We are at Hope Town, Bahamas and the children's

Junkanoo is going on! Adult Junkanoo starts at midnight

for the adults...lets see if we make it!

 Our morning sun rise

 OK Derek!  I mean business now!  Between your bait and

Bill's pole I should get something! 

John and Cindy from Rough Cut caught a tuna while

crossing the Whale....only one minor problem.....a shark

came out of no where and bit off the tuna except the head....

they have pictures to prove it!  I'd just like to catch something

even if a shark does come and steal it!



 Hope Town Lighthouse

 A boat anchored outside of Hope Town

In order to stay inside you have to be on a mooring ball

 How lucky can you get!

This house on it's own little island is right at the

entrance to HopeTown

 Entrance to Hope Town

 Bob going "Yikes! this is a little crazy trying to get into!"

 We are on the inside where you see all the boats

This is the chart showing Hope Town.  Kind of a squeaker getting

into the harbor.  The approach is only 4-6 feet and depending

on the wind and tide it could be a close call. 

 Children's Junkanoo

 more,

 more,

 more,

 End of children's Junkanoo! 

 A home for the property owner's lizard.

 Junkanoo or Christmas decorations??

 Jayne and I - I'm pretty relaxed wouldn't you say?

 Us looking at our boat in the harbor







 We left Marsh Harbor this morning and headed for Hopetown.  We learned there was no Junkanoo in Marsh Town so we had to leave!  We are here now and will update this day later!  Gotta get ready for Happy Hour and Junkanoo!
 

By the way, downloading pictures takes quite a bit of time, I may have to curb the pictures a bit!
Well we made it into town for Junkanoo!  But unfortunately Bob and I missed it!  The last time I saw Gary and Jayne they were sitting on a ledge waiting for Junkanoo to start.  I asked how much longer it was going to be and they said an hour and 7 minutes.  I probably could have made it till then but I decided I really wanted a cigarette so Bob chose to take me home instead.  I'm glad he did!  It was a smoke-free night! We got home around 11:30 and went to bed.  At midnight the fireworks and music started and boy was it a show.  It was so loud it woke me up and I watched everything from outside of the hatch!  It was quite amazing!  Happy New Year's Eve everyone!

Monday, December 30, 2013

 
This is what Gary got caught in today in Whale Cay
We waited it out!

 The name of this place is
"Two Rocks" :0)

 Entrance to Whale Cay

 Coming into Baker's Bay

Just beautiful!

 Baker's Bay

 Baker's Bay North Shore

 Settlement Harbor, Great Guana Cay

 Best parking place in Settlement Harbor!

Headed for Marsh Harbor



Coming into Marsh Harbor



 Marsh Harbor

Boats at anchor in Marsh Harbor

 Very rich Marsh Harbor home

More Dough

 

Our sunset!

 

Well today was quite the surprise.  After loafing all day yesterday I was ready to get up and do some much needed cleaning!  However!: at 0745 I see Gary pulling  his dinghy up and I’m thinking “now why is he doing that?”  Come to find out “our window of opportunity” to cross the Whale is here! Right now! Otherwise, we may be stranded in Green Turtle Cay until the 5^th at the earliest.   Normally that would be fine but Gary & Jayne have company flying in on the 11^th and they didn’t want to chance not getting down to Marsh Harbor in time.  So off we went! Gary and Jayne left about an hour before us, and as you can see, they got caught in some semi-bad weather in the Whale.  We saw it coming and slowed down tremendously so we would miss it.  Oh, and by the way, you may know Gary’s company, it is Michael.  He came to see them last year in Key West.  I had a picture of him on the blog.  He is also bringing another friend this year!

On the way down, Bob and I stopped at Baker’s Bay for lunch.  The place is just beautiful!  We can’t wait to go back for a couple of days.  Bob even jumped in and did some snorkeling but there wasn’t anything to see, besides if there was you wouldn’t need to jump in, you can see everything in the water, it is so clear!

After Baker’s Bay we poked our noses into Settlement Harbor to see what it was all about also.  The place is tiny.  We may or may not be able to get in there depending on how many boats are there. 

Now we are at Marsh Harbor.  It is not at ll what I expected.   In fact, Marsh Harbor is probably our least favorite place so far.  In fact, we are leaving in the morning and heading for Hopetown.  Marsh Harbor has everything you need, except Junkanoo and beaches with easy to reach reefs, so we are leaving in the a.m. as soon as we purchase some water and get rid of our trash!  Somehow or another, we will be somewhere for Junkanoo!
 

By the way, Bob did get the dinghy fixed.  It was the female attachment that went into the motor from the gas tank.  He had 2 new ones on board that the previous owner left, thankfully there were two, because one of the new ones was bad also!

I tried to download the one and only picture we took today of sunset and it would not download!  Today was definitely a down day for us, no you don't understand, really ~ it was a down day!  We did absolutely nothing.  I played cards on the computer, looked at Facebook for a bit, checked email, checked on Gary & Jayne since we hadn't heard from them all day, and now updating my blog.  Now Bob on the other hand, did even less than me!  I did call Jenny though, so I now feel like I accomplished something.  We are staying in for the night and probably going to be in bed by 7!

Rough Cut with the morning sunrise 

Moon with the morning sunrise 

 

We are back at Green Turtle Cay.  The winds are up to 25 knots and going through Whale Cay passage was not an option.  We may have gotten over there, may???, but the winds are turning northerly and getting back would not have been an option, at least not for another week.  So, I'm a real happy girl!  I have phone service, internet service, laundry facilities, and there is a "Parade of Lights" for the boats tonight and in lieu of fireworks, they will be letting lighted lanterns go in the water.  I really wanted to see this, but not everyone else did....I guess I got another Christmas present from Santa!  By the way, we never did snorkel.  Our dinghy is NOT reliable at the moment and it was too windy to take it on the other side of the island.  We did not want to take the chance of it breaking down and us being stranded!  Bob is supposed to work on it today....hopefully!

 

Tonight we went into town and stopped by Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar

Matt told us when we first got here that this is the place that makes the original

Goombay Smash and that we had to try it.  We had one in Grand Cay so we decided

maybe we should try one.  I must say it was much more tastier.  Couldn't even

taste liquor so I knew then not to have another one! 

 Owner of the Bar pouring our Goombay Smash drinks

 

Inside of Miss Emily's

Cash and T shirts hanging everywhere!

Gully Roosters

Referred to as the Number 1 Band in the Nation
This is a shot of them when they came to the states to play
The one by himself must have taken the picture so that is why he
is off to the side.

Well tonight turned out to be quite the surprise.  We went into town to watch the boat parade and there wasn't one.  No one signed up for it!  So not only was there no boat parade but there were no releasing of the lighted lanterns either!  Bummer! 
We did manage to have a great time though.  We went to Miss Emily's and had a Goombay Smash there.  I have learned if it tastes really good and you can't taste the liquor, then keep on moving, otherwise I'm going to be in lots of trouble.  So we moved on. 
Across from the bar there is a basketball court and there was a "soup kitchen" for the cruisers going on, and!!, they have Santa there.  The local kids loved it!  We tried to get a good shot of them but it didn't happen.  Not that it would have mattered.....continue reading!
After checking out everything going on in Black Sound we came back to our boat.  We sat around for a bit and decided we needed to go out for a bit more.  We knew the Gully Roosters were playing at the Green Turtle Club so we decided to go over and watch them.  Remember earlier I told you our dinghy motor was having issues, well because of this, Gary & Jayne were kind enough to let us ride with them all night.  So off we went!  We get there, have a couple of drinks, do a little dancing and now it's time to come home.  In meantime, Gary's dinghy had a minor air leak, Gary gets in first, then Bob and I, now it's Jayne's turn.  Well Jayne steps on the dinghy right where Bob is sitting and due to the softness, she falls in Bob's lap, I try to grab them because they are both headed for the water, manage to keep Jayne from going in, but Bob is now a wet noodle and so is my camera!  Of course, it couldn't be the camera that can go under water, it has to be the one that doesn't!  That is why a lot of my pictures today is "cut and paste"...I had to go on line to find them!
We managed to make it back to the boat and decided it was time to call it an evening.....



This morning we are leaving for No Name Cay.  It is supposed to have some great snorkeling there.  They say the reef and fish there are just gorgeous. There is no town there so we won't have phone or internet service for a few days.  Once we leave there we are headed for Treasure Cay, there is a town there and maybe some type of service but don't know for sure.  We will be back here on the 30th for New Year's Eve and Day.  They have Junkanoo here on New Years day around noon and we plan on being part of it!  Can't wait!

Meet Sam & Charlie

Jon & Jen live with them

Do you see Samantha the cat?

It took me a while to find her!

Merry Christmas to/from the Kraft family!

 

OK....I may have gotten a little out of control with the pigs

but they were so cute!!

 

Dream Catcher arriving at No Name Cay

 Us arriving at Dream Catcher with White Russians

This boat's name is Prozac!
It was rented for the day to come to No Name Cay

 Gary being inundated by piggies!

 Gary paying too much attention to the piggies...
see what happens....

His dinghy decided to leave without him

 Gary rescues dinghy, while I feed piggies!

 Mama wasn't sharing!  We had to separate her
from the kiddies so they could eat also!

 I'm full!  Nappy time!

 I'm not!  Feed me!

 Too adorable!

 Still!

 Bob loves his close-ups!

 Hurry up and get that cracker before mom sees it!

 Gary playing with piggies again!

 Meet John and a third of his wife Cindy
They live on Rough Cut

 Me keeping mom away from the little ones
so they can eat

 Un oh!!  Where did this other one come from!!!

 Piggies, Bob snorkeling and Storymaker in the distance

 Rough Cut - home made (great story below)

 Sun setting in No Name

 Sun set

 

No Name Island is only 3 miles from where we left.  We were here within 45 minutes, maybe an hour.  As soon as we pulled up all I heard was Bob yelling “pigs! pigs!” and once again the dinghy was down in no time!  This is only the second time this has happened…the first time was last year when we were greeted by the dolphin in one of our cubby holes!

There was a boat here called “Prozac” with some people who had rented it for a couple of hours to come out here, so I convinced Bob that maybe we should wait until they left before going over to the island.  They were getting ready to leave as it was.  Bob, reluctantly, agreed. But as soon as they were gone, Bob was headed to Gary’s to celebrate our findings and to get to shore as soon as possible! I made up some White Russians for us to enjoy while we were on the island and Jayne brought some crackers for us to feed to the piglets!

We met John and Cindy, owners of Rough Cut, while on the beach.  Gary & Jayne invited them to dinner so we learned a lot about their boat and how it got its name.  They are from Reno, NV and built about half of their boat there in Reno - John said he knew if it wasn’t close to home he would never get it done.  Once he completed the first part, he had to get it to the East coast.   He either hired someone, or had a friend who told him what was going to be the easiest and less costly way to do this, and this is how the name of the boat came about.  Once he had built the outside and most of the inside of the shell of the boat he cut it up into 3 pieces.  He was told to make the cuts jagged so when it was time to put it back together it would bond together tighter.  So he cut both hulls off and had 2 tractor trailers drive it to the East coast and then him and Cindy put it back together!  Now that was crazy!  He wouldn’t recommend anyone else building their own boat.  He says it’s just way too much work.  Oh, and look at his engines outside of the boat!  I’m hoping we get an opportunity to go inside and see it. 

We are moving on to Treasure Cay in the morning providing the weather cooperates.  We need to cross Whale Cay which is two nautical miles south of No Name Cay and is famous for its passage out into the ocean.