We flew to Hopetown, from West Palm Beach. Quite the ordeal – had to arrange a car and driver to get us to the airport from the boat, which is still on the hard in Ft. Pierce. Got to PBI only to discover that our flight was delayed and then cancelled. Silver Airways. The entire ground crew was huddled around the counter awaiting instructions from their headquarters. Waiting and waiting. Passengers were on iPhones calling customer service – about 30-40 minutes on hold to reach a person who said he could do nothing – we were instructed to deal with the ground crew. The ground crew continued to await instructions. Round and round. (I was going to include a picture of a Silver Airways plane, but I’m not sure they have any.) We were finally booked on a flight the next morning (which was later cancelled). Meanwhile, a group organized a charter and we joined them. A Cessna 401 – fun but painfully expensive. And we were finally on our way to Marsh Harbor. Whew. Deep breath – relax.
A fairly smooth flight with a helpful tailwind. One hour in the air and a short taxi ride later (with a stop for groceries), we were at the ferry dock, bound for Hopetown.
[The taxis used to stop and wait for you to buy groceries. Now they charge $20 every 30 minutes; plus you get to pay the new 7.25% VAT on all your groceries.]
Twenty minutes on the ferry and we were finally in Hopetown. We have a lovely second floor rental called Upsy Daisy. From its porch, we can see the entrance to the harbor and the Sea of Abaco. You can see the porch – on the second floor -in this picture.
Very open and bright, with windows on every side. Perfect.
We reconnected with friends that very night at Wine Down, Sip Sip over a glass of – what else – wine.
Saturday morning we listened to the net (the cruiser’s interactive radio show which shares weather and other information, including the day’s events), and discovered that the Man o’ War Cay flea market was that very day . We hustled over to the Froggie’s boat, but it was full at 80 passengers – we, of course, had not bought tickets in advance.
But one of the crew called over to a little runabout that was just getting ready to leave the Post Office dock and instantly we had a ride. Classic Hopetown! What a fun trip, in a little 22’ boat. Captain Deb expertly piloted us through the sizeable chop that was building from the north. Life is good.
Lots of great stuff at the flea market.
We bought books and Goldwin found the exact same boat part that had caused us so much trouble back in Florida. Here’s a very patriotic cannon – painted like the Bahamian flag. It’s actually off the Adirondack, a US warship that struck a reef off Man o’ War Cay while working to intercept Confederate blockade runners during the Civil War.
Goldwin also bought a beautiful half-model of an Abaco dinghy from one of the Albury boat builders. The fabric in the background is called Androsia fabric – it comes in beautiful prints which are all created here in the Bahamas on Andros Island.
And the best part was that we ran into lots of friends from our trip here in 2012-2013. All in all, a happy day.
SAIL MOTU ITI 
After watching all is lost with Robert Redford last week I am now afraid to take my pontoon boat out on 300 acre twin lakes here in cheboygan. However with last nite ‘ s windchill of minus 40 don’t have to worry for awhile
It’s chilly here, as well — relatively speaking, that is. It has to warm up sometime, right? We were still in the movie theater after watching All Is Lost when we decided to sell the boat. But after further consideration, we decided to just not take Motu Iti across the Indian Ocean single-handedly. And to never set fire to our life raft.