After 2 months on the hook in the Exumas we treated ourselves to a marina in Marsh Harbor. Three days later... we were ready to head out again and spent the day provisioning, washing the boat inside and out, doing laundry, topping off the water. Whew! Instead of messing up the galley we went out for a cheap dinner. After checking the menu on the third restaurant and not experiencing sticker shock we settled on Curly Tails at the top of Conch Inn marina. As I was taking a picture of Kevin with the monstrous curly tail iguana hanging on the wall a friendly patron offered to take our picture together. We got to talking and discovered they too were cruisers and had 7 years experience in the Abacos. As most cruisers do, Jeff and Cindy on Salty Dog offered to go over charts and guides if we were heading in their direction of Treasure Cay. We didn’t know where we were headed but Treasure Cay sounded like a good start.
We pulled into the very crowded anchorage and dropped the anchor only to pull it right back up. Our depth went from 9 feet to 4 in a very short distance. Suddenly a dingy with 2 people aboard came buzzing by yelling, “Hey Kevin and Dorothy! You’ll run out of water there. Just drop back and drop your hook just off my port side, you’ll be fine.” Ummm, “Do we know you? Are you sure? That seems awfully close.” We went with the flow after we recognized Jeff from Curly Tails. As it turns out, Jeff from Salty Dog was friends with Rick from Sojourner (the cruiser guiding us to the anchor spot).
We ended up being invited to a string of sundowners on various boats for the next 4 days. Jeff and Cindy on Salty Dog invited us to sundowners on their boat the first night where we met Rick and Linda on Sojourner. We were then invited to Sojourner the next evening where we met Gary and Barb on Tan Dan along with 4 other cruising couples. The following night we were invited to Windkist (another Hunter owner) by Gary and Catherine that new Salty Dog from 4 years ago. It turns out that Gary and Catherine know the former owners of our boat, small world. The next night we were invited to Tan Dam for Gary’s 68th birthday. Whew! We thought we would have a lull the next night, NOT! Off to the cruisers pot-luck dinner on Great Guana at Grabbers. We ran into a couple we met way back in Vero, another couple we met at Marsh Harbor Marina who knew another couple we met at sundowners on Sojourner. Keeping track??? Yes, it all starts to run together and you can’t remember who you met where or their names or anything! Fortunately everyone is in the same boat (pun intended) and sympathizes if you ask their names more then once.
But that’s not the end of chance meetings and eclectic groups of cruisers. While back in Marsh Harbor Marina again we met John on Sojourn. He has been cruising for 26 years, 20 sailing on a 42’ Hunter and the last 6 on a 49 Defever trawler. His vast experience proved to be invaluable to us when we starting having engine problems, but I digress into a whole other story... We also met John and Paddy on New Moon when we stopped to visit Sojourner in the harbor. Kevin and I finally decided to have a little sundowner of our own and invited both Sojourner and New Moon. Our cockpit is relatively small so therefore we kept our invites to what would be comfortable. But alas, as cruisers go we ended up inviting even more. Sojourn had plans for dinner with a cruiser on Tosmo. No problem, we met Tosmo at Capn’ Jack’s in Hope Town the prior week and invited him also. John on New Moon shows up with Mike who has been helping Shawn and Mary from Ireland on Blue Caribbean prepare to cross the Atlantic. No problem, come aboard Mike. So, our little sundowner went from 5 to 7. The more the merrier... But wait, there’s more. We all decided to go over to Mangoes for pizza night. In your wildest dreams would you ever put together a New York financier, a former 7-11 executive, a retired engineer, a retired surgical nurse, an young Irish couple, a random Jack-of-all-trades cruiser with Kevin and I tagging along? Seriously, we were sitting there having dinner and I was having the time of my life with the oddest mix of people. Only the cruising life style....