Hints and Tips

Here’s a few comments or 'lessons’ that we learned.  Hopefully some of them may be handy.

1) Before your visit to the Abaco area, visit the Abaco Community Message Board.  I found a lot of useful tips.  I read it every day for the two weeks prior to our trip.

2) Buy the book “The Cruising Guide to Abaco Bahamas” before you leave home.  You can get it thru the publisher White Sound Press or thru BlueWater Marine.  Both are on the internet.  Study it before you leave home, make copies of some of the charts so that your original book doesn’t get wet in the boat.  Make note of the harbor entrance routes.  Look for the red and green bouys and stay between them.  The very first day out we I made the mistake of entering Hopetown on the wrong side of the little island that’s located right in the middle of the inlet.  Luckily the tide wasn’t too low and luckily we missed a large underwater concrete block by about 3 feet.  I did have to quick tilt the motor up to avoid running it thru the sand.

3) Bring an initial supply of toilet paper and paper towels in case your rental house doesn’t have any.  We brought some food with us, not much.  We figured it would be nice to help the local economy by shopping locally.  We got some great grouper from Albury’s Seafood in Hopetown and BBQ’ed it back home at the cottage.

4) Like the old axiom says, “Bring twice the money and half the clothes”.  Diane didn’t wear half the clothes she brought.  She never used the sundress or half of the tops.  If we were on the boat we were in a bathing suit and if in a town, shorts and T-shirt.  Plus, the seclusion of our house “Moonrise” made clothing somewhat unnecessary around the house.  Some items were on the expensive side; (i.e. milk was $3.25 per half gallon, gas for the boat was $3.20 per gallon).  Eating out wasn’t too expensive, but then we’re used to the Washington, DC area which may tend to be expensive.  Lunch entrees were about $10-$15, supper entrees about $20-$25, per person.  As the bartender at Cracker P’s told us, with no sales or income taxes, the country makes its money on duties and import taxes.  Remember, eveything has to be shipped there.

5) We brought cash, travelers checks and credit cards.  We usually used the credit card for boat gas (only Boat Harbor Marina was going to add a credit card surcharge). Sea Horse Boat Rentals took credit card.  Figure on everyone else taking cash or travelers checks.