Marsh Harbour

Dec 29 thru Jan 1

-Blogpost written by Bob

This blogpost covers our long New Years’ holiday weekend in Marsh Harbour, following our brief visit to Man-O-War Cay.  We will be here in Marsh Harbour for more than a week.

Friday, December 29

We arrived in Marsh Harbour late yesterday afternoon about 3:30 PM. We slept like babies last night.  I’ve always liked Marsh Harbour.  The harbor itself has great holding, is protected from high winds from almost any direction (except a little less from the westerly direction), the town has a variety of restaurants and, generally, has all the services a cruising sailor needs.

The anchorage in Marsh Harbour at dusk on 
December 28. This is a view looking west.

This morning Maggie made flight arrangements to go back to Florida next week to help her 93-year old friend, Claire, move into an assisted living apartment.

We took our dirty laundry into town by dinghy and then found out that the laundromat was closed since the end of July.  We found out about a better laundromat in Dundas Town, a predominately black area of town about 1-1/2 miles to the west of the business district of Marsh Harbor.  We took a cab there and did our laundry (this laundromat was much better maintained than the old one that closed) and then got a cab back to the Union Jack dock where we docked our dinghy.  We then went out to lunch at Curly Tails, which is now the Blue Hole.  After lunch we walked to the Abaco Beach Resort (on the other side of the peninsula from Marsh Harbor) because we were told that it would be a good place to watch the Fiesta Bowl tomorrow.  As it turns out it wouldn’t work out so well because of the bar crowd and loud music—I’ll just listen to the game on our satellite radio (Sirius Channel 80).

Saturday, December 30

As usual, I was up and about before sunrise this morning. Our plans for the day include grocery shopping at Maxwell’s in the morning, listening to Penn State play in the Fiesta Bowl in the late afternoon, and going to “steak out” at the Jib Room in the evening—a very busy day by cruising standards.  I hope to take more photographs today since I failed to take even one yesterday.

Today started out as a beautiful clear day with a light cool
wind out of the north. This view is looking east
toward the marinas and restaurants.

I realize this is a bit odd to include a photo of a grocery store
in a sailing blog but Maxwell's Supermarket in Marsh
Harbour is such a luxury that it is worth a mention.
All of the other grocery stores in the Abacos
are like a small Seven-Eleven in the U.S.

We raised our Penn State flag for the Fiesta Bowl, just like
we did for every Penn State game this year.
Penn State won 35-28!

Steak Out at the Jib Room on Saturday night featured live Bahamian
music called "Rake 'n' Scrape" which is best described as
playing the rough edge of a saw with
a screw driver.  I got to try it!

Sunday, December 31

I took Maggie into the dinghy dock just before 8 AM to meet up with her taxi to the Marsh Harbour International Airport (which is kind of like the Key West Airport).  After I returned to the boat I tackled some boat maintenance that I haven't had time to do until now.

The weather today has been absolutely beautiful: 75 degrees, sunny, and a cool 5 to 10-knot breeze out of the northwest.  However, the forecast is for rain beginning tomorrow night  and not ending until sometime Thursday.

Our solar panels were producing slightly over 10 amps at 12:45 PM--this the highest amperage I’ve seen in a while.  There are very few clouds in the sky today to inhibit the sunlight from hitting the panels.  I also shifted the boom to one side of the boat this morning so that the forward panel gets full exposure to the sun.

We monitor our solar panels' output using the Watt Wizard
supplied by Coastal Climate Control in Annapolis.

The flexible solar panels that we have on board are constructed such that there is a thin plastic protective film over the outside of the panels--this plastic film get cloudy with UV exposure and requires polishing (with Novus #1 and #2) every six months or so for maximum energy conversion.

The Origins of Marsh Harbour

The first inhabitants of Marsh Harbor were believed to be the Arawakan people. The Spaniards met them shortly after the time of Christopher Columbus’ voyages and, because they were peaceful and didn’t have any gold to loot, they were enslaved and transported elsewhere. (If they weren’t peaceful, they probably would have been killed as other native tribes were by the ruthless Spaniards.)  Consequently, the area was uninhabited for a couple hundred years until a group of about 600 loyalists from the American colonies settled in the area, first in Hope Town on Elbow Cay, then in Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco. (Green Turtle Cay was also settled by loyalists.)

I believe the loyalists came from South Carolina where the practice of using African slaves was already deeply rooted. It is common knowledge that the early settlers tried to establish plantations here in the Abacos but they failed miserably.  There are black families living nearby with British surnames, like Albury.  It was a common practice on early plantations in the colonies for the African slaves to assume the surname of their white masters.  It makes sense that the local black population was derived from African slaves that came with the loyalists from the colonies. 

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This afternoon, there were 28 boats anchored in Marsh Harbour--they were all sailboats except one. There are at least that many in slips occupied in the town’s marinas (but they weren’t full by any measure). A manager of one of the marinas mentioned that this was the slow season, I suppose she meant the holidays.  It appears that a significant percentage of cruisers left their boats at various places in Florida while they flew home for the holidays.

Mangoes Marina in Marsh Harbor

The sun was setting over the anchorage in
Marsh Harbour on the last day of 2017.

Monday, January 1, 2018

This morning it is 16 degrees F and overcast in Annapolis while it is a delightful 75 degrees and sunny here in Marsh Harbour. 

Rainy Days is the boat on the left side of
this image, looking north.

I started to touch up a spot near the bow where the anchor jumped the bow roller and put some grooves in the teak toe rail on the port side. I sanded out the grooves and got one coat of CETOL on the repaired spot-I hope to get on a second coat later in the day. I want to restore it to the normal five coats but rain is in the forecast for the next couple days.

Rainy Days at anchor in Marsh Harbour.

Stay tuned for more of our visit in Marsh Harbour in our next blogpost...

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