Staying in the Abacos
05 December 2013
Wiley (very late posting!)
The mission of the starship Enterprise is "to boldly go where no person has gone before". We didn't do that.
Instead, like last year, we stayed in the Abacos. We had planned to go south to the Exumas this year - a voyage that would involve two (for us) fairly long passages. Our year in Florida and the Bahamas thus far, had included one cold front after another, with high winds and "weird weather" (according to some of the Bahamians). We just didn't trust the weather.
Or was it inertia? There are always good excuses for not venturing out. Do they multiply as you turn into an old person - as Wiley, who turned age 65 in the Abacos this year, is now by any objective measure? Apart from some anchorages we had not used before, the only new place we went to was Little Harbor and we didn't even go there in our own boat.
We went out on a dive boat from "Froggies" Dive Shop in Hopetown. It was billed as a "one-tank dive" at Sandy Cay,
(a national underwater park), a stop at Pete's Pub (famous for its burgers and drinks) at Little harbor, and then an anchorage at a sandbar, to snorkel for sea biscuits and sand dollars. It was a windy day, and slightly choppy on the way to Sandy Cay, but we had a good dive - lots of beautiful reef fish and a nice moray eel to see. Then, on to Little Harbor, where "skinny water" - only 3 and 1/2 feet at low tide - had kept us from venturing last year. We had been warned by the skipper of the dive boat to order our burgers right away, because Pete's Pub "slow cooks" them and it takes about 40 minutes. This gives you time to explore while you wait for your burger, and there is a nice walkway going to an impressive view of the ocean. After a couple of rum punches, the burgers came and were wonderful. We then walked over to the Johnson Studio, and looked at wonderful sculptures, many of them for sale. we bought one - a little sculpture of a dolphin, the smallest and cheapest they had. Everyone returned to the boat, which departed Little Harbor into increasing wind and seas - maybe three footers (actually, short of a hurricane, seas don't get very large on the shallow, sheltered Sea of Abaco). The skipper decided it was too rough to try to snorkel, so it was just a bouncy wet trip back to Hopetown.
On the way back, we saw "Journey", a thirty-foot, over thirty year old Hunter sailboat we had first seen at Vero Beach, Fla. We met the young Canadian couple who own her. Their plan was to sail down the Bahamas and then to the Dominican Republic and to points south. They are both SCUBA divers. They planned to live on their boat, with her getting a divemaster certification so that she could get a job on a dive boat, while he found some other job. They seemed not to have much money. At Vero, they had anchored in the one little corner of the harbor where a boat can, even though the cost of staying on a mooring at Vero is very modest. They told us that they almost always cooked on their boat, rather than eating at restaurants. They ended up crossing the Gulf Stream a day after we did. Journey's forestay broke while they were sailing across the Gulf Stream, but they were lucky and quick. They managed to avoid being dismasted. They pulled into the slip next to ours at West End to make repairs, and left for the Abacos that same day. We later saw their boat anchored outside Marsh Harbor, which seemed odd. It turned out that their rudder had broken. They used SCUBA gear to drop the rudder, repaired it, and then lifted it back into place from underwater. I had seen them anchored outside Hopetown Harbor (which has no space for any boats to anchor in the harbor) while engaged in my "daily swim", and swam out to say hello. So now here was Journey, with the Sea of Abaco almost as rough as we had ever seen it, sailing south with "a bone in her teeth," headed for the North Bar Channel and the big waters of the Atlantic. Their immediate destination was the Exumas, and after that to points south, too (for them) the "undiscovered country". The sight of brave elderly little Journey and her young crew caused me to experience a wave of emotion - anxiety over whether the young couple would continue to be safe, and regrets that we had decided to "play it safe" by remaining in the Abacos. I wished that I were young again, unworried about our estate plan, or our health or mortgage or kids, driving, Les Miserables south on a strong wind, irrationally confident that we could overcome whatever life threw at us, with no particular destination in mind beyond the as yet unknown "undiscovered country".
In truth, we were never like the young Canadian couple. When we were their age, we could not even have afforded a thirty-year old sailboat. Our goals were not vague or impractical. Instead, our goals were specific, and perhaps banal - for Wiley to graduate from law school, pas the bar, and start a career as a lawyer; for Merry, to get a teaching job, pursue a career in education; for both of us to purchase a home, to have children and watch and help them grow. When Wiley was young, he used to worry about everything. He still does. Putting it down in writing makes our lives sound so common, even trite.
Yet, like the young Canadians, we too are heading for the "undiscovered country". The phrase is from Shakespeare (and, by the way is the sub- title of the movie Star Trek VI). The "undiscovered country" is the future. In that sense, we are all on the same voyage. Maybe it doesn't really matter if we stay in the Abacos or voyage south. The Canadian couple are in their "spring, which is young once only" (Dylan Thomas). We are obviously not. But if we make the most of every day and never forget how lucky we have been, to still be on our journey, we can experience the same zest for life as they do.
Bon Voyage, Journey!