Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 We went back on shore for another walk-about.  What's a visit to Hope Town without a climb to the top....

 

 The entrance to the lighthouse.

 

 Climbing up the spiral stairs.

 

Ladder to the very top.

 

 

The view from the top ledge.

View back towards Marsh Harbour showing Sojourn and Kohina.

 

 After the lighthouse climb we just walked around town and enjoyed the pretty flowers in all the yards.

Ross and Phyllis from Kohina came over for another relaxing sundown.  

We will probably move to another anchorage today and get set to possibly transit the Whale cut on Monday when the waves settle in the 3-4' range.  Will likely be bumpy but safe.  After that, we are going to have to get to a protected anchorage to wait out about 10 days of really strong easterly winds and enormous seas before making the jump back to the US.   

 

 

Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 Pretty anchorage - view from the bow.

 

And the view from the stern.

 

We took the dinghy into the harbour.  The lighthouse from inside the harbour.

 

Busy inside with all the mooring balls occupied.

 

We took a nice leisurely walk around town.

 

We took side streets over to the ocean side a few times and had a nice stroll on the beach.

 

Instead of car parking lots, there is a golf cart parking lot near the ferry dock.

 

Walking back toward the dinghy dock.

 

 Stopped for a few groceries. 

Groceries are a bit more pricey in Hope Town.  This is $50....but happy to have the fresh stuff!

 And there was a fresh loaf of warm bread waiting in the bread machine....yum!

 

Elbow Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 We finally escaped Lynyard Cay for a short sail north a couple of hours to the Tahiti Beach area of southern Elbow Cay.   Ross and Phyllis pulled anchor earlier and sailed away as well.

 

We did have to turn an engine on to make progress a couple of times when the wind was not in our favor.   The winds are still strong from the east so there were a few areas with a bit of a swell but nothing unmanageable.  The worst of it was this sport-fisher boat that powered at full blast by us unnecessarily close to us throwing up a 4' wake directly on our side.  

Pretty little island house....this was damaged heavily during Hurricane Dorian but looks like it's back in good repair now.

Anchored at Tahiti beach - there is a sandbar at low tide and a swim-up restaurant and bar called the Thirsty Cuda.

And we were treated to a couple of brave wind-surfers. 

Not the smoothest anchorage as the swell from passing boats and the ocean swell wrapped around a bit in the night.  Nothing dangerous....strong east winds are going to "trap" us here for a while before we can head north towards the US.
 

 

Lynyard Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 The winds have settled a little bit....we got off the boat in the afternoon for a shore walk.  

 

 

 The ocean side is still pretty churned-up.

 

Fairly protected on the banks.
 

We were invited over for interesting sundown conversations on Kohina.  We will both probably move north a bit tomorrow for a change in scenery but we'll be staying south of "The Whale" cut for an extended amount of time due to strong east winds/swells that make outside transitions dangerous.

Lynyard Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 Nothing much happening here....strong winds from the east kept us on the boat all day.  No worries, time for a relaxing few days.

 

Lynyard Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 Because the next few days are going to be very blustery, we decided to take the fairly calm wind opportunity to go about 2 miles north in the dinghy to Sandy Cay (Pelican Harbour) to a nice snorkel spot.  It's in a marine preserve area so you can't fish there.

We'd been to this spot before a couple of times - others were using the same weather window to enjoy.  There are about 5 mooring balls for dinghy tie-up which is nice.

 

 It was a lovely snorkel....I will just share lots of photos with little commentary.

 

Loved to see the healthy elkhorn coral, the first we've seen this year.

One of my favorites - a school of blue tangs.

 

 The tangs feeding on the coral.

 

A school of some sort of pampano I believe.

 

Blue parrotfish - completely different coloring vs the normal "rainbow" parrotfish that we see swimming alone on the reefs regularly.

 

I was thrilled to be able to get a good photo of a rainbow parrotfish.  They normally are pretty elusive and tend to swim away from a camera.  I did notice the fish in the marine park were less "shy" - I assume because they know we're not going to spear them!!

Just an absolutely lovely snorkel!

Ross and Phyllis from Kohina came over for a relaxing sundown.  We're all set for 30 knots from the east that we'll be seeing in the morning.  Will probably be a day in the sling-seat with my Kindle.