It appears that when one comes to the Abacos to visit as a cruiser, a must-do is the
Barefoot Man concert on Great Guana Cay, so we pulled up anchor yesterday from Marsh Harbor and set out for a really wonderful light wind sail almost due North to Great Guana. The harbor anchorage had filled up early since this concert is a big deal around here, so we set the hook down at one of the outer anchorages along Fisher's Bay. Fisher's Bay is not protected for any wind except for the winds with East components but the winds are not really the problem. The ferries here are high speed V-hull boats and they pretty much go wherever they want, including right through and next to anchorages. Today it meant that their wake was hitting us on the side instead of the nose where the wind was, so we rolled pretty obnoxiously, something I've had some difficulty dealing with to my dismay. I was pretty happy to be heading into town for the concert.
Nipper's is the host for the concert and I was told that nearly 1000 people routinely attend. It was hard to get a feel for the attendance because the bar is a bunch of separate buildings, porches, poolsides, and patios. It was pretty crowded, but not uncomfortable, and much less roudy than I had thought it might be. The music was good, the food as well, and the people watching spectacular. Even pets were enjoying the poolside tunes.
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| A random decaying tractor along the road to Nippers, painted with Nipper's ads |
On the nature front, this morning they announced that the birds we had heard and seen flying around the boat were in fact a rare occurrence of White-tailed Tropicbirds. I was able to get a picture of one but it required a bit of photo gymnastics as these birds are
fast and they fly high.
On the walk to Nippers for the concert we passed a Poisonwood tree, a bit of foliage that can cause extreme poison ivy type reactions on a much greater order of magnitude.
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| The view from the Nippers porch |
When we got to the concert it was high tide, but by the time we returned to the dinghy beach the tide had ebbed significantly. This involves carrying the dink back out to the water. What do you call a beach full of dinghies? A gaggle?
of time left to spend an afternoon in the cockpit reading and doing some crafts, and even a bit more time to convert a bag of softening apples into some warm crusty apple pie. The pie, by the way, was a concession to Tim because I was serving him leftover hot dogs and boxed macaroni and cheese for his gourmet dining pleasure. The end of the sailing day was some good Joe Cocker tunes. This happy camper can't complain. 
