We left Hopetown on Thursday the 23rd after a week's stay. Our stay started out being weather related but was stretched out because it is just a truly enjoyable place to visit and relax. We left on high tide rising about mid-morning to ensure we would have enough depth out the shallow channel and were greeted with a delightful breeze that took us effortlessly under headsail only out past Parrot Cays, around Set Point Rock and into Marsh Harbour. We anchored towards the head of the harbour not far from the Jib Room Restaurant in about 7 ft. of water well out of the unmarked channel that the Bahamian Defence Force routinely makes boats move out of at all hours of the day and night.

Marsh Harbour is the largest settlement in the Abacos and the third largest in the entire Bahamas with about 5000 population. The harbour itself has good holding and has room for lots of boats while the town provides the best opportunities for cruisers to re-provision; do some banking; and access a wide range of other services. It has two large groceries stores, a couple of well-stocked hardware stores, local government offices, several good beer and wine stores, and oddly enough, two of the major Canadian banks. And, we took advantage of the opportunity to make the most of all the services available and made repeated forays to town for supplies and sightseeing. I even got my haircut seeing as my barber (the Admiral) was still in Canada.

On the weekend of the 25th was Marsh Harbour's annual Junkanoo (see lead picture) with juvenile teams competing on the Friday evening while the adult teams competed on Saturday. We passed on the youth teams because the evening was rather miserable and we thought that the better show would come from the adult teams the next night. So on Saturday night we dinghied in from the boats for an 8pm start but as everything here is on island time the parade actually got started just after 10pm. But, the wait was worth it to see the effort these groups put into both their costumes and their performances. We were disappointed that there were only two groups competing while on Friday evening the youth groups had nearly a dozen groups showing off their talents. But, it was very interesting to see a true, down-home Caribbean junkanoo in its native setting.

We enjoyed Marsh Harbour for a couple more days and met a lot of cruisers from different parts of the world that are attracted to this hub of the Abacos.

All too soon though it was time for Tranquility to start moving back north and begin the trek back to the States. So on Feb 29th Laurence and Joan weighed anchor and headed out the harbour towards Treasure Cay and the northern cays of the Abacos while Leeway waited a couple of hours for the tide before heading to Man-O-War Cay. Tranquility and Leeway had travelled together for nearly 8 weeks and had a lot of fun together but it is the nature of cruising to say regularly say goodbye to new friends and hope that your paths will cross again in the future. Fair winds Tranquility.

Leeway moved over the Man-O-War Cay and took a mooring in the Settlement Harbour from which I will venture out of nice days to play around the islands while waiting for the Admiral to arrive in mid-April. Also at Man-O-War are TJ & Kaye on Shearwater and Lou & Jean on Both Sides Now who are long time friends from the International Alberg 37 Association. So stay tuned for more adventures.