News of The Abacos

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The Cruisers Network - Abacos' Boating Community
Charlene AM Fernander

One is not quite sure what to think when the Cruisers Network is first mentioned. Does it refer to spies? To a biker gang (maybe)? To an international group of boating enthusiasts close.

Abaco hears Radio Abaco's Silbert Mills mention the cruisers at least several times a week during the course of the day. He accepts and relays requests from one group of them to another, he greets them by name or vessel on his show and, comments on how the weather is likely to affect them. I have been acquainted with Bob and Patty Toler of Eastern Shores, for several months now through one community situation or another, but became aware of exactly how much they had to do with the Network when I attended a Hurricane Preparedness meeting at the Jib Room Restaurant & Bar, where I was told that Patty is the "voice of the cruisers" on VHF Channel 68.

We met with the Tolers and another cruising couple, Don and Julie Van Beck at Wally's one I afternoon to talk about the Network and what a fascinating business it is. There are, at the very least, some 6001000 cruisers in and around the Abacos from Green Turtle Cay and Treasure Cay to Hopetown during the peak season months of midAugust to midOctober. Most of the boaters are from Florida but there are regulars from as far away as the United Kingdom, South Africa and Russia. Many of them have been coming to Abaco for thirty years or more, consider these islands their second home and cannot contemplate having it any other way.

Although this population of floating homeowners derive much satisfaction from the simple pleasure of being able to live for half the year in the peaceful and beautiful Abacos, they derive even more pleasure from the opportunity to be able to "give back" to the island communities whatever they can in the way of gifts and services. The Yacht Club was founded some thirty years, ago by Wally Smith when he owned the joint properties of Mangoes and The Conch Inn. In those "good ol' days,"an amiable crowd of lifeloving retirees would gather around to chew the fat," relax and steer some of their good fortune into some worthwhile community concerns. Nowadays, the crowd with some of the original members on hand meets at the Jib Room every third Monday of the month to socialize and twice a year, in January and July for serious talks.

Bob Toler, a retired builder of aircraft simulators and his gregarious wife, Patty one of the individuals who got the Concorde "off the ground" are the Commodore and Secretary, respectively of the Yacht Club with Don Van Beck as its ViceCommodore. The Tolers began exclusively as cruise visitors but grew to love Abaco so much that they decided to invest in a home here and have not regretted it. Funds derived by the Club from dues, donations and the sale of tshirts are used for philanthropic causes. This Christmas, the Cruisers have accumulated a boatload of toys which the Department of Social Services and the Rotary Club of Abaco will assist in distributing to the less fortunate.

However, the Cruisers also regularly assist other causes like Trauma One. As a matter of fact, it was because of Patty's everfertile brain, that the concept of "drink for your health" donating a dollar to these causes for every house drink special that is sold at wateringholes such, as Guana Beach Resort & Marina and Nipper's was born. Patty is proud to say that the result has been up to $5,000 available at one time through this effort. The Cruisers Network would like to be able to assist in other community ventures, but is often frustrated by bureaucratic red tape, such as having to pay large sums of duty charges for donated items and emergency equipment. A few boating friends of ours, Dennis and Mary and Sally and George use their free time to assist students with learning difficulties at St. Francis de Sales Primary School.

The Network begins its day at 8:15 each morning and continues for just over an hour. Weather reports are given, cruiser news and information is exchanged, newcomers and returnees welcomed to the area and those departing for stays elsewhere are bid a fond farewell. Advertisements for restaurants, bars and community events are announced free of charge and there is a special segment called the "openmouth" which invites comments and advice from anyone in the area who can tune in to VHF 68. Commodore Toler regularly accesses the Internet and other sources for weather updates but also uses good old common sense and his boating experience to guide his fleet through safe waters.

The cruising community, comprised of international boaters from such diverse places as Canada, Germany, France, New Zealand and Czechoslovakia, keep in touch when they have left the Bahamas by email or "wordofboat". Reunion times, particularly in the summer, when most of them converge on the Abacos, are times of real emotion and a chance to share experiences. There is nothing so heartrending for the group as when one of them must give up the cruising life, either for health or other pressing personal reasons, and return to reside (Heaven forbid!) on land. A farewell party is in, order but there has been one occasion when three farewell, parties were given at different times for the same couple. No doubt this couple had gotten Abaco sand in their shoes.

Some of the projects which the Yacht Club would like to bring to fruition are the cleaning of buoys in and around the harbour and the organizing of a consultancy for small business entrepreneurs. The spirit with which Wally Smith began the modest Yacht Club of so many years ago has, indeed caught fire and spread to an entire new generation of boaters to an extent that he could not have hoped for. This is, therefore a fitting legacy to the grandpappy of the cruising community.

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