stairs an adult beverage was in order. We stopped at the outside pool bar for s drinks, to catch our breath and to cool off.
Our next stop was to visit the home of Grandfather on the north side of the island. Tracey and John know Grandfather through his granddaughter. His granddaughter was friends with Tracey and John’s youngest daughter. Grandfather splits his time between Fort Lauderdale and Hope Town, we were fortunate that he was on island during our visit here. They have a beautiful home and view of the Atlantic side of the island.
We enjoyed our visit with Grandfather. We hopped back on our bikes and went towards the other end of the island.
We had worked up an appetite so we persuaded Bubba to keeping biking and see if we could find a place to grab a bite. We continued pedaling and found our way to Firefly. The food and service were awesome and definitely a place we will eat at again. While we were there, we got a surprise visit from Michelle Ropiza, her husband and Mom. They happened to be in the area and stopped by to say Hi.
It was a long day, and we were all pretty exhausted, especially since we still had to ride the bikes back to the boat on a full stomach!
