Bahamas - Abacos: Hope Town

Day 285 - Part 2
April 21, 2016
NM Today: 20
NM To Date: 4398

We left Little Harbor at 11:30 heading for Hope Town. Clark said he needed me to enter waypoints into the chart plotter, so that took priority over lunch preparation. I decided that I would throw a bunch of snacks together in a bag in case we didn't get lunch until we reached Hope Town.

The ride, although not fully calm, was much calmer than the day before. I held the chart in my lap so that when we approached a waypoint, I could tell Clark the next point to aim for. For a relatively short trip, we had a large number of waypoints - many of them only one to two nautical miles apart from each other. The continual rocking of the boat lulled me to sleep in between times.

At 2:30 we arrived at Hope Town and called the Hope Town Inn and Marina for accommodations who said they could take us for the night.

After a quick lunch on board to save time for sightseeing, we grabbed the shuttle to the other side of the harbor where the shops are located.

Since we heard it closed early, we had the shuttle drop us at the point closest to the museum. We entered through the shop next door. Clark decided not to pay the $5 admission fee for himself, so I toured the museum by myself.

Wyanne Malone History Museum

Conch Art Boats, Bowls, and Spoons in the Store

I was greeted by a Local Pirate (statue)
in the Museum

and a miniature pirate display
(the pirate in the corner looks surprisingly like the lead
in "Pirates of the Caribbean")

I tried not to spend too much time in the museum since Clark was waiting for me. As part of the tour a 20-minute video about the Abacos could be watched. I found it only moderately interesting so I left it after only 5 or so minutes to see what else the museum had to offer. I took lots of pictures of the diverse contents of the museum. Here are a few samples of the diversity of the displays.

Gorgeous Stained Glass Artwork

Statue of Museum's Namesake

(for Clark) a switch board

When I exited the museum, I found Clark outside wandering around taking some pictures of his own, and then we walked around town together.

School

Garden of a Private Home

Breadfruit Tree Brought to Hope Town
by Captain Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty Infamy 

Miniature Replica of Home on Island
Called 'Lizard Lodge' and Home of Old Mr. Curlytail
(lizards here have curled tails)

Of course we found an ice cream shop - Munchies

We could see the lighthouse from town and after exploring the town offerings, we called the shuttle and went back to the marina. From there we walked to the lighthouse.

View of Lighthouse from Town

Trail to Lighthouse

 We made a wrong turn and found the Mangrove Bridge quite by accident. Interesting that once we crossed the bridge, we found it abruptly dead-ended, so apparently it was just there so we could walk through the mangroves without disturbing them. Finding a bridge to nowhere was reminiscent of our recent bike ride where we ended at the road to nowhere!

Mangrove Bridge

We wandered around for quite some time trying to puzzle out the access to the lighthouse. It turned out we had to walk through a marina and down to the water's edge to find the lighthouse path. Along the way we could see the section of town where we found the ice cream store Munchies.

View of Town from Lighthouse Marina

Elbow Reef Lighthouse in Hope Town

I waited outside while Clark hiked up to the top of the lighthouse. The sign said the lighthouse closed at 5:00 and it was now after that time. I looked at the padlock hanging on the door to the inside of the lighthouse and decided to wait as I did not fancy getting locked inside. As I stood and waited for Clark I could hear several roosters crowing - a common sound in this area.

On our way back to the marina from downtown and as we walked the trails trying to find the lighthouse, we had experienced some spots of rain. We took our raincoats, just in case, for the walk to the lighthouse. As we walked the trail, the dark clouds just kept rolling in, so we expected to get more than a few drips as the day progressed. We were not disappointed!

View of Dark Clouds from Lighthouse

Inside Lighthouse

Workings of the Lighthouse

View of Sea Moss from the Top of the Lighthouse

The Harbor as seen from Lighthouse

After our short hike to the lighthouse, we decided that it would be nice to take showers before having dinner. We decided to eat at the marina for a change and had a wonderful meal. As we dined the weather finally hit, and it rained quite heavily. We stayed dry in the restaurant, and fortunately it stopped raining before we left to walk back to the boat. 

Having had ice cream late afternoon, we passed on dessert after dinner and headed back to the boat where I spent the rest of the night blogging until midnight. At that point, too bleary-eyed to see or think, I went to bed and vowed to finish today's blog before leaving the marina and the WiFi behind.  I managed to post two and a half blog entries before retiring! With the very slow WiFi that was quite an accomplishment.