Hope Town so Beautiful

…Radeen with the 1864 Elbow Reef Lighthouse in Hope Town…

Team Island Spirit is based in Hope Town Abaco and we are asking ourselves, “Why Move?” We go to the beach every day, walk the beautiful island trails and roads, swim in the pool and chat with boating friends. Visitors to this island pay $2,000 a week to to stay here, and we are on a mooring ball for $15 per day, $105 per week. So we are saying…..”Why move?”  The Abacos are so pleasant in the spring time with the waters and skies so blue The temperature is 80 during the day and 73 at night. We are roughing it for sure.

Here are some photos of our days here in Hope Town…..enjoy!

Thank you for traveling along with us as we share our cruising destinations. Hope Town Abaco is certainly one of the highlights.

IPs at Jib Room Marsh Harbor Abaco

…The IP owners gather at the Jib Room…

The Island Packet Fleet of various yachts have sailed into Marsh Harbor in the Abacos and we have taken up home base off THE JIB ROOM which we LOVE. Marsh Harbor is a really good anchorage where the holding is fantastic and the large harbor has room for many many yachts. The Jib Room is located in the northeast end of the harbor. The public dinghy dock is on the south shore with easy access shopping. In town there are large hardware stores, pizza shops, bakeries, grocery stores and the famous BTC Bahamas phone store.

On Monday we met newly arrived “Merry Sea” and “Blue Sky.”

IP owners supported the JIB ROOM with 8 boats attending their world famous STEAK NIGHT where Marvin the Gill Master cooks up steaks to perfection. The Jib Room also serves a delicious house drink called the Bilge Burner which is similar to a rum punch with more kick 🙂

We enjoyed taking over three large IP yellow/gold picnic tables on the porch which provided for a fun gathering where we all could visit, share sea stories and catch up on each others travels. Thank you to Tom and Linda, owners of The Jib Room, for creating and running what I feel is the best cruising stop in the Abacos. Wed night is Rib Night and Sat night is Steak night.

On Monday nite, more IP’s gathered at The Jib Room to greet the new arrivals. Boats attending either or both events were IP38 Holiday, IP440 Emerald Isle, IP37 Simple Life, IP440 Aventura, IP380 Blue Sky, IP38 Merry Sea, IP40 Tin Tean, IP420 Flatlander, IP37 Galileo and IP35 Island Spirit.

Where is Marsh Harbor Abaco and the JIB ROOM?
Marsh Harbor and The JIB ROOM location
Island Spirit anchored off the Jib Room

Hayden and Radeen on date night

Hayden and Michele, author of “LEAVE THE SHORE BEHIND”
IP37 Simple Life

Michele and Deb share a smile

Radeen, Joe, and Maureen enjoying the Jib Room

Radeen with Linda, the owner of the JIB ROOM

Gerry and Larry

Joe and Michele strike a pose atTthe Jib Room

The wonderful JIB ROOM, a cruisers’ paradise

Marvin the GRILL MASTER prepares the best steaks

Desmond the LIMBO KING puts on a great show

Desmond as low as you can go. He’s been performing for 26 years!

Sunrise over Marsh Harbor

Boats are moving again, some enjoying the Abacos and others starting to head west towards Florida and home. We wish you all fair winds and smooth seas, until we meet again!

Great Sale to Green Turtle

Great Sale Cay to Green Turtle Cay

It is a simple 45 nm run from Great Sale Key to Green Turtle Key and in this case it was a total flat calm motor run as there are zero winds in the Bahamas this week due to a ridge north of here blocking all the winds. Fine with us, we prefer to sail but we also prefer calm passages, so I sanded teak and did a varnish job on passage.

Sara and Ken of IP40 Tin Tean join us for dinner

We arrived Green Turtle Cay on Wednesday and decided to stay here and enjoy the White Sound area on anchor. We took in the Green Turtle Club and enjoyed breakfast there. Good friends from Annapolis, Ken and Sara, biked over from Black Sound for dinner aboard. They recently organized the first ever St. Patrick’s Day Parade at GTC….we are sorry we missed it by just one day.

Life is easy here. We did laundry. Sounds like not a big deal, but with 3 loads at $5.00/load to wash and $5.00/load to dry it adds up to a quick $30 dollars. While the laundry is running, we stay by the pool sipping coffee and looking out at our boat on anchor. So, the view and pool alone are worth the price!

Here are a few photos.
…. I really love to take photos in the Bahamas….

Radeen measuring the banyan tree

Radeen loves to ride a tandem bike, so we toured Old Bahama Bay

What to do at Great Sale Key, read, read, read

Sunset at Great Sale Cay, looking back toward Florida

Enjoying the sunset selfie

Heading EAST in the AM for Green Turtle Cay

Ahhhhh, the Green Turtle Club

Coffee creamer from near our home in PA and butter from New Zealand

The #1 Breakfast sandwich in the Bahamas, Green Turtle Club
I rarely blog food, but this is worth it….get here and try one!

Whiteaker Yacht Sales mobile office i.e. Team Island Spirit
Open in the Bahamas and working

Our Mobile Whiteaker Yacht Sales Office
Stop in

This is us at Green Turtle Cay, The Bluff House

The view from the Laundry Room with our boat on anchor dead center

Landscaping

The tide is out in New Plymouth Settlement

Welcome to Green Turtle Cay where 400 people live.
The settlement was founded in 1783 by black and white British Loyalists. They were colonists forced from the U.S.
following the Revolutionary War due to persecution and economic ruin.

A home on the water, needs some work. Coral blocks for the foundation.

Blue against the blue sky, beautiful

Pig competition, these are the new swimming pigs in Abaco

Phone call, need to make a call? This phone works!

Thank you, BTC Bahamas, our cell phone tower and how we communicate

On watch over the dinghy dock.
Yes, life is slower, easier, and more peaceful in the Bahamas. Water is clear to 20+ feet. Fish are swimming under the boat and the sky is blue and the breeze about 5-10 knots right now. Temps are 80 degrees at noon and 70 degrees at night. You wake in the AM and hear NOTHING, only fish splashing, roosters crowing, and birds chirping. No car horns, no trains, no police sirens, no traffic, no TV news, nothing, just peace and calm and quiet…..ahhhh….welcome to the Bahamas!

Miami to West End Bahamas

…Radeen raises the Bahamas flag…

As we have said many times before, the hardest part of any cruising adventure is leaving, simply departing the safety of your home port or your current harbour. It is far easier to stay at one location rather than to make yourself move on. First of all, you are never fully ready as there is always one more item to find, more provisions to buy, and always something on the boat not working that needs to be fixed. After watching the forecast for days, an urgency factor comes into play when a weather window starts to open. On this preparation for our 4th trip to the Bahamas, it seemed as if this vortex was even stronger. Maybe this had something to do with the fact that we were based at Coconut Grove Sailing Club, Biscayne Bay, Miami, which is simply wonderful. It is also always hard to say good-bye to friends old and new, so we had one more IP Party on the Porch with IP380 Tamarak, IP38 Oceana, IP27 Time Goes By and IP380 Shawnee. Due to all this, we had a hard time leaving, but….we left and made West End, Bahamas, about a week and a half after our original planned departure.

The blue water as we come up on soundings, West End

WOW are we glad we did! We had vivid memories of the beautiful dark blue waters of the Gulf Stream and that incredible aqua blue water coming up on soundings arriving West End Bahamas, but it now seems even better than we remembered. I have taken photos of the water off the stern, the beam, the bow, the horizon and nothing presents the true blue of this water. You must sail it and see it for yourself, it is so special and so beautiful.

After check-in, Radeen hits the pool

Checking in at West End was fast and convenient. Dockage at Old Bahama Bay is discounted 20% for members of the Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht club. We decided to stay two nights so we could enjoy the wonderful pool, Radeen loves to swim, so we stayed one entire day and walked the beach, rode bikes and swam in the pool. After the 91 mile, 13.5 hour passage, it was a very fun day!

Our Bahamas BTC cell phone lit up and started working when we were 8 miles offshore. It really pays to NOT have to go to a BTC Bahamas store. We always buy our sim chip BEFORE we leave USA from www.MrSimCard.com who provides outstanding service and value. The sim card was shipped to us in 24 hours, and was activated on the BTC network two days before our trip. Once in sight of a BTC tower, we simply turned on the phone and were on the network. We use a Samsung Global Phone, GSM quadband, and it has served us well. Welcome to da Bajammas, Mon….you are going to like it here…

Here are some photos Miami to West End.

The boat at CGSC loaded to the max, down on her waterline

After working up the mast for hours on the Radar, I broke the new belt and hit the bitters!
Judith and Haakon’s gift from Scandinavia.

The helm electronics. Raymarine RL70C Chart/Radar w/Samsung tab2 and Navionics

CRAZY, my broken Radar WORKED as we left Cape Florida in the dark
Thank you….it is still working. 

Our Laptop screen with AIS on OpenCPN charting software.
We are the red symbol, the line is our intended course and the green symbols are other vessels.

Helm view at night, Radeen checking Passage Weather as we depart.
We use red lights, which don’t ruin our night time vision.

Sunrise as we head 065 for West End, Bahamas

Sunrise Hayden and the calm sea

Motor sailing with full main full jib, doing 9 knots in the Gulf Stream.

Full speed motor sail as ten knots of wind is not enough in the ocean

Radeen loves life on the boat

Half way there, SOG 7.5 as the Stream slows down

The blue water over the stern….and the engine on

Becalmed and zero winds, glad we have a new motor

The blue ocean water

Approaching West End, Bahamas

I shot this same photo 4 years ago, Radeen is so happy
See this:
http://islandspirit35.blogspot.com/2012/03/arriving-bahamas-2012.html
The pool at West End Bahamas, Old Bahama Bay Marina

Let this review tour begin now as we return to our favorite places in the Abacos. We are excited to chase down our Island Packet Fleet that left a week before us. We plan to gather Saturday at the Jib Room for Steak Night, no better place! Thanks for sailing along.

Chihuly Birthdays Boats Brokers

What a wonderful day, celebrating Radeen’s 60th birthday with Alan and Kathy of IP420 Flatlander! Alan’s birthday is also in March and we were happy to celebrate together again. We shared fond memories of Alan’s Spanish Cay birthday a few years ago. Radeen thoroughly enjoyed her Moet & Chandon Imperial champagne, parmesan shrimp over angel hair pasta and creme brulee. It was a day to remember!
We have become too busy to blog! I used to blog every day or two. Now, I am running around touring the fantastic Miami area, taking in the sights, showing yachts, gathering with Island Packet Owners, renting cars, and provisioning the boat with the hopes of taking the NEXT weather window to the Bahamas. We have enjoyed several more IP mini-vous on the porch at Coconut Grove with IP380 Shawnee, IP380 Tamarak, IP38 Oceana, IP31 Pepromenon and IP27 Time Goes By. We also caught up with S&J yacht brokers, Michele and Jim for dinner and had breakfast in Tampa with our friend, Blaine, but have no photos to prove it!
Our original IP flotilla (IP440 Emerald Isle, IP420 Flatlander and IP38 Holiday) sailed over while we supported our yacht listing, showing a beautiful IP35 to my Rock Hall broker friend Jim and his buyers. Driving to Tampa is 5 hours from Miami but we enjoyed the time spent showing the boat, reconnecting with Jim and meeting the potential buyers. We stayed at Craig’s condo and had a fun time visiting and catching up with him and Liana.
This has been a very breezy winter with lots of east wind and very few opportunities to sail to the Bahamas. We planned to be here in Miami all of February with boat shows and our Denmark friends visiting to present seminars about their Arctic sailing, Now it is mid March and we are still here in Miami. Not a bad thing, as we do love it here, but we are looking for a weather window to move over to the Abacos. We plan to spend March, April and part of May in the Abacos. Now if we can only get the boat ready and a few items fixed and find the winds to allow us to cross, we will make the jump over.
Here are some photos to catch up on over the past three weeks.
Oops….ran out of fuel, towboat and mega yacht
Touring Fort Lauderdale homes

Hayden, Radeen, Kathy and Alan of IP420 Flatlander

Dale Chihuly glass and Butterflies at Fairchild Botanical Gardens

Butterfly in the enclosure at Fairchild. This is the same butterfly as the next photo!

This butterfly is nearly invisible on a wooden log with its wings closed.

Chihuly exhibit on the water

My favorite Chihuly photo

Happy Birthday Radeen, champagne celebration at The Charthouse
This is the Weather window we let go, full moon rising at sunset

WYS mobile office, Miami, Hayden works every where

At “the Office” working 🙂

Rental car upgrade, Chevy Malibu LTS, for 4 days to run to Tampa

South Beach Wallcast, again, this time Bach and Vivaldi Coffeehouse, a fantastic night

Haul out and survey of the IP35 we have listed, such a beautiful yacht

Survey and Sailing the IP 35 we have listed. Brand new sails

Wawa has made it to Florida, YAHOO, love their coffee!

Road Trip, driving Miami to Tampa to Miami, via The Everglades

Bumped into Boat Buddies Bob and Nina at West Marine….AGAIN!

Nothing left to buy in Miami, it is all on Island Spirit

Radeen buying even more provisions and trying to store it all on the boat

Melges 20 World Regatta this week with 45 boats and many well-known sailors

Working at my local coffee shop

We always enjoy this sculpture at the local school

21.2 amps coming into the boat via solar

12.96 volts on the house bank

522 Amp Hours of a 525 amp hour bank = FULL

Boat runs on wind and solar power
Saturday winds, 20-25 knots and not SE, but ESE, this would be a beat
with winds 40 degrees off the starboard bow
Sunday winds, lighter, but a little more SE
This would be a motor sail….yet again!

The hardest part of any trip is LEAVING the comfort and safety of port. Trying to figure out the winds and sea state for a gulf stream crossing is a real challenge.

Play the Weather Router Game yourself, and look at this link. Use the GFS winds and look at the winds. Then look at the waves. When would you cross????

http://passageweather.com/index.htm?http%3A//passageweather.com/maps/florida/mappage.htm