Time flies !

  Oh my....it's already been a month since my last post......

These pics are from the exhibition's opening at the Hummingbird Art Centre that took place Feb 2nd. It was very well attended and several pieces sold within a few hours! More sold throughout the month and the remaining paintings will stay at the gallery and hopefully sell before our return next year!
Robbie Bethyl, the art co-ordinator did a great job organizing the event and serving wine and cheese!  

This is  Susan Abbott. She is an artist from Vermont  and comes to the Bahamas every year to give art classes that are very well attended by locals and tourists. Here Guy watches as she does a Plein Air piece of a local house.

A walk on the beach is always a fun way to spend part of an afternoon!You may have noticed the long pants and sweater. When  a cold front rolls through it may be sunny but the air is cool and you may get a few sprinkles of rain with strong winds but swiftly moving fronts. Short bursts of rain and then the sun shines again.

We usually pack a picnic lunch and head out to the sunfish and Abaco dinghy races on Sunday afternoons in the bay off the Hope Town entrance.

Sometimes we walk along the frack filled shore in search of seabeans. We have found quite a few this year!

Lots of sanding ahead to make them turn into little jewels!

A random statue on a property facing the sea!

These signs are everywhere along the rough roads on the island!

A meeting of guitar players.....Guy, Steve and others often get together, bringing with them a crowd complete with appetizers, smiles and interesting conversations!

Above, myself and our friend Randy look on as the crowd sings along, share sailing stories and sample the many yummy dishes!

Always well attended is this years Song Writers Festival! We attended 2 of the 5 venues!

The first venue we attended was at The Hope Town Inn......same place as we are docked at. Another cold front moved into the area making it a super cold evening but somehow, with the fire pit warming the crowd it was super entertaining!

Here we are dressed in layers to keep warm with our good friends Randy and Lee of S/V Silver Maple, also Canadians from Buckhorn On.

We shared this table for the second Song Writer's festival venue with some cruising friends at the Firefly Restaurant, one of my favorite restaurants on the island.  The place was packed .We waited so long for our dinner order to come that the restaurant placed 3 bottles of free wine on the table!  So we happily toasted to a great evening filled with talented  entertainers again! Because this place is on the south end of the island, a great service that they offer is a pick up and delivery to and from their restaurant by golf cart! 

Well.....now it's time to get some work done!

The dreaded sanding!  This time though Guy used mostly a scraper (loaned to him by our friend Randy) as the many coats of varnish applied last year had started to lift!   Grrrrr.......The boater across the dock from us said,"Hey, I thought this was supposed to be a vacation not a work time." My reply was,"Nope, it is a lifestyle! You have to keep up with the boat jobs. Plus we are only here for a short time and fun and work each have to take turns or your boat looks run down in a hurry."

All work and no play is no fun...so another afternoon get together by the pool area with (from the left), Randy, Lee, Dana, Ted, Diane, Nancy, Goldwyn and Guy!

We may not be sailing much this year, but we have been to other islands on our friends boats. Once to provision in Marsh Harbor on S/V Sequel II with Joe and Paula and a week later, with Wendy and Peter to have lunch at Pete's Pub in Little Harbor. What would have taken us all day to sail there, took 45 minutes in their 42 foot Sabre motor yacht on the clam, flat sea of Abaco.
 And of course there is the ferry that takes us over and back to events in Man O War or on the Great Island of Abaco. 
Never a dull moment!

One more month left to enjoy this beautiful place!

See you next time!  


Guy and Louise xoxox

Guy is having an Art Show!

                  Below are pics of 17 of Guy's art pieces. 
 The exhibit is of  "The Abaco Dinghy" and held at the Hummingbird Cottage Art Center in Hope Town. The opening is Monday Feb 2nd at 4:00 pm. 

They are all 9 X 11 and framed alike. The frames are made by Doug Albury from Man O War Cay. (an island next to us) . He finds this old washed up wood on the beach, takes it back to his workshop, planes it, treats it, and mills it out into boards for frames. He then precisely assembles them to a specific size. It takes him a while to find the wood to work with. Guy waited a year for the 20 frames. The holes in the wood are created by burrowing worms from years and years ago. They are quite unique and very Bahamian.   

Waiting for Sunday

Black Water

Coconut

Off to Man O War

Shackled

Rounding the mark

44

Bailing

Shallow Water

Tom and Jenny

On the Mooring

Across the Harbour

Rigged and Ready

Sisters

Quick Squall

Beached in Hope Town

Anchored in Fry's Mangrove


For more info...copy and paste the url below

http://www.hopetownart.com/projects/guy-mathany-february-2015/ 

Today, we will take the art to the gallery. Guy has been busy for the last little bit, framing and adding the hanging hooks and rope to the back. They have been stacked in our aft cabin for some time now...Although I will like the space they have taken up, I will miss them as they are all beautiful pieces.

Next week.....back to the neglected boat projects or chores! Grrr!

Dec 24th to Jan 11th 2015

From the time we arrived in the Bahamas, we have been docked at Leeward marina on Green Turtle Cay, then moved to and anchored at Great Guana Cay, then, Marsh Harbour to provision and now we are docked at Hope Town Inn in Hope Town.  We are managing well despite losing our electronics from the lightening strike.  Our paper charts got some good use as did our Handheld Map GPS and VHF.

We stayed on Green Turtle Cay till after New Years to share the holidays with some of our cruising friends from last year and some new ones.

Stopping at a seafood store to get lobsters for our Xmas eve dinner. 6 good size tails for $39!
Even though we are basically vegetarians we can't resist the lobster tails with melted garlic butter and fresh lime.
Louise made a salad and 'smashed baked potatoes'. 
We could hardly breath we ate so much but OMG what a feast!

After my errands were done, I met up with Guy and friends at Pineapples for Happy Hour

This is the main Street of New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay decorated for the holidays

Happy Hour at the Tranquil Turtle Bar on sea of Abaco

This is a pic of the Lizzard Club before the New Year's Eve celebration.

New Years day, many cruisers met up here at the Green Turtle Club in white sound for a pot luck dinner. 

The Lizzard Club in Leeward Marina, in Black sound where Miss Ellie was docked became a favorite as was the staff and management.

New year's Day....we dinghy-ed over to New Plymouth for the annual Junkanoo parade with Tom and Bonnie. We started with beer then quickly switched over to "Goombay Smashes". They are a fabulous concoction of a few different rums and fruit juices. The original Blue Bee Bar on Green Turtle is the originator of the Goombay Smash. After 3 of those we figured we were well lubricated for the rest of the Junkanoo festivities. As long as you have enough to make those hips fluid you are ready for the beat of the Junkanoo drums.

One of the many dressed up residents participating in the parade

It did not take Guy long to seek out other musicians....they have been crowd pleasers for many holiday events!

Guy snapped this pic of our dock from the spreaders while getting photos of some damage from the lightening strike for our insurance company.

 On the side deck you can see the yellow electrical cord we have plugged in to the dock with a 30 amp to 15 amp adapter. We pull the end of the cord into a hatch to plug in our computers etc. to charge them up. Boy do I ever miss our inverter!!!!I will never take plugging into an outlet for granted! LOL!

This yacht was just down the dock from us....they usually had two scooters....then 2 more appeared when their company arrived. They must have had a garage in there!

After we left Green Turtle Cay, we motor sailed through the very calm Whale cut with friends John and Marlene on 'Four Aces' and anchored in Fisher's Bay off Guana Cay.

The Atlantic view from the well know restaurant called Nipper's on Guana Cay

Here we are in company of Marlene and John of S/V Four Aces and our friends Bonnie and Tom from Point Edward Canada staying with us on Miss Ellie  for a few weeks

Guy and John sitting under a shade tree to escape the very hot sun! It helped that we had just bought some cold Kalik beer to help cool us off.

Our view from the cockpit of S/V Four Aces in Marsh Harbour.

After provisioning at Maxwell's in Marsh Harbour, we motored to Hope Town where we will likely stay till the end of March.

A walk on Tahiti Beach

The day before we arrived in Hope Town there was a shark attack in Tahiti Beach. The 30 some year old woman was snorkeling off the end of her parents catamaran in eight feet of water. The fire and rescue department as well as some first responder cruisers in the area were quick to respond to their plea for help on the VHF.  Their help is credited to have saved her life! She was ferried to Marsh Harbour and later air lifted to Florida and although she will have a long recovery she is reported to be doing well.

A cart is necessary to go from one end of the island to the other.

Guy was eyeing this little electric car named 'GEM' for me! LOL!

Thanks for visiting my blog. Happy New Year and Best Wishes for a great 2015 to all! 

                                                             Guy and Louise  xox