Tuesday April 29: Hopetown

There was a weird cloud formation last night at Man-O-War. I wondered what that was all about ....

Should have known it was a sign of the winds returning. Evident when we left this morning. Not the picture perfect calm but the water colors were still wonderful to see.

Our destination for the night was Hopetown - a short 6 miles away.

It wasn't hard to find our way there as the lighthouse is visible from just about anywhere in the Abacos.

Definitely on the top of the list to see while there. This history of the lighthouse is pretty interesting especially since it is one of the last manual lighthouses in the world. For more info CLICK HERE.

First though was a dinghy trip to town. There are no marinas on the town side  of the harbor so even though we were tied to a dock, we still needed to put the dinghy down to visit town.

More of the older homes are preserved here than at many of the other settlements. This is the Wee House. Not sure if it's called that because it's small or that was the family name!

And of course there were the beaches and reefs. The reason the lighthouse was built here was because of the extensive reef system off of the northeast of this cay - which caused shipwrecks galore. Not everyone was happy the lighthouse was built: primarily those that made a living off of the wrecked ships. Not unlike the Florida Keys.

Sadly, the reefs are no longer living coral reefs (too shallow??) but they still work to protect these cays from the potentially damaging waters of the Atlantic.

We had dinghied over at low tide - fortunately the dinghy docks have multiple ladders that can be used to get up and down. It's still a challenge though!

Back to the boat and then when it cooled down a bit, we walked over to the lighthouse (which is right next to the marina at which we are staying).

Steve tried to find some cinnamon rolls here at the bakery but no luck. No problem - we'll be back to Marsh Harbor and we know right where to get some!

There is clearly a belief in natural selection at this lighthouse. The hours are listed: 10 am to 5 pm. But the door is wide open.

A couple of signs near the door to please not touch anything. No other warnings, locks, iron guard rails, impenetrable doors or anything.

So in we went :-)

The view was AMAZING. Yesterday's Dream is circled in red in the lower left 1/3 of the picture below to give you some perspective of where we were staying. The town is across the harbor.

Only 20 more steps to go (total 101 not that I was counting :-) ).

We did manage to stay out of the "No Entry" area of the upper lens part of the tower ... but didn't manage to NOT TOUCH  the main rotating lens base - that moved by barely pushing on it!







Note that it's Steve pushing it not me ...

The inside of this huge Fresnel lens was really something. It was hard to see but we got a good picture of it. Want to know more? CLICK HERE.

The light runs on compressed kerosene so I'm thinking that's what is in the red jugs.

And more opportunities playing with things that say Danger and Don't Touch!

We did manage to stay away from the obviously, seriously don't touch stuff :-)

We had just walked down the steps when we met a couple just coming up to the lighthouse. They were going to ask the keeper if they could watch him light the lamp.

Me? No way was I going to walk back up there - Steve had the camera so I would live the event through him and pictures :-)

It seemed pretty cool although Steve said it was really hard to actually see what the keeper was doing. But he got some great shots.

From the boat I kept seeing what seemed to be camera flashes. Yep - that was Steve taking pictures! Anyway - great experience here in Hopetown.

Tomorrow - back for a last visit to Marsh Harbor.