We left Manjack Cay and headed SE to Man-O-War Cay on Saturday, Nov 19, because the winds out of the NE were light. The route to MOW goes through the reef south of Green Turtle Cay into the ocean around Whale Cay and then back into the Sea of Abaco just north of Great Guana Cay. This course is necessary because the Sea of Abaco is extremely shallow between Whale Cay and the “mainland” of Great Abaco Island. Only small powerboats can negotiate the shallow passages inside of Whale or at Don’t Rock closer to the mainland.

At MOW we dropped anchor at “the Low Place”, a narrow natural rock bridge that connects the northern end of MOW to the main island. On Sunday we attended church and were warmly greeted by several people who remembered us. On Monday we kayaked around the small lagoon and spotted a few lobsters. I was able to grab two of them for our dinner.

Tuesday we had lunch at Hibiscus Cafe (one of the two restaurants on MOW) with Jim and Nancy Clements, second owner who winter on MOW. Wednesday morning we moved over to Marsh Harbour in order to take the dinghy into Abaco Outboard to solve an issue with it bogging down under full load. While the dinghy engine was being fixed (carburetor cleaning) we walked into town and had lunch at Snappas on the waterfront. Afterwards, we ran a few shopping errands and returned to Abaco Outboard and a fixed dinghy. We stayed in the harbor that evening. The harbor was as empty as we have ever seen it. Seems like the weather has been delaying cruisers from making the crossing from Florida, so we were fortunate to have made the crossing when we did.

For Thanksgiving, Nov 24, we had made dinner reservations at the Hope Town Lodge so we moved again from Marsh Harbour to an anchorage near Eagle Rock just outside Hope Town. Our reservation was for 6:30PM which is after sunset, so we enjoyed sundowners on the boat and took a dinghy ride into Hope Town harbor in the dark. The harbor in Hope Town is small and boats must use one of the many mooring balls there but only about half of the mooring balls were occupied. We skirted around the edge of the harbor instead of going through the middle to avoid running into an unoccupied mooring ball in the dark.

Hope Town Lodge sits on a hill at the south end of the harbor and the view from the restaurant looks back at the famous red and white striped lighthouse. They had a fixed menu for Thanksgiving which offered a choice of turkey, lobster, or lamb for the main course. Karrie and I both picked the turkey, which was delicious! Yes, we passed on the Lobster; it was Thanksgiving after all and we had just had fresh lobster on Monday!

Football: the Saturday after Thanksgiving is football rivalry weekend. We watched Ga Tech beat the University of GA in an exciting game (yea) and UF get beaten by FSU (boo). Navy devastated SMU in a non-rival game. Navy scored on every possession except the final drive when time ran out and every Navy player was in the game except the punter because they never punted!

On the Sunday after T-day, the church in MOW has their “Thanksgiving pot luck lunch”. After services everyone, including islanders, second home owners, and boaters, joined together in the fellowship hall for turkey, ham, and all the fixings. It was an incredible spread!

On Monday we will head down to Tahiti Beach for the week.