Our mission to support rebuilding The Abacos

We decided to make it our personal mission to spread what little money we can spare around the Abaco Islands to help with their rebuilding efforts after hurricane Dorian. Our first three days in the islands we did quite well with the mission by staying in a slip at The Abaco Beach Resort & Marina and enjoying the pool, beach, bar & restaurants. We celebrated the safe arrival of all of our great group of Salty Dawgs friends with an excellent dinner at The Bistro (on site at the resort).

On Nov. 8th, we made another significant contribution to the mission by filling our tanks with 105 gallons of diesel and headed off on an island tour. First stop was Man of War Cay, where we anchored outside of the harbor and took the dinghy in for a tour. There were sunken boats in the harbor and wrecks still tied to docks. Note: the boat name in the picture below... "Breakaway"!

We had dinner that night on the hook and the next day went into town to walk around, see the ocean views and visit the only two shops that were open: Albury's Sail Shop and a small grocery store. At Albury's, we made our contribution to this island with the purchase of one of their extraordinarily colorful and well made canvas bags. The ladies, who used to sit at their sewing machines in a large loft built over the water, now work tirelessly in an inland hut, still producing their wonderful products.

Next stop was Great Guana, about 7 miles away, where we appeared to be one of two visiting boats and the only non-islanders at the one open restaurant. Grabbers has been able to rebuild and  restart their bed, breakfast & bar business so we paid for the expensive (but good) Grabbers Rum Punch and conch fritters with a nod to our mission.

On Nov. 11th, we motored from Great Guana, back to Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island. We had to drop anchor twice to find a sandy spot that would hold. That evening, just as I was serving dinner, Andrew hollered for me to turn on the engine. A bright white light was pointed straight at us and we could see the port & starboard lights (never a good thing) on what appeared to be a large ship with it's engines going full throttle! Andrew tried to hail him over the radio and the calls went unanswered. We turned on the AIS to confirm that the ship was a little more than 1/4 mile away when the captain finally got on the radio and said he was aground in the channel. Phew... that explained the angle of his boat (pointed straight at us instead of in the channel) and the gunning of the engines!! Crisis averted, dinner was served. 

The next day we motored back to Abaco Beach Resort for some good old internet service (to download weather files), laundry facilities and a farewell dinner with Jon and his girlfriend, Marlina before they flew out the following day.

All in all during our mission to support The Abacos, we found the docks, grocery stores and private homes around the islands appeared to be the main things that have been rebuilt. Otherwise, there is very little infrastructure in the three islands that we visited but we did our best to help in some small ways.