On Sept. 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian hit Abaco as a Cat 5 hurricane with 185 mph winds (a recorded gust of 202 mph), up to 40″ of rain & a 20′ storm surge.  While a similarly sized hurricane reportedly hit in 1935, the islands are much more built up & this storm literally stopped overhead for hours, crawling away at a snails pace, multiplying the damage.  A few tornados are also believed to have spun up, due to some localized areas completely leveled.

This was Hope Town’s Administrative building – the (missing) 2nd floor used to house the Post Office & the Clinic

Within hours, the U.S. Coast Guard began rescue helicopter flights. Within days, private boats & yachts loaded up with donated relief supplies, making runs back & forth from Florida.  Within weeks, a dozen international aid groups swarmed in with food, medical equipment, cooking equipment, tents, tarps, water purifiers, portable generators – you name it – it remarkably appeared.  The seas between Abaco & Florida became a 4-lane highway of boats, yachts, ships & barges.  It would be over a month before the nearby Marsh Harbour Airport could be repaired sufficiently to allow planes to land.

The tasks were nearly insurmountable, but progress was being made steadily … until COVID hit.  Within a week, international aid groups were rushed back home.  Locals, now mostly on their own, had no choice but to persevere & just keep plugging away.

All that’s left of Harbour’s Edge Restaurant in Hope Town. We’ve enjoyed many meals out on that deck – first on a charter sailing cat in 2007.

This was the Dock & Dine Restaurant on nearby Man-O-War Cay. They used to have the most beautiful Christmas tree on the righthand corner of that deck. Those broken pilings out to the left are all that’s left of the Man-O-War Marina, but re-building will begin in January.

The completely brand-new, beautiful Hope Town School

Now, 2 1/4 years later, remarkable progress has been made, especially on many of the smaller islands, including Guana Cay, Man-O-War Cay & Elbow Cay (Hope Town). A majority of the houses (particularly rental villas & 2nd homes) have been completely repaired, re-built or replaced.  Meanwhile the “mainland” of Marsh Harbour remains a much different story.  The scope of re-building & replacing thousands of homes & buildings is overwhelming, especially financially.  Over 90% of their economy is sourced from tourism, boaters & 2nd home owners – it is unknown whether all of Marsh Harbour & areas further out will ever fully recover, especially as many residents had to evacuate to Nassau (New Providence) after the hurricane – will they be able to return?

On a much lighter note – Lori had joked around we had already run out of carrots & neither grocery in Hope Town had any.  2 different cruisers arrived alongside 10 minutes apart the next day – they had each made separate trips in their boats over to the grocery store to stock up on Man-O-War, each bringing us back carrots.  Thanks guys!  But what – only 1 bag of Fritos? 🙂

It is great being back in Hope Town.  While not too busy here yet, there are 2 other PDQ powercats here – old friends on Adventure & new friends on Jabulani. We may remain here thru Christmas – it depends as always on the weather.  Eventually we will begin heading south to Spanish Wells, then the Exumas.

Initially much more straightforward was obtaining our required Health Visas, now required due to COVID. You fill in all of your information, dates, locations, vaccine dates, download PDFs of your vaccines, COVID test results, passports, etc.  Finally, click “APPLY” & wait.  An hour or two later you are notified you’re “Approved”! Apparently not really?!  Appearing before the Customs officer, the very first question she asks is “where are your COVID test forms?” I show her our beautiful Health Visas. “Not those, where are your COVID test forms?”  I pointed out the “Status: Approved” on the Health Visas – she shook her head “I don’t care about that – I need your COVID test forms”. I dug thru my pile of documents & found our COVID negative testing letters from the clinic in Vero Beach signed by the doctor (the same letters I had sent PDFs of to obtain the Health Visas). “No – I need your COVID test forms”…

She began the phone calls – her boss, then Customs in Nassau, the Ministry of Health, tried to call our COVID testing site in Florida & who knows else.  Although Bahamians (of course) speak English, when speaking to each other it can be with such a quick & clipped pattern I can usually make out only some of it, but I did make out a few bad words like “quarantine”.  Finally, after what seemed like forever, she got off of the phone, sighed, shuffled all of the papers & dramatically started rubber stamping all of our documents.  “We may still require your proper test forms, but since you were initially approved on-line, we’ll approve your entry … Enjoy your stay in the Bahamas”!

We intend to! A rare, fancy-like celebration resort lunch out in Abaco.

All of our rushing around to cross to the Bahamas a week early was indeed well worth it.  In addition to the dead calm seas during our 2-day crossing to Green Turtle Cay, we continued with an additional 2 beautiful days continuing onto Hope Town with brief stops on Guana Cay & Man-O-War Cay before the winds kicked up.  Now on a protected mooring in Hope Town, while the winds are gusting to 24 knots, it is very calm in here.  On the other hand, anyone crazy enough attempting to cross over from Florida today, would be facing winds gusting to 30 knots with seas of 4′ – 6′, along with an occasional 8′.

With the current weather pattern, there may be a large delay for our continuing travels, but at least … We have arrived!