Marsh Harbor

1748 nm   N26 32.855  W077 03.391

Once anchored at Marsh Harbour, we dinghyed ashore for a quick look-around before the sun set. 

One of the first things we encountered was a humorous trash-can holder modeled to look like the cartoon Great White Shark "Sherman" in the comic strip "Sherman's Lagoon".

We ended up at "Snappa's" for drinks.

On Thursday, our crewmember Bill left us again to catch a flight home.  When we came ashore, there was a regular traffic jam at the dinghy dock!  This was the result of a call for volunteers on the morning's Cruiser's Net on the VHF radio, asking for help cleaning up the trash on the road to Maxwell's, which is the largest grocery in Marsh Harbour.

Traffic Jam!

Waiting for the Taxi

Good-bye Bill. We'll Miss You!

We later joined the volunteers picking up trash.  They collected over two pickup trucks worth of trash!

Cleaning the Road to Maxwell's

Afterwards, lunches of cracked conch and shrimp at Wally's Restaurant.   This is a hi-end boutique & restaurant, aimed squarely at the tourist trade, but we treated ourselves.

Classy Setting

Ornate Landscaping

Cracked Conch

Skewered Shrimp

Over the next several days, we walked all over Marsh Harbour.  It has three (!) well stocked hardware stores, a number of marine stores, and quite a few restaurants, both touristy and local. And Maxwell's grocery is the equal of any big grocery in the U.S.  But overall we felt a bit disappointed. Its a great place to reprovision, but other than eating out, there didn't seem to be much else to do.  Lots of cars, people, and trash.  Felt more like being in a poor town in the US than in the Bahamas.  We were told that the crime level here was high, but we never saw any overt sign of it. NOT like things were at Nassau two years ago!  (We later discovered that our credit card number had been stolen while we were here, and had almost $6000 in bogus charges against it before we discovered it and cancelled the card!)

Sigh.

So, after five days here, the refrigerator was full, the engine was gassed up, and we were ready to move on and really discover the Abacos.  Another front was due in a couple of days, so we wanted to try and get a mooring ball in Man O War Cay harbour. Its small and protected on all sides, so its a good place to ride out a blow.  By good fortune, our cruising friends Ron and Phoebe aboard S/V Jibay Na Noodin were in Man O War.  We met them two years ago in the Exumas, and we hoped to be able to get together with them at MOW before they left.

Life is good.