5 June Man 'O War Cay

A battle name for a pretty island. There's the main island, a shallow channel and a smaller island running parallel. We anchored on the west end of the small island and took the dinghy in to the public dock.

coffee house and museum

Man 'o War is a collection of two storey traditional wooden building s painted in pastel hues. There are many jetties, only one for the ferry and visiting dinghies, and shallow draft boats on mooring balls. It is the biggest boat building centre in the Bahamas with a couple of sheds owned by the Albury brothers produced fibre glass runarounds. Two streets run parallel to the shore, Bay Street by the water and Queen's Street set back and the centre of the small community.

We spent a delightful couple of hours at the coffee shop with small museum attached: good coffee, delicious home made cakes and fast internet. We walked the car less roads, it seems to be the gold cart is the vehicle to have here, found local curly tailed lizards and popped in to the grocery store, which was well stocked, for a loaf of bread.

Sloane Street

I was also able to do laundry at the marina; their big machines hold three times the amount my on board machine will, plus saving water and by doing heavy towels and sheets, wear and tear on my ageing appliance.

Of course I was swimming in the afternoons when it was hottest. Although there was no coral and very few fish to see it was a fascinating collection of items on the seabed. Apart from the power cable coming in from Marsh Harbour I found a 4m metre diameter satellite dish within 10m of our anchor (a lucky miss), two huge outboard motors (no propellers, no cover), a ceiling fan, what looked like an oven, an engine block, a bit of garden fence and a car tyre. The commercial satellite dish and ceiling fan might have been victims of a hurricane. It looked like they'd been there for a few years.