Got a glorious feeling, I'm happy again.
Saturday 22nd - After a quick run ashore to get Phil some sunglasses we left Man o' War to go snorkel off Fowl Cay again. We have a lazy sail with just the jib up and anchor off the Cay. Then Phil notices that it appears to be raining on Great Guana and there are ugly clouds coming across from the mainland. The weather forecast had talked of a front that would stall north of us but it seems that it moved further south than they expected. To the south of us the sun was shining and there was blue sky. So we up anchor and head for Marsh Harbor but too late the rain hit us in great torrents that almost flattened the sea. We'd thought it would be miserable but it was wonderful. The Turtle loved it, tearing along at 7 knots with one reef in. The rain was warm and we needed a shower anyway! It wasn't a case of the wetness seeping through our clothes, one moment we were dry the next we were soaked through. We carried on to Marsh Harbor and the rain stopped, then we were hit by a blast of warm air. It was like we were being blow dried.
We anchored in Marsh Harbor for the first time, before we went into the marina. No problem, change of clothes and then we went ashore to get a frying pan. We were rushing as it was close to 5pm and tomorrow was Sunday. Turns out we needn't have rushed as Maxell's stays open 8am-8pm. It's rather a shock after the Cays where a sign giving hours of business merely means an intention to open at those times. Nothing seems to come with guarantees in the Abaco, the cruising guides always seem to hedge with words like "usually". "The channel is usually well marked with red and green buoys".
It's the night of the Senior Junkanoo, last night was the Junior Junkanoo and had 11 schools competing. We ask various people where and when it takes place and perhaps the most accurate advice we got was that it will start much later then they say. Rumour had it that it would start at 8pm as there were only four groups competing. We ate at Snappas and it was still only 7pm. We walked to the traffic light and then were directed down the main road to the airport. We were just about to give up when someone stopped and gave us a lift. We paid our $5 and walked down the closed off road. Waiting for a Bahamian event is just a question of killing time, or in this case slowly torturing it to death. I watched people walk past so many times I became convinced I knew them from somewhere. At around 9:30p the first group started warming up and eventually started slowly down the road. Fronted by a sign that said "PRESENTS ANCIENT ARBARIAN" suggesting this was the Abaco Dyslexics Junkanoo Band.
They were good, full of lot of energy. If it took them a long time to get started it seemed even longer to stop them, and there was no sign of the the next group. We had left our tender tied up at Snappas dock and we had visions of the placed being locked up with no access to the dock so we left the Junkanoo early (well 10pm) and walked back. Shame, the next group looked good although they still seemed to be assembling there center piece and clearly weren't going to start down the road any time soon. In truth it was probably an excuse as we were just tired of waiting around. We'd had one beer because we couldn't see any portaloos anywhere (Phil said he eventually found two). It's a long walk back but Snappas is still open. It bills itself as open "11am - Until" saying they stay open while they still have customers.
We get into the tender and head to the anchorage. Pleased with ourselves that we had remembered to turn on the anchor light before leaving and to bring a torch with us, yet we still ended up motoring around the whole anchorage before coming back to the beginning and eventually finding the Turtle.
Junkanoo - is a parade/marching band/dancing with an African tribal flavor and very extravagant costumes. Lots of drums too. The groups compete with each other so there are long gaps between them rather than a parade where one follows another.
The lighthouse is the only one left using kerosene for the light and one of three left that are manual. The mantle sits inside a Fresnel lens array that gives out five narrow beams of light that rotate around every 15 seconds although here I should add that important bahamian adverb "usually". The mechanism that rotates the light has to be wound up every couple of hours so though it's an impression sight when you go to bed with the narrow beams sweeping through the night warning seafarers of the reef, when I got up about 4am for a pee. It had stopped rotating. I think it's a volunteer operation.
