Before you arrive you must depart. Hope Town is only 4.5 nautical miles away from Man-O-War Cay. However there was a 35′ power cruiser right behind the Lagoon 52 and boats in front of and on the opposite dock. Plus the wind speed was hitting twenty knots. Thom and crew tried to assist the dock master in moving the powerboat around the dock to the other side using lines but it was too windy to completely move it. A commercial boat was coming in so we had to leave. Thom then twisted our cat to starboard and backed it out of the slip and fairway. There was about 8 feet on either side and a boat anchored near the end of the fairway. Thom was able to spin the boat ninety degrees, miss all the boats.This was quite a show of boat handling with people on all the nearby boats and at the bar watching the departure. After the final twist, we were lined up perfectly to navigate the departure from Hope Town.

We arrived at the Man-O-War Marina at about 2:00 PM.  The channel to get into the marina is very narrow and very shallow so it was critical that we arrived at or near high tide which was 2:45 PM.  Planning for high tide wasn’t too challenging as we were only 4.5 nautical miles away in Hope Town.

Here’s a close up of the channel at Man-O-War Cay.  We really can’t get into the marina with our big catamaran unless it’s high tide so planning was critical.

Anyway, Man-O-War is a very small island, only about 2.5 miles long.  We were excited to go to Albury’s Sail Shop where they create bags and other items from sturdy canvas fabric typically used for sails.

It’s a very quiet island – the one bar that sells beer and wine closed at 3:00 even though it was a Saturday night.  The bar was an outdoor area at the marina and Captain Thom noticed that our mainsail wasn’t sitting in the lazy-jacks very well.  After we had our beer, we (Paul, Thom and me) headed back to the boat to adjust it.  We were headed into the wind so we decided to pull the mainsail up about halfway and make the adjustments.  Unfortunately, the lazy-jacks weren’t aligned very well so Captain Thom climbed up and tightened them up.

Captain Thom spent some time showing Paul how to work the sextant.  Paul, an engineer, had no problem with it.  Look at these pictures….he’s a pro!  I’m a super-big fan of Paul!  It was so great having him on the trip as he was quick to figure out how to work the electronics (which weren’t very intuitive) and a big help with everything on the boat!

Deb made some outstanding conch fritters however, I fell asleep early and missed out.  Ha