Heading West -- sort of

On Sunday, after four great days in Hope Town enjoying good friends and good times, we headed off to Marsh Harbor just a few miles away for the night. A fairly quiet town (but bigger than most) we strolled the streets of shops, bars and restaurants. 

On Monday, after refueling ENCORE (don't even ask), we headed off the Spanish Cay on the northern stretch of islands in the Abacos. We were pleasantly surprised by the simplicity, beauty and size (really small) of the island. We rented a golf cart from the marina and headed about two miles to an fantastic little bar on the exposed reef called Wrecker's Bar. It was on an elevated platform right over the water and with the strong SE winds made for a very pleasant and relaxing afternoon just sitting on the deck.

Tuesday morning I reluctantly turned West as we made the 100 mile run from Spanish Cay to West End, Grand Bahama. While the Bahama Bank was not nearly as calm as our Easterly crossing, it was none the less without incident and we made good time. We arrived at Old Bahama Bay Resort and Marina at lunchtime, and after a cold Kalick and sandwich at the Tiki Bar, set out to explore this Ginn Development resort (which I think is now owned by the banks). Suffice it to say, Old Bahama Bay was a great idea that ran smack into the recession. Even the restaurant was closed so the only source of food was the Tiki bar at the pool -- and since I just don't know if I can eat any more fried conch, we opted for romantic dinner on the boat. Gourmet hot dogs, baked beans and Cape Cod chips. Come on, does it get any better than that?

Wednesday morning we awoke to troubled skies to our south with rain and thunderstorms pounding south Florida and the Bimini Islands. It was relatively clear in West End and it looked like we had a "weather window" of opportunity to go ahead and cross back to West Palm. So around 10am so we started out on what was hopefully going to be 2-3 hour run back to the USA. We got about 10 miles out and the radar was picking up some showers directly in front of us. Thinking we could simply "punch through" the isolated storm we continued on -- but not for long. The Atlantic Ocean had other ideas as the sea went from 2 foot to 6 foot in very short order with the bow pounding nose first into the waves. I quickly assessed that going on was a bad idea (ok, really stupid), so we turned around and headed back to West End.