Voyage to Hope Town

Marsh Harbour had been a good place to tuck in for a storm, and a great place to find relatively affordable provisions. The morning Tiffany arrived, Aimee took a taxi to stock up on food and fresh drinking water at the local discount grocery store, "Price Rite." The prices were similar to the States for most items. This was in contrast to the food stores at the outer islands, such as Green Turtle Cay, when a gallon of fresh milk was $10, and most boxed or shelf items were 2 or 3 times more expensive than at home. Even in Marsh Harbour, on the mainland of Great Abaco Island, amost 100% of the food was shipped from other countries. We were surprised to see that the oranges we purchased were from Texas. It is puzzling that there is not more of an agriculture presence here. We have heard the soil is not very fertile. Still, there must be other factors.

We said good-bye to Marsh Harbor (for now, as we had to be back in 1 week when Tiffany, Madelyn, and Katja would be flying back to Indiana).

This was, as they say, easier said than done.

First of all, we had to look at the tides. We planned to go to Hope Town on Elbow Cay, about a 2 hour sail away. Since Estella draws 6 feet deep into the water, and the entrance to the Hope Town Harbor is a little less than 5 feet deep, we had to enter only at high tide. Fine, we planned to leave at 3:3opm.

Next, we had to get out of our "parking space" at the dock. As you can see from this photo below, this particular slip consisted of widely spaced pilings to which we tied the boat. We had to get Estella to go straight in reverse to miss the piling on starboard, and the several-million-dollar yacht on port which is not in this photo.

This reverse process is made much more difficult by the fact that our prop is undersized for our boat and "walks to port". It means that as the boat goes in reverse, it pulls to the left and does not go straight. To make things even more challenging, we had a good amount of wind pushing us onto the dock, which we had to overcome. In addition, Estella weighs 26,000 pounds (13 Tons), so we had to orchestrate the pulling of dock lines in a certain pattern to heave her, with the engine's help, in the direction we wanted her to go.

While Aimee did some laundry at the marina, Brian spent a pensive 2 hours or so calculating our exit very carefully. We had someone help us on the dock, Brian was a the helm, and Tiffany and I each had our own dock line and piling for which we were responsible. Our "rookie" Tiffany did a fabulous job! All of us did our tasks quickly and with purpose, in silence, as we took turns pulling and guiding Estella out of her slip. It felt so good to be free! Bravo! Off to Hope Town!


We had a fun, short 2-hour motor sail to Hope Town. The sun was beginning to set by the second half of our journey. Tiffany wanted to immerse herself in the experience and got a private sailing lesson from us on the way. She did a great job, and also had some time to relax and take photos of the smaller islands we were passing along the way.

Of course, you know by now how fascinated I am by the turquoise colors of the Bahamian waters. Here is another untouched, unedited photo. Fabulous! The depth was only about 10 feet here. You can see the shadow of our mast.

At early sunset, we slowly glided into Hope Town Harbor. I knew right away it would be a magical place when Tiffany and I were chatting, and we looked to the port side to see a gentleman artist painting on his outdoor veranda and slowly waved to us. Here is the well-known Elbow Cay lighthouse. We picked up a mooring and settled in for a quiet evening of dinner and togetherness.

In this aerial photo, you can see we sailed from Marsh Harbor in the Sea of Abaco, at the top of the photo. Then we made a "right turn" and entered the Hope Town Harbor at the right of the photo. We motored right to left into the protected harbor past the candy-striped lighthouse on our starboard (right) side.

Later, we would visit the town and Atlantic Ocean-facing beach at the lower part of this photo.

And Charlotte Ann would be joining us a few days later!