Saturday, March 2, 2013

MOW, Marsh Harbor and Treasure Cay

Next stop was Man O War Cay, another short morning sail away. We were thinking of heading also to Hopetown but the tides were not in our favor, so that will have to wait for another trip.

Man O War Cay is a beautiful and quiet island with a small, conservative and religious community and a history of wooden boat building. This is the place to get a true feeling for an Outer Abaco Island with historic roots over 200 years old. Once again, there is a very narrow channel entrance. Once through it, you turn sharply to port and enter the main harbor. There's no anchoring in this part of the harbor because of tight space so we picked up a mooring and jumped into the dinghy for a half mile ride to the northwest part of the island where, surprise-surprise, another quiet beach with nobody else on it!




Like the day before, we brought our snorkel gear and took advantage of the reef just off the beach, then afterwards we just layed out in the sun.




Then we dinghied back to the harbor and explored. First up is Albury's Sail Shop which is a must shop experience.




It evolved from a local sailmaker's business when the Albury women began making small bags from the scraps. Nowadays they can still be seen cranking out the products.






Looking north from Albury's Sail Shop docks

School and Post Office

Library!


High School



The next-to-last stop on our whirl-wind Abaco tour was Marsh Harbor. This is the largest town located on the main island of Great Abaco. Despite the large size of the harbor, once again it was shallow! We anchored, then took a walk around the harbor and then got ready for Valentine's Day/25th Anniversary dinner at Wally's restaurant. (Besides the food, I do remember a lot of "Wow, 25 years!" between the two of us!)

The next day we set out for our final stop, Treasure Cay. It's actually not a cay at all, but a peninsula north of Marsh Harbor which has been more recently developed. We spent the weekend with a golf cart to get us around for laundry, cinnamon buns, conch salad, and a visit to their spectacular 3 mile beach, which was voted as a "Top 10 Beach" by National Geographic. Unfortunately, we have no pictures of it, since it was cold and rainy all weekend! Google it if you want to see it.

Break in the clouds! Time to go.