January 30, 2016 breakfast at Junovia's in Marsh Harbor then Hopetown Inn and Marina

We wanted to refill our propane tank in Marsh Harbor today.  This tank ran out of fuel about half way through cooking squash in the oven last night.  We have 3 tanks on board.  So the tank had to be switched once we discovered the squash was no longer cooking.  Since we wanted to leave for Elbow Cay today, we headed in early to catch the morning run for propane.  You leave your can at a store before 9:00 and they have it back by 12:00.  Other wise it is 1:00 with a 4:00 return.

That got us moving early.  We dropped off the tank and headed for Island Family restaurant for breakfast.  Dave wanted to try the souse.  It is a little restaurant and it was FULL.  And the waitress said it didn’t look like a table would open soon.  So we decided to try a new restaurant we had passed earlier this week boasting of local favorites.  Junovia’s had souse, so Dave was excited.  They has sheep tongue souse and pig’s feet.  He tried the sheep tongue and loved it.  I tried it.  It wasn’t too bad, but I couldn’t eat a bowl of it.  They gave him a little container of vinegar on the side to add, which he did.  It had a citrus flavor and made the broth quite tasty.  It came with a huge piece of Johnny Cake.  It is more of a moist sweet bread than cornmeal bread that you would expect.  I had an egg and sausage sandwich on home made bread.  This place had tables open, but there were a lot of take out orders with people coming and going the whole time we were there. 

sheep tongue souse and Johnny Cake

I just remembered, as we were leaving the store with the propane drop off, the electricity went out.  And it was still off when we arrived at Junovia’s.  But it didn’t stop them.  We didn’t have ceiling lights or fans, but they were still cooking.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a generator to keep themselves in business. 

Dave went to a few stores looking for the best cord.  The longer the cord, the more power you lose.  He was looking for a short cord that would be long enough to give me some freedom with the  placement of the Honda generator, but fat to carry power. He ended up with a smaller gauge than preferred, a 12 gauge/3 wires air conditioner cord, used for air conditioners.  It was a stubby 30 amp to 110 cord, so we could hook it right to our 30 amp boat AC outlets.  We have 2 30 amp outlets.  One is the water heater, battery charger, outlets and water maker high pressure pump.  The other one is for the air conditioner and heater combination.  We don’t run that at anchor.  So you only have to connect the Honda generator to one of the outlets.  It is similar to being connected to shore power. 

While Dave was searching for the cord, I picked up a couple things for the boat.  We decided we wanted a basket similar to a small laundry basket in the cock pit to collect shoes.  In the basket, they could be rinsed off when your return, especially if you’ve been to a beach.  We have stopped wearing street shoes inside the boat.  Debris from your shoes ends up in the bilge and could clog the bilge pump.  But Dave has also seen some damage to the cock pit floor from rocks, so this will be a place to store them, too. 

When we returned to our boat, the captain of the neighboring boat stopped by to introduce himself.  We ended up talking to him for about a half hour.  And we had a Rapid City, SD connection.  He went to college in Ohio with Don Leonard, a dentist I have known for years. Small World again.

Believe it or not, I actually got up early to do one more load of laundry before we went to shore.  I was hoping they would be dry before we left for Elbow Cay this afternoon.  Everything was dry by the time we returned, so we left for Elbow Cay about 12:30.

We anchored outside of Elbow Cay on the south side of the entrance to the harbor.  We wanted to go to shore to check on mooring balls and refresh our memories on what the grocery stores were like.  We were pleasantly surprised at how well the Harbor View grocery store was stocked.  Good to know.  And the prices at the liquor store were comparable to March Harbor.  I think our guests will survive.

pulley system for the 125 lb Mercury motor

Next we went over to the Hopetown Harbor Inn.  The marina office was very informative on how the mooring balls are on a first come first served basis.  Then she went on to tell us all about their facilities-swimming pools, hot tub, bar, restaurant, laundry ($5.50 per machine).  AND their facilities are open to the public!! 

Then we had to check out their inviting open air bar.  Our bartender, Zach, was very nice.  And we had fun visiting with others at the bar.  We ended up having a few beers and an appetizer of fish fingers, which were wahoo and very good.  We finally felt like we were on Island Time.  The only bad part of the day was that we returned to our boat int he dark without lights in our dingy.  We have cursed other “stupid boaters” when we see this.  And here we were doing it ourselves.  

Hopetown Inn and Marina with Zach