Marsh Harbour – 9 nautical miles sailed, 1 mile in dinghy, 4 kilometres walked
My plan to take an early morning paddleboard ride while winds remained light was thwarted by laziness. Quite simply, I didn’t feel like unroping the tightly lashed paddleboard from the deck and dropping the dinghy from the hoist, then having to do everything in reverse again after a 30 minute paddle. So instead I did some writing and drank hot barley, which was highly enjoyable, but of little health benefit.
We pulled anchor and sailed the nine miles to Marsh Harbour, found a good anchoring spot in sufficient water and dropped the hook then dinghy’d into town. We walked to the Aloha Java Cafe coffee shop we’d seen at the east end of town last time we were here and sat down for a drink. Both Ana and I have been pretty underwhelmed with Marsh Harbour as the town seems to be just a grid of industrial streets with shops scattered haphazardly throughout. The town centre seems limited to the marinas on the waterfront with precious little for other sites of interest down that stretch. Knowing the town had been hit hard by the hurricane in 2019 I checked the Google satellite view to see what was there before. And what I found was shocking. The images must have been taken shortly after the hurricane, because there is nothing left – no docks, no marinas, and hardly any standing buildings. I went further and pulled up some Youtube drone videos after the storm. There was nothing but rubble. The town had been completely destroyed.
With this knowledge, I can now say that Marsh Harbour looks fabulous, incredible, beautiful and the people here are clearly tough, resilient, and doggedly determined to rebuild their town, no matter how long it takes. I am glad we can spend some time and money here.
After our coffee date and loading up at the Maxwell’s grocery store, which is huge, with an incredible selection of merchandise, and prices that are similar or cheaper than what we found in the southern US, we returned to the boat, had dinner, then put together a few snacks for a sundowner. Sometime after 7 pm we were joined by Ana, Kevin, Ben, and Kate for a lengthy and fun cockpit party, that ended with a brief frenzy of reggaeton dancing.
We are treating every get together with our friends as our last, as each of our individual travel plans change from day to day and we really do not know where we are going to be, but with the hope we do wind up together somewhere. After a small bit of Spanish practice at the end of the night, we decided it would be prudent to simply say, “Hasta luego,” or “Hasta la proxima,” and not “Goodbye.”
Goodbye is too final.
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