Hopetown Raft Up
20 March 2014 | Hopetown, Abacos
Cindy
Every morning on the VHF Radio there is a "Cruiser's Net". The "net" provides weather and tide information as well as announcements about community events and an opportunity for local businesses to promote themselves. One of Sunday's announcements was that there was going to be a dinghy "raft up" that evening.
At 6:00 pm, we headed over to the designated area to join 53 other dinghies in the sunset dinghy raft up. We sure wished we had taken our camera. We have never seen so many dinghies rafted together. Hors'deuvres were passed from dinghy to dinghy and it was a great opportunity to meet other boaters. When a dish was empty, someone would stand up and yell "who does this belong to" and it would make its way back to the owner. We drifted around the harbour and when we got too close to a boat, someone would start their motor and move us off. We ended up drifting out to the harbour entrance. At one point, a power boat came into the harbour at great speed and throttled back quickly when he saw all of us. He said he thought we were all nuts and had never seen anything like it. People in the houses came out to take videos and pictures of us. It was quite a sight. The intent was to stay out until the moon came up, but with the wind and the current, we figured that if we didn't disburse, we'd end up at Man O War Cay! What a blast.