Little Harbour and Johnson's Bronzeworks

Little Harbour was first inhabited by the Johnson family in the 1950's. Shown above is the cave the father, mother and little boy lived in for the first while. The father, Randolph, was a world renown bronze scupltor. He produced items in the lost-wax fashion. Young Peter learned the art and carries on these two years after Randolph's passing.

Shown above are the ruins of the old lighthouse, path leading up to it, and a rather spectacular

cove on the ocean. Below are some of the Family Johnson creations and workshop. The fellow actually working the bronze (pictured in the heavy apron) is not Peter, but a fellow artist.

The School Fundraiser at Man O' War Cay

What a great gathering! It started about 20 years ago as a swap-meet for cruising sailors. Any funds raised were given to the local school. Now it is a must-attend for locals, cruisers, cottagers, artists and other vendors. One of the sillier events was hermit-crab racing. I asked this young gambler if he could display his clawed-contender for me. After much hooting and ado, half of the crabs freaked out and froze, but the winner, as you can see, made a break for freedom!

Man o' War Cay is known for being a real working town. Years ago, there was a sail loft, a wooden boat builder and other related businesses. Now, the ladies at the sail loft put out a different product; canvas bags, hats, chair covers and travel items and all kinds of goodies. I couldn't get a good snap of the old loft, but you could still see the old beams and walkways on the second floor, which incidentally, had no floor. Just beams and two walkways! Another shop makes clothing and home decore items out of Androsia fabric, which is hand-batiked on Andros Island, Bahamas. I had to include the picture of the beautiful fabric.

Still functioning is Albury's Boat Yard, still producing fast, good looking fishing boats. They used to produce only wooden boats, but in the 60's started to produce in fibreglass. Apparently, they are of such good quality, they are in demand all over the Bahamas and Florida; Everyone who is anyone has to have one!

There are dive-shops, gorby traps, bakeries, marinas and a boat repair yard. There are regular grocery stores and the like.

The fundraiser itself had used clothing, food tents as well toys etc, some boat stuff, at least a dozen artists, and of course all the businesses put in a few big ticket items for the silent auction.

The day after the fundraiser, we heard on the news that the school had raised 23, 000 bucks! Seing how Man O' War has no more 300 residents, I felt it was very impressive! Way to go!

Hey, Guess What?!

The good people at Living Aboard Magazine published an article of mine! Their website is on the link list on the right hand side. You'll have to actually buy January-February's issue to read the article, but I'll give you a hint: if you've been keeping up with the storys here, you've read most of what the article is about. Tomorrow, Gourmet! Ok, maybe I'll practice a bit first. And by the way, Phil, thanks for telling me I made a spelling error...but where?

Make a Comment

While trying to figure out how to make this blog more fun, I discovered that I didn't make the comment button very accessible for most of you. Hopefully, this has been corrected, and I would love to hear from you!

Great Guana Cay

The adventure continues! As we cruise these tiny, northern cays, we look for ones that have some settlement on them so we can walk on paths and paved/bare limestone roads. Frequently, we'll anchor off the leeward side, row in and find a walk to the Altantic ocean side. The first picture shows the Atlantic beach, the latter shots depict the much less windy inside beaches. These shots were taken on a very calm day so I could get a clear shot of the bottom. My dingy was riding over two feet of clear water. Can you make out the Hawksbill Turtle in the last shot? Hawksbills are from the family Chelonidae; Green Turtle. Cool, huh? Don't forget, you can click on the photos for a blow-up.

So the days are blissfully getting longer. I tell you, when the sun went down at five o'clock in December, it got pretty depressing! We found out that cruisers have not much else to do than turn in shortly after nightfall and catch up on some sleep. Finding something to do, other than reading, can get to be tedious in the evenings, but with a little increase in daylight hours, it gets easier.

Cruisers have a developed habit of getting together for cocktails, not dinner until you get to know the other better. A few days ago, we sailed up to Allan's Cay, a popular stop for boats just arriving in the Bahamas, and came across 12 other sailboats and 3 trawler-yachts in the roomy harbour area. So when we saw a get-together on the beach at 5 o'clockish, we rowed in for a hello, where are you from, where are you headed? You meet the nicest people! We discovered another wooden boat, a wee schooner, home-built and quite pretty. Met a couple with a 4 month old baby. Most of them have been coming here for years. Decades, even. So it's nice to get info for good stopping spots from the vets, and share the wonder with the newbies.

The US Department of Defence (NASA?) had a radar tracking thingy on Allan's. It is now abandoned, but they left all their roads (bare limestone with some remaining ashphalt) for us to use. Some creative sailors made a "signing tree"; whatever beach-combings you find, you carve your ship's name in it and hang it up on this weathered, old tree. There were old sandals, bikinis, wood scraps (one made into a two-seater swing!) dive-floats and old rope. These days, the junk that washes up on the shore is more plastic than anything: buckets, milk-crates, bread racks, 4" docklines from huge freighters, and, maddeningly, plastic water bottles. Lots and lots of those. Even on what should be the most deserted of shores, (Allan's is unpopulated) there are reminders of "civilization".

We're planning on cruising the Southern Abacoes next, see Hopetown, then start heading back for our crossing to get back to Ontario. We'll be seeing a part of the US that we missed by coming here off-shore: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Savannah and Charleston. Not looking forward to the tight canals of the Intra-Coastal Waterway, so we're getting advice from other sailors that know the inlets so we can travel outside the ICW when possible, on the open Atlantic, for 24-36 hour short hops up the coast.

Jim's brother is getting married on the May long Weekend in Kingston, so we hope to get the boat to where we can leave it safely for a few days (Annapolis?) while we rent a car, attend the Do, then get back to the boat. We might make it back to begin our much-anticipated Ontario cruise. I'm telling you, I'm looking forward to cruising familiar waters and not holding down a full time job. I'll actually have time to enjoy more of my former back-yard, which is lovely in the summer.

Haul-Out.

Up, up and away! The handsome, efficient and tireless crew at Abaco Yacht Services picked Chelonidae up Monday am, and put her back in today, Friday. After a hull inspection, it was my job to scrub the black part. Then Jim sanded it. I dusted and tacked it off. The old bottom paint was the oblating kind: it wears off gradually to inhibit marine growth and toredo worms. When dry, it comes off like chalk dust. Black, top-side-hugging, get-it-in-youreyesearsnosethroat, non-stop chalk dust. In a word...Ew! But! After a wash, shave and haircut, she looks great, once again, see new photo on the title of blog. This new bottom paint is NOT the oblating kind! We will still have to sand it, so what the hell!

Other non-paid staff include these lovely geese. They are fed by Crystal, who administates the operation. The last sound you expect to hear in a busy ship-yard is "Quack-qua-a-ack!", but it made mid-night trips to the loo more interesting!

Our next stop will be back to Marsh Harbour to re-provision, then maybe southward to explore Hopetown and Little Harbour.

Junkanoo at Green Turtle Cay

Junkanoo is what people in the Bahamas do to celebrate the New Year. Jim looked it up and learned that the name pays hommage to (yikes!) an African slave-trader named John Canoe! Whatever it was, it was good, old fashioned family fun! We had a great feed of barbeque, rice & conch and baked macaroni & cheese (Huh? Yes! It's really Bahamian treat!). With a population of maybe 300, we practically knew every one that was there! It was just like attending Hey-Day in Kemptville! Then the Junkanoo Rush (the performers) came down the hill in a whirl of white and blue with flashes of pink and yellow, what a scene! And could these guys press the volume button, or what?!? Even the littlest of boys were shaking the gound with those drum-beats!

After twice around the town (so small!) the Junkanoo headed for the basket-ball court, their version of the Villiage green, and continued to play and dance. According to tradition, there was a scarily-dressed charachter let loose into the crowd to scare all the evil spirits away for the whole year. Alas, he was moving too fast to be captured by either rambunctios lttle boy or the camera! I think it was about then that the "Goombay Smash "(the local tipple) made an appearance, because the highly energized Big Cheese said for all to go around the town again; we cut back to the boat.

We hitched a ride back to our end of the island, and were picked up by a mommy of one of the little girls. This lively sprite told me that she just plain didn't want to go around again!

It was quite fun to be welcomed into the small (TINY!) town crowd for this special event, Green Turtle puts on one of the bigger Junkanoos around.

So Happy New Year, keep the bad spirits away and if you think os us, dump some pineapple and coconut juice into some rum and chase your own spirits away!