Thursday, April 14, 2011

Picturesque (yet pictureless) Hopetown

I appologize, but Blogger will not let me separate my paragraphs and insists on compressing everything together. My camera showed us its distaste for sand and island life, and died thus giving a whole new meaning to the term 'Life's a Beach'! Hah!!!! I kill myself sometimes! And of course it broke just as we arrived in one of the most quaint places I've ever seen, so in the meantime we're relying on Hans' phone to take pictures, but if Hans forgets to bring his phone along... Anyway, when we decided to make this trek to the Bahamas we knew we had to get to Hopetown, on Elbow Cay, to visit a friend of Hans' and his brother, who now lives here. Michelle knew we'd be arriving soon and invited us to her home. We arrived at Hopetown during (as usual) low tide and saw depths as low as 3 and a half feet in the channel. We truly admire our fellow cruisers who draw 6 plus feet and therefor have to wait for high tide in order to navigate the Bahamas. But we got in just fine, snagged a mooring, and when I looked up I had to laugh because we were right beside our Pittsburgh friends on Megerin. We hadn't seen them since Turtle Cay and they stopped by to say hi and tell us we were welcome to join them at Hopetown Harbor Lodge for a drink with some friends. So we contacted Michelle, who agreed to bring her daughter Jennifer along. You can see the famous lighthouse in the background here. It's always fun to sit and talk with other cruisers and swap stories. It's even more fun if they have a sense of humor and these people do. I spent a good deal of time laughing with them. The next day Michelle's daughter Jennifer picked us up in their golf cart for a 15 minute ride to their house. What a lovely home they have (and that's an understatement) and of course we have no camera and Hans forgot his phone! Another couple from Hopetown brought a friend along and we enjoyed a completely made from scratch four course lunch and I felt like we were back in Europe. If they'd been on our boat I could only pray they wouldn't mind one course mystery meat hot dogs!! We couldn't stay too long though because Wilbur was languishing on the boat in our absence and we were worried about him. We were so relieved to find him alive and well that I didn't even mind that he'd left us another easily cleaned up 'gift of revenge'. Unfortunately, Megerin left us the next morning (I need to start checking my shower and deodorant situation!) and we dinghied over to the dock and once again hoisted a reluctant Wilbur up a steep ladder so we could walk around this incredible town. We hadn't gone far when we realized we were right on the doorstep of the couple who'd been at Michelle's home the day before. Mike and Patty have a beautiful house, right on the water at the Hopetown Harbor entrance, with a breath taking view of the harbor (in other words, perfect box seats if you want to watch unwary cruisers run aground). Mike is an architect and he designed their home and the landscaping, and Wilbur especially enjoyed his perpetual fountain and spent a good deal of time lapping water from it. They also have an adorable Westie (he has the cutest little black jelly bean nose!) who would have been happy to romp with Wilbur but he needed to go for a potty walk. I guess he doesn't leave 'gifts of revenge' like Wilbur does. We once again found ourselves at the very pet friendly Hopetown Lodge and were happy to run into some cruisers we'd met the day before and ended up enjoying a couple of drinks with them before heading back to the Knotty Cat. A new game; Find your dinghy in the dark.

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