The Final Stretch – Preparing for Departure in Marsh Harbour

We left Man-o-War pretty early in hopes of getting in some sailing before we dropped anchor to snorkel Mermaid Reef and wait for the tide to rise. We sailed about halfway there before deciding it would be better to just get fuel and get into our slip – the afternoon weather was forecast to deteriorate significantly and we wanted to be settled before it hit. While there would be a couple skinny spots, we figured we should still have enough water to make it. We reluctantly turned on the engine and carefully picked our way in on the outgoing tide but didn’t see any concerning depths.

We’d reserved a slip at the Conch Inn and Marina, which has come a long way in a year – the full set of docks is complete and the fuel dock is out at the end making it more easily accessible, Snappas has reopened, they have real bathrooms with showers, a nice laundry room, and one set of hotel rooms and the Navigare/Dream Yacht Charters offices are completed. The marina office is still in a shipping container, but the building they’ll eventually occupy is making great progress. I think they did it right – they planned their rebuild to focus on getting revenue flowing in phases. Setting up offices, heads, laundry, showers and charter offices in shipping containers and building slips for charter boats and a few transients let them resume limited operations relatively quickly. They then turned their attention to rebuilding the restaurant and part of the inn plus charter offices and completing the dock, and they’ve saved their office for last.

I was surprised that both Jackson and T, the former dock manager (who is now a captain for Navigare Charters), remembered us, and I continue to be impressed with all of the Conch Inn staff. The charter fleet staff is also wonderful, and we had nice conversations with some of the captains and maintenance crews.

We were so glad to see most of the marinas open again, and we were bummed to be just missing the Jib Room‘s reopening (by one day!). We remember our friend Steve telling us how good their steak dinners were, and I’m looking forward to finding out firsthand next year.

Our slip was right next to the fuel dock and was super easy to get into. Once we were settled, we launched Squall and headed out to Mermaid Reef. The wind started to come up a bit while we were out there, but we enjoyed what may be our last chance to get in the water while we’re in the Bahamas. I always enjoy Mermaid – the coral is interesting and there are always a ton of cool fish. This time we saw an electric ray gliding along the bottom. The water was a little chilly and we cut our time short as clouds started to fill in.

We had a lot of prep work to do ahead of our friend Laura’s arrival. She kindly agreed to crew for us and planned to arrive a few days early so she could acclimate, learn the boat, and help with boat work. But we wanted to have the boat as ready as possible ahead of time. I’ll never turn down an offer of help on boat projects, but it’s my responsibility to do as much as I can (and besides, who wants to fly all the way to the Bahamas to do nothing but boat work?).

I finally tackled rearming our life jackets, a necessary project I’ve been terrified to take on. I started with our two spare life jackets so that if I made a mistake, our primaries were still in service. The instructions weren’t particularly helpful, so I dug up a video from Mustang and was able to fumble my way through the first one. After that, it got easier and it feels good to have confidence that our safety gear is functioning properly.

Manual inflation test before rearming the automatic inflation system

We gave Windara a good deep cleaning (so very necessary after so long) and temporarily rehomed things that usually live in the aft cabin so Laura would have a place to sleep. Once she arrived, we started a kanban board on the wall with all our remaining prep work and methodically worked our way through the list. It was awesome to have help, and we were able to knock out so much in a short period of time. I even got a chance to draw up a copy of the hull diagram with all the thru-hulls and safety gear noted so we could keep it as a quick reference at the nav desk. Of course, it wasn’t all work – we celebrated her first night in town with dinner at Snappas and we made sure to take her over to Colors too.

If you’re ever in Marsh Harbour and need a cab, give Matthew Taylor a call (242-577-5728). We had him pick Laura up from the airport and bring her to the boat since we were working and unable to meet her ourselves, and we also arranged to have him take us to Maxwells. We’d arranged for him to meet us a little too early, so he offered to stop at Bay Street Coffee Shop & Deli, which was on the way. He gave us a lot of local insight into Bahamian politics and the struggles various islands face, and we enjoyed our conversation. He waited for us while we did our provisioning run and then took Laura over to the ferry dock so she could visit Hope Town for the day while we worked.

We got SO much food, but we planned for 3 people for 8 days, and we wanted a balance of easy meals and some special breakfasts and dinners. I picked up the ingredients to make my favorite blueberry muffin recipe (I still swear by Ruth Reichl’s Gourmet cookbook – the only one I brought along), we got steaks for a celebratory dinner before arriving Stateside, and made sure we had some emergency water to add to our ditch bag.

That evening, a charter boat came back back in after hours, and no one was there to catch their lines. I watched them try a couple times and grabbed Chris to go give them a hand. It was clear the captain had boating experience but wasn’t super familiar with catamarans, so Chris coached him through boat handling and we got them tied up. So many people have helped us over the years in various ways, so I was glad to pay it forward and they were so appreciative. The next morning, there were two bottles of wine waiting next to our ladder that they left as a thank-you.

Chris and I took today off because earlier in the week, it looked like we’d have a good weather window. But as the week progressed, that window looked less and less good. Instead, we spent the day doing final preparations – Chris refilled our propane tanks, we did a few more maintenance tasks, had lunch at the Abaco Beach Resort, and stopped at Jimmy’s Wines and Spirits, which is basically across the street from the marina, for some celebratory beers for our passage. Jimmy’s is owned by the Bahamian Brewery, which makes Sands (I typically prefer Kalik), so we got a couple grapefruit radlers, a couple passionfruit radlers, and a 6 pack of Strong Back Stout, which is actually pretty darned good.

Weather is a constant conversation, and our revised plan is to get around Whale Cay and head north on the Sea of Abaco. It looks like if we spend tomorrow getting north of the Whale and overnight at Green Turtle or Manjack, we should be able to depart from there early Sunday morning, travel up the Sea of Abaco and out to Mantilla Shoal on Sunday evening, and hit the Gulf Stream overnight. It looks like there may be some storms rolling off the Florida coast, so we’ll keep an eye on it and revise our plan if needed.