April 18, 2022 - Traveling Down the Abaco Out Islands

Nico and I have been enjoying traveling down the out islands off the eastern shore of Great Abaco Island. It's known as one of the great cruising areas of the Bahamas because the many out islands offer protection from the swells and winds of the Atlantic.

 After Cave Cay we were able to take advantage of a less common west wind to sail north to Double Breasted Cay, a favorite from the last trip. Unfortunately, it was not a protected anchorage with the west wind so we anchored at Grand Cay, just north. Grand Cay was the site of the Big Daddy Fishing Tournament that we so enjoyed last time. Since it wasn’t tournament time, Easter weekend or homecoming things were quiet but we were able to buy rum and check out the damage from Hurricane Dorian. With a fresh supply of rum we were able to invite the crew of Surprise (the 57-foot wooden ketch boat that has been anchoring near us since the Berry Islands) over - but the party was cut short by a short but powerful squall. One boat dragged but luckily, the catamaran next to us who anchored too close and refused to move when Nico pointed this out, stayed put.

Nico in the liquor store at Grand Cay. It was closed but a nice lady got the keys, called the owner to find out what the prices were and then sold two bottles of local rum to us.

We enjoyed the next day at Double Breasted, even though we did not catch fish like last time. Got three conch though. The wind was now from the north so we had a rollicking sail south towards Marsh Harbour.

Not a soul was around.

I love the sand bars around the aptly named Sandy Cay.

We found we had a stowaway.

We spent the night in Black Sound on Green Turtle Cay and explored the settlement of New Plymouth.

Many houses had a fresh coat of paint after the hurricane.

New Plymouth

Some of the damage

Next stop was Manjack where we enjoyed the mangroves.

So many turtles! For the first time we heard complaints from the natives that the turtles are eating up all the turtle grass. Their natural predator, the shark, hasn't rebounded as quickly so there is a turtle boom going on now that they are protected.

We found the wreck of a trimaran that was there on our last visit. I was worried because we did not see the lone pig that we found last time. I hope nothing happened to him during the storm!

New mangroves are recolonizing where there was damage from the storm.

We sailed past Man O’War and Hopetown and anchored off Tiloo Cay where we once again fished and snorkeled and viewed the damage. It's hard not to focus on the effect of Dorian in this area. We talked to one man who spent the hurricane hunkered down in the cellar of his family's older home that had lasted the hurricane of 1932. It was a wooden structure, held together by strong pegs - and it survived. He said the wind, perhaps the tornadoes, really did sound like a train was coming. He also said the difference was that in other storms the wind came, and quickly passed over. This went on for two horrible days. He never wants to go through something like that again. Our taxi driver in Marsh Harbour later said that she cried and prayed for two days.

The wind has been brisk and from the east. I wanted to snorkel at the coral gardens south of Marsh Harbour but it was too rough. We continued to The Bight of Old Robinson which we explored about 35 years ago with Nico’s sister and her husband Joe. We anchored outside Little Harbour in the swell that was coming in from the Atlantic Ocean through the cut and took the dinghy into the mangroves. We found several blue holes, which are really creepy because they are so deep and you feel you will be sucked down to the ocean. We didn’t find the crashed airplane that we saw last time (possible drug runner?) or the amazing coral garden but we saw SO MANY TURTLES! We pounded our way back to the boat against the wind and swells. Just before dinner, the tide was high and we slipped into Little Harbour  - over the four-foot spot at low tide - and picked up a mooring.

Little Harbour is delightful! It has a great beachside pub/restaurant, an artist’s studio and a few homes. We had an extensive tour of the foundry and learned all about the lost wax process they use to make bronze statues of sea life and memorials.

Pete's Pub, operated by the grandson of the artist.

The main street

The always welcome lending library.

One of the sculptures. After our tour, I had a huge appreciation for the amount of time it takes to create a bronze sculpture this size.

It is the lost wax process.  It starts with a soft sculpture made with wax. Then a mold is made. This is  Rava who has been here producing bronzes since the 1980s. He came on his boat, got a job with Randolf Johnston, and has mostly remained for all these years. He said that Randolf initially turned him down for the job but noticed when he left that he could scull a boat and he called him back. Nico liked that story since he used to scull the old peapod around Edgartown Harbor.

The wax sculpture.

The wax is then dipped repeatedly in silica - about 14 layers of sand that gets progressively coarser with each dipping.

The foundry where they melt the bronze. It is a dangerous business. There is hot wax and molten metal. If any water gets into the hot metal there could be an explosion. There was a huge hole in the steel beam overhead from a drop of water that exploded in the molten metal.  Rava was luckily bending over and it missed his head. 

One of the newer artists, learning the process from the masters.

This has a really good summary of the process: http://www.johnstonartfoundry.com/

The Atlantic side of the harbor.

It has a wild, windswept feel. You can hear the breakers while in the calm harbor.

An abandoned lighthouse.

We have seen several old Bahamian buildings with a small, separate cookhouse.

This is the cistern for the lighthouse. This part of the island has no wells so they rely on rainwater. There are no powerlines either so they now have solar panels for the small community.

This little yellow-throated warbler was relying on the water too as he migrates up north.

We are waiting out a series of thunderstorms in this protected spot before we make our way north to Marsh Harbour. I take a COVID test and then fly out in three days. Nico will remain (does anyone want to join him for ten days cruising the Abaco Islands?) and his cousin Marta will join him at the end of the month to help take the boat north. 

Update: I'm posting this from the Nassau airport, feeling very much alone after three months in very close proximity to Nico. We made quite a team and it's a real tribute to his planning, sailing, and navigational skills that the trip went so smoothly.

 April 12, 2022 - Abaco

There are two distinct Abacos. One is a favorite of tourists and those who have second homes. There are thriving yacht charter companies, residential developments, and many VRBOs. This area exists mainly on the east side of Great Abaco and consists of towns such as Marsh Harbour, Treasure Cay, Hopetown, and Man O'War. But there is another, lesser-known western part, known as the Bight of Abaco. It is a shallow sea with only a few channels deep enough for cruising boats to enter and exit. The Explorer Cruising Guide says that in a year only a few boats visit this “untouched” area, “lending a  feeling of complete wilderness”. It is recommended for boats that draw 5 feet or less. Far and Away draws exactly five feet.

We decided to explore the Bight of Abaco after leaving the Berry Islands. We had a lovely 40-mile sail northwest to Abaco. As we approached we had a short, powerful thunderstorm. We decided to spend the night at Gorda Cay (now known as Castaway Cay). The island was dwarfed by a large cruise ship with mouse ears on its stacks. The whole island is owned by Disney and cruisers are not allowed to land. We only wanted to anchor nearby because it offered us protection from the strong southwest wind. We tried three times to get our anchor to set, but the bottom was hard (sea fans), and we ended up having to go six miles south to Sandy Point, where we finally dropped anchor and had a peaceful night. We watched the cruise ship leave and immediately smoke rose from the island as Disney staff burned the garbage from 4,000 visitors.

Just one of several cold fronts passing through.

The calm after the storm - anchored off Sandy Point

The next day we headed back past Castaway Cay, now deserted except for hundreds of folded up beach umbrellas, and went to More’s Island and the town of Hard Bargain. Who could resist going to a town by that name? We anchored by a big lobster boat, now idle because the season had just ended.

 We went into town and asked where we could buy some fish. An older woman at the landing bellowed out to a man cleaning fish a hundred or more yards away that we wanted some. I was impressed by her set of lungs. Fallon and his wife were cleaning the day’s catch. There were snapper, grouper, hogfish, and lobsters (out of season?). He filleted a lovely fish whose name I didn’t catch. We asked about a store to buy eggs and another gentleman offered to escort us. Along the way, we were joined by little boys on bicycles. One little guy called Nico grandfather. We asked about bread at the store and the woman called her friend who promised to bake us two loaves to pick up the next morning. 

Fallon and his wife cleaning the day's catch

The store where we bought our eggs

And I think it is hard to schedule a dentist appointment...

Continuing our stroll we encountered a large pack of dogs roaming the town. They were big, rangy and many had mange. Some puppies ran over to greet us.

The coastal tug and barge had come in with an oil truck that needed to be unloaded. A crewman was madly digging and throwing rocks to make a makeshift road so the oil truck could come down the ramp onto the beach. Most of the male population was observing his work.

Incredible skill on the part of the driver. He had inches to spare before the rig went in the water.

 We met an older gentleman who was formerly a fisherman and boatbuilder, a life long resident of Hard Bargain. He wanted to show us a model of one of his sailing boats so we accompanied him to a house where he brought out a model.

 Everyone was so friendly. The town lived up to its name, but Hard Bargain was the most authentic Bahamian town we visited. There were no tourists, no tourist facilities, no white residents (seasonal or permanent), and very few yachts visited in the course of a year. The locals were all fishermen. 

Sometimes it was hard to tell what was damaged from Hurricane Dorian or just the way things were.

 The saddest thing for me was the next morning we took a walk while waiting for our bread to be delivered to the store. Our stroll on the road out of town took us to the dump, not unusual. I heard a tentative woof and a small puppy, maybe three months old, crawled out from under some discarded furniture. He tried to be brave, giving a few barks but then he really wanted to come to us, so he wiggled and waggled but didn’t dare. He was covered with mange and it killed me to turn away and leave him, or her, there. No sign of a mom. I kept thinking of Violet’s beginnings in Puerto Rico, the only survivor of a litter when they found her and her mom living under a wrecked car.

I didn't take a picture because it would haunt me.

We did get our wonderful bread, still hot and so good!

The next stop was Rocky Harbor, 30 miles north across the Bight. The Bight is 15 feet deep the whole way. We had a gorgeous sail across the bank. We didn’t see another boat the whole time. The anchorage had a truly remote, wild feel to it. We explored the shallow bay by dinghy and checked out all the damage to the mangroves from Hurricane Dorian. I would have thought mangroves of all plants would not have been affected but there was tremendous damage.

Footprints of a hutia, we think. It is a native mammal, a large rodent like a nutria, woodchuck-sized. There are no people in this area so it would be a good area to find this shy and rare animal.

The Bight is shallow, neon turquoise and just about deserted.

Lovely sailing. There is a natural occurrence called a "fish mud" that is stirred up sand. It makes the water look extremely shallow and can give you a scare when the depth is 10 - 15 feet at the most. Its cause is a mystery.

One reason why hardly anyone comes to this area is that it is hard to get out once you have committed. The only exit is a five-foot channel by Cave Cay, and if we couldn't exit we'd have to sail back to Hard Bargin and enter the out islands from the east, an 80 mile upwind detour. We had to time our passage carefully to hit it right at a rising high tide. A steady strong wind can blow lots of water across the shallow bight which could affect the level. The other problem is that the tide is 2 or maybe 4 hours after high tide in Nassau so predicting the tide isn’t an exact science. I had been closely charting the tide for two days to get a handle on the local tides as best I could. 

As it was our passage was uneventful, the result of careful planning and some luck. I stood at the bow and scanned the color of the water to help tell where to go in the channel. Luckily the shallowest depth we encountered was about six and a half feet. We enjoyed a quiet night off the beach at Cave Cay (as far as we got last time we visited, in 2019) and are now in the Sea of Abaco.