If, like me, you’re desperate for a few minutes of beach time, I hope you’ll enjoy this video courtesy of my friend, Beth Browne. (I’ve watched it so many times my fingertips are puckered!)
I met Beth on Green Turtle Cay in the spring of 2019. We share a love for writing and photography, and we’ve both been through the experience of restoring ancestral properties. (Though in Beth’s case, it wasn’t a postage-stamp sized house like Fish Hooks, but an entire farm!)
Beth and her partner were cruising through Abaco on their sailboat, Pelican, and they were in Man-O-War on September 1, 2019, when Hurricane Dorian made landfall. Pelican was beached and badly damaged, and though Beth and her partner could have chosen to return to the U.S., they volunteered to stay and help their new friends.
For more than a year, Beth has served the Man-O-War community, helping to clean up the school, the church and the museum, coordinating volunteers and raising funds for relief efforts.
Last week, Beth left the Bahamas to take possession of a new sailboat and begin the next chapter in her story. I know she will miss her Man-O-War friends (whom she now thinks of as family) and they will, in turn, miss her.
Thanks, Beth, for everything you’ve done for our Abaco family and friends over the past 14 months.
Fair winds and haste ye back.