Needfull Things on Land: Into the Abacos

By the Cave on Great Harbour Cay

Trying to look like a scorpion

The end of the winds is supposed to be coming, though by the pictures....ya gotta wonder. We hope to move in the next few days, either to the Abacos or to Lucaya by Freefort, just depends on which way the wind will blow that day.

Sunset in Sugar Beach

As it turns out, we had been planning for crossing to the Abacos, then kind of a spur of the moment, we decided, then went. We have to do this crossing in two stages. We took the boat out and around the north end of Stirrup Cays and back down the east side of Great Harbour Cay to anchor for the night then cross over to Little Harbour in the Abacos the next day. It is a 70 nautical mile crossing and will take us at least 12 hours to make the passage.

It was neat seeing our favourite bay and the Beach Club from the water side in Sugar Beach, instead of from the beach. The wind has slowed down quite a bit, but the rollers haven't completely laid down, so we had a bit of a rolly night.

We had to awaken at 3 am to get going and of course, we didn't sleep that great. So in the dark, with the nearly full moon to help, we followed our chart plotter track out of the bay and onto our plotted course east towards Abacos.

It was amazing, the stars were all quite different than we are used to seeing in the evenings, and seemed to be millions more. The bioluminescence was sparkling in the waves as we went by, making it magical, just beautiful. I fell asleep for awhile and woke up when the sun was just rising. Thank goodness Al was driving...

We had a cruise ship heading to Nassau, and two freighters that went behind us to who knows where. It doesn't take long for them to catch up and blow by us.

Hole in the Wall, Abacos

The ocean didn't really settle down that much, we were up and down over huge rollers, some coming from a few different directions. At times, the ocean seemed to be seething, nothing dangerous, just roiling under and around us. Some times it felt like we needed to drop our boat down to second gear to get over the next wave then we'd race down the back side. It was quite the experience, I thought I'd be nervous but that didn't happen.

Little Harbour anchorage, Abacos

The bottom point of Abacos finally came into view and after following the west and southern coast we rounded the tip, called Hole in the Wall, and turned our noses north toward Little Harbour. The Hole in the Wall used to be just that, a hole in a rock wall, but Hurricane Sandy changed that with breaking off the top of the circle, so now its just another rock off shore. Here the travelling was a bit more of a challenge as we had most of the rollers on our beam. After a few hours of zigging and zagging to reduce the rocky ride, the water settled and let us run a more straight course to our destination. The wind again, was mostly on our nose, so the sails weren't much help until the lasts couple hours when its direction changed to the west and gave us a bit of a push to the Little Harbour cut.

Along the Sea of Abacos

The Cut can be tricky unless the wind, waves and tide are all going the same way and there are reefs that jut out into the cut on both sides of the channel. We had two of the three criteria for a safe passage, but we just followed the other six sailboats that arrived when we did and got in behind the reefs to gentler water. We had a nice anchorage that night, the wind died down and after dinner, we both slept like logs all night.

Sunset in Marsh Harbour

The next morning we had a lazy start towards Marsh Harbour, it's not far, around 20 miles so won't take long to get there. In the distance we could see a squall coming our way and like a freight train roiled over us and several other sailboats in no time. Another boat with a wind meter clocked the sustained wind at 20 - 25 knots with gusts a bit higher... the rain that came with it was torrential!! As we had seen it coming, we battened down and got the rain gear on before it hit. Some waves were splashing over the top of our bimini, we were heeling a bit, without sails up.... Our good little boat soldiered on through it all and got us safely to our slip in Mangoes Marina in Marsh Harbour.

Steve working hard with the band

We knew that the folks we had met in Great Harbour Cay were here, and also found a couple more boats that we had met before. One couple we had met in Oriental in North Carolina and had been there to help me get out of the Harbour when I fell in. Another couple, Steve and Lise are from Fifty Point Marina, in Ontario, the same marina that we had left from. We went out to dinner with them the night we got there, to catch up and had a fun evening.

From our dock

Life in Marsh Harbour is very different from life at Great Harbour Cay to say the least. We saw more cars in five minutes that we would see in a week in Great Harbour. There are many more people, stores, boats, cars..... the good thing is that there is a regular grocery store here, what a treat, however the prices are much highter here too than Great Harbour. This is also the base for 3 charter sailboat companies, Moorings, SunSail and Green Turtle there is an airport that takes fairly large planes too. Its kind of in the middle of several popular Cays that are all within easy sailing distance from one another, no more than about 12 miles for the furthest, others are much closer. There is Treasure Cay, Great Guana Cay, Man O'War Cay and Elbow Cay that are the most popular with access also by a ferry service.

Limbo at the Jib Room marina

We went over to another marina for their rib dinner night. Good food, enough to be able to share a plate. After dinner we watched as many participated in a limbo competition. The fellow in the picture brought the bar down to about 14 inches and managed to limbo right under it, as it was on fire, and he lit his cigarette as he went under. I have a video of it, as it was just so unbelievable.

Off to the Barefoot Man concert

View from Nippers decks

Green Heron with a large shrimp

There is a fellow called the Barefoot Man ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dITMYoWr5ko) who comes to Great Guana Cay each year for a weekend of music and debauchery, apparently. He is kind of a Jimmy Buffett like of music guy. We went over for the free part on St Patricks day by ferry as no doubt there would be no place to anchor or dock as the place will be packed. It is also spring break for a lot of colleges and universities so the place will be a bit crazy, hence the debauchery, and it became that as the day went along. The main event is Saturday so I'm sure it will be a wild place to be then. We had burgers lunch, listened for a bit then wandered off to see what the Cay was about.

Directions anyone??

It's long and narrow, has an amazing reef on the Atlantic side, its just in the picture from Nippers deck. The wind is blowing pretty good still, so it wouldn't have been very pleasant today to snorkel, cold out too. There is one public marina, and a couple private marinas that aren't for us transient sort. A couple hotels and several little cottages for rent and some even for sale, very expensive ones that aren't all that much to write home about. Everyone runs around on golf carts, with the odd truck that hauls supplies about the island. There is some construction, but like in other places the advancement is very slow, over many years at times.

When we got back to Marsh Harbour, the St Paddy's day celebrations were in full swing. The local pub call Snappa's had sponsored the worlds shortest St Paddy parade, all of one block, past the liquor store which gave out a free green beer and then to Snappa's for free green drinks and jello shots. We had missed out on the parade, however, not the free drinks, but that's another story - thanks to Jeff. Snappas' were handing out the green jello shots quite freely though.

The next day we have decided to make a move as the wind has decidedly slowed down. We wait for almost high tide to get out of our lttle marina and onto Hope Town on Elbow Cay. Its only about a 2 hour motor away. Guess where the wind was... on the nose most of the trip, and the last part it was too shallow to sail... have to keep an eye out for the very shallow bits.

Hope Town, Elbow Cay

What a quaint little town; the harbour is tiny and full of mooring balls, all of which are occupied, so we ended up in Hope Town marina. Nice spot with two pools, one warm and one not, including a swim up to the bar part, a hot tub (empty today) and lots of lovely areas to just sit and well just sit and soak in the fact that this is where we are. They also have a free shuttle to cross the harbour, as that's where most of the town is. The streets are wide enough for a golf cart and walkers. There are beautiful gardens with flowering shrubs of orange, purple, yellow and red dripping over fences along the way. You could imagine that you're in some English seaside town, except for the palm trees. The Atlantic side is stunning with its beaches and reefs just inviting us to go snorkel and explore - that's tomorrow. We went through a little museum that tells the history of how the islands were inhabited, from the early inhabitants (Lucayans) obliterated by the spanish centuries ago through slavery, then to when the free slaves and loyalist moved over to the Bahamas from the States and how they survived and eventually thrived here.

Hope Town lighthouse

Back on this side of the harbour is a famous lighthouse that we climbed up for the most stunning view of the cays around us. This lighthouse is still lit with kerosene and has the famous fresnal lens, one of the last ones in service. When it was originally built, the locals sabotaged its construction; they made part of their living from the boat wrecks on the reefs and felt this light would cut into their livelihood.....