Hope Town - 2017

Apr 10

--Blogpost written by Bob

We had a brief downpour last night.  By the time we realized it was raining and got all the hatches closed, it had stopped.  However, it certainly cleared the atmosphere for a beautiful morning on Monday, April 10.  Before we arrived here in Hope Town, we met a few cruisers who stay in Hope Town the entire season.  We wondered how they could find Hope Town so satisfying that they would want to stay here all season.  Now, we know.

We went out for breakfast this morning at Captain Jack's--the pink and white restaurant along the north end of the harbor.  Jack Russell, who owns Captain Jack's, is a descendent of one of the families that first settled Hope Town. 

Inside Captain Jack's restaurant looks like the combination of a
1950's diner and a biker bar.  I liked the colors in this
waitress station next to the dining area.

There were two cooks keeping up with the breakfast orders at
Captain Jack's.  Since the kitchen lacked the colorfulness
of the island, I converted this image to black and white.

After breakfast at Captain Jack's we went to the Wyannie Malone Museum where we learned a lot more about the history of Hope Town (originally called Great Harbour).  We also learned that much of Hope Town closes up during the height of hurricane season (September and October).  During the summer, most of the boaters come from Florida because it is cooler here (but still very humid, like Florida).

There is no central water and sewer here on Elbow Cay.  The residents have cisterns (typically 10,000 to 50,000 gallons) to store rain water and some have household desalination units.  There is not usually enough rain to keep the cisterns full.  Fresh water is distributed around the island by small tanker trucks and is sold for ten cents a gallon.  Sewage is handled by individual septic tanks but I understand that some of the waterfront restaurants discharge their wastes directly into the harbor.

This is simply a mannequin dressed like Wyannie Malone, the
founding mother of Hope Town, was thought to
have looked like back in 1785.

We walked around the settlement for about an hour and discovered some areas we haven't seen before, primarily an area locally known as "upalong."

This is a beautiful little side street that connects Bay Street and
Back Street at the northern end of the harbor.  The
streets are very narrow, accommodating only a
golf cart. Colorful flowers grow from the
properties along the street.

We walked back toward the dinghy dock on Bay Street.

I captured this image from the coffee shop--it is simple
and very tropical, with the turquoise
water and the palm tree.

Harbor View Grocery is the largest grocery store on Elbow Cay--it is
about the size of a Seven-Eleven in the U.S. with prices to match.
There is another grocery store not far from this one,
called Vernon's Grocery, on Back Street,
with an on-site bakery.

This is one of my favorite little spots in Hope Town.  Small boats
are beached here next to the quaint waterfront cottages.

Hope Town Sailing Club, a social club for expats, maintains a dinghy
dock for cruisers.  It is customary here to use a stern anchor
on your dinghy to keep the bow toward the dinghy dock 
and make more space for other dinghies.  It takes 
a little practice to throw out the stern anchor 
as you approach the dinghy dock.

This image was taken from our mooring.  It is looking back
toward a beautiful area along Bay Street.

This blogpost covers just one day, April 10th, because of the abundance of photographs.  Stay tuned for more of our Abacos adventure...

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