We went last winter and had a good time. We took a
mooring at Man-O-War Cay as our home base and
went on short trips to other places in the Abacos.

More comments below.
Doug
s/v Callista

"George C." wrote in message
news:UcqEb.7681$PK3.5907@okepread01...
We plan to go around the 10th of January, but I have a couple of
questions.

1. Cash: Everyone says bring a lot, but how much assuming we'll be there
about a month and use marinas and restaurants about every other day?

Most of the marinas we stayed at had winter specials of
around $0.65 to $1.00 per foot per day. Electricity is
around $5 to $8 per day (Treasure Cay was $17/day).
Water was metered at $0.15/gal or flat rate at $5 to $8.
The Green Turtle Club had a deal going where anything
you spent at the resaurant or bar was deducted off of
the slip fee. Treasure Cay was the most expensive.

2. Abaco: I've read that Abaco in Jan-Feb is chilly. Others, however, have
enjoyed visits there in Winter. How good or bad is it in Jan-Feb?

It took us until Jan 22 to get a decent weather window.
It was generally in the 70's to low 80's during the day and
in the 60's at night. Might have dipped into the 50's once
or twice.

3. Gulf stream crossing: How does one find boats to buddy up with for the
crossing? Where would we want to hang out waiting to depart from either
Lake
Worth or Miami/Ft Lauderdale?

Most folks going to the Abacos leave from Lake Worth. We
left at 4am, crossed onto the bank south of Memory Rock and
continued directly to Great Sale Cay. We just talked to folks
anchored in North Lake Worth and managed to get a group
of 6 boats.

4. Reservations: Guide books say to make reservations for popular marinas.
Since the cell phone won't work, how do we do that? Will VHF reach
adequately?

Some folks cellphones work and some don't. One of our
group have an AT&T phone that worked fine and to top
it off he never got charged for any calls. That was 2 winters in a row!
Nobody else we came across could use their phones
though. Marinas monitor CH 16 if I recall correctly.

Thanks. Appreciate the info.