Leg 5: Abacos Bahamas
- therapturedesigns
- Apr 12, 2019
- 12 min read
Thursday January 31, 2019
My uncle Jim arrived Thursday morning and I went and picked him up farther down the ICW at a marina where I refilled my fuel and water tanks. We returned to the anchorage I had been holed up at for two days waiting for a good window to cross. We had our date Saturday night into Sunday morning we would leave Fort Lauderdale and arrive in the west end of grand Bahama. The plan was to leave at 9 930pm and arrive sometime the following morning around 10 or 11am.
Saturday February 2, 2019
Forecast was looking good, we went and had an early dinner and then returned to the boat to make the crossing. I thought of trying to get some sleep, but was too excited/ nervous to do so so we just stayed up and talked until about 930PM.
No more dates, I never knew what day it was.
Well I finally made it. Me and Jim pulled into the west end of grand Bahama at 11AM after making the 15 hour crossing from Fort Lauderdale. After checking in with customs we went to the local beach to do some snorkeling and relax in the beautiful climate. That night was the super bowl so we decided to take a cab into the local town at the west end and get some dinner, then watch the game at a local bar instead of the hotel/marina bar. This was a great decision, we had the best conch fritters that I had in the Bahamas they were delicious, and then went to power play the bar next door to watch the game, by the time the game started the entire bar was packed with people. I had no ideas Bahamians like football so much. Also the game was pretty boring, but not to them I have never seen a crowed get so excited and worked up over a boring-ish football game. It was great way to end the adventure of crossing into the Bahamas, we had a great time. Sometime after halftime we took a cab back to the marina where I called it a night I had been awake for almost 30 hours and was exhausted.
The next day were spent exploring the beaches and the surrounding areas some more before Jim had to leave on Tuesday. After Jim left I took a cab into the city to get a BTC cell phone sim card so I could have a cell phone in the Bahamas. This was my first real introduction to the concept of island time. What I thought might take an hour or so, was a 4 hour process. By the time I was back at the marina the day was basically over. I met the first person on a sailboat my own age today, an guy named Elliot who was traveling back to the untied states that night on a Pearson Triton, a contemporary design manufactured by the same company that produced my boat probably made a few miles from where I grew up in Bristol in the mid 60s. I would find out later that he had met, and befriended the same group of people that I had.
I made friends with a few others at the marina and we decided to travel as a group to the next island from the west end so on Wednesday morning we all departed the marina for mangrove cay a little rock at the edge of the Bahamian bank. A 5ish hour sail from the west end I sailed the entire way, aside from crossing into the bank in the Indian channel, despite making it through the channel I will never do so again as the depths were far too shallow for my liking often leaving less than 6 inches of water under the keel. After anchoring for the night we pulled anchor and moved on to great sale cay. This a the first well protected harbor and island on the island and with the weather being nice the first place I stopped for a few days. It was here that I met more people traveling on sailboats and explored m first island of the Bahamas.
The island was at one point some sort or refueling station that was most likely wiped out by a hurricane and never rebuilt. The concrete piers and foundations of the building had obviously been left for some time for the ocean to reclaim them. After about a week here the wind began to pickup and shift around which would have made the anchorage uncomfortable. So, I pulled the anchor to make my way to the crab cay for the night, this was one of the very few days in the Bahamas where I had to motor as the direction of the wind and the narrowness of the area I was passing thru would have made sailing an multi day event. Arriving just as the sun went down I had dinner on another boat. The next morning it seemed everybody had different plans as the weather was going to continue to pickup ahead of a cold front. Waking up around 9 it was going to be a beautiful day for sailing to my next destination the green turtle cay area. I was not sure where I would go as of yet, I had all day to decide.
One of my favorite parts of the trip in the Bahamas was the ability to sail everywhere. There's no rush, no place to be, so I sailed at every opportunity I could. If it took all day to go 15miles, that's alright. Conversely if you got the right wind direction, I sometimes I was able to cover 30miles in a day completely under sail and with almost no tacking. I sailed over to Spanish cay to get fuel, and said my goodbyes to sea mist as they decided to stay after fueling. Then sailed down to the nun jack, green turtle area. Coming into the anchorage at the north end of the islands, I dropped the hook for the night and went to sleep. The following morning I pulled up the hook and sailed down the the southern end of the island where I dropped the hook multiple times, to no avail, the bottom was hard packed sand and weeds, too much for the Bruce anchor I had used this entire trip.
It was at this point I met Jessie, who dinghyed over and offered to give me a hand setting the anchor as it was still blowing and the anchorage was choppy. Jessie was the second person I had met on the trip who was my age, it was good to finally meet somebody else with the drive to experience this trip at such a young age. With his help I swapped over to my bigger (better) anchor and set the hook. The next two days were pretty windy and choppy and it was at this point that my water maker stopped working, it was also at this point in the trip that my dinghy was declared beyond repair and thrown away. Wanted to give a shout out to Reggie for giving me a hand with the dinghy and water problems and for being a help throughout my stay in the Bahamas! Also to Giles and Nancy for letting me borrow their kayak for the duration of my stay in the Bahamas, this gave me mobility again and could be paddled into wind and waves.
I stayed at this anchorage for close to three weeks, exploring the island and spending time with the friends I made the first days I was there. The weeks were filled with early morning snorkeling trips to the reefs, deep sea fishing, trail running, beach pizza days, art days, full moon parties, Land crabbing, kite boarding lessons, exploring the turtle and ray filled mangroves. One of the highlights of the trip watching a spacex launch from cape Canaveral on a clear night watching the rocket take off and fly towards the moon, and then watching the first stage land on the edge of the Bahamas! The Bahamas was the first place I had been in years that offered totally unobstructed views of the sky at night, including the gasses of the milky way. There is no light pollution here and laying in the cockpit looking up at the night sky was breathtaking on a clear night.
After three weeks a group of us decided to collectively move on south to get a change of scenery and so we pulled the anchor and moved on down the island chain to great guana, elbow cay, and treasure cay. During our stay in treasure cay we rented a car and drove down to the most southern tip of Great Abaco Island to the hole in the wall lighthouse. This was certainly one of the highlights of the trip. The lighthouse has been abandon since the early 90s, and lies in the middle of nowhere, down dirt and rock roads that take hours to drive down. At one point we were stopped by local guides who asked us where we were going. When we told them and asked if we were almost there the guide did not miss a beat yelling “No mon!” I am still laughing about this. The lighthouse was definitely worth the multi hour ride down dirt roads long since forgotten and we were the first to walk the paths to the lighthouse for some time as they were quite overgrown. Returning to treasure cay for pizza night I enjoyed the big party in one of the more touristy sections of the Bahamas I visited.
At this point I wanted to see more of the islands further south so I broke off on my own, down to little harbor, tilloo cay, and sandy cay for some snorkeling, and blue hole exploring. Returning to elbow cay again to rent a bicycle, I rode every road on the island, as well as take some photos of the exodus anchored right next to the iconic elbow cay lighthouse. The following morning I made my way to man o' war cay to wait out the biggest storm I have been on a boat for. With sustained winds of 35-45 knots and gusting to 50s I came to trust my anchor as I did not move an inch but watched many boats drag out into the sea of Abaco. Man o' war was the sleepiest island I have been too. Outside the downtown areas were just houses, and and I never saw another person outside the downtown area. Then to guana again, for a night because of the weather. Going north meant threading through a section of reef known as the whale and due to the storm a few days earlier this section was still a rage. A sea state where the ocean swell opposed the current or is churned up by the submerge reef into a roiling mess. I got a slip to refuel and take on water then, I spent a day exploring and treated myself to a nice dinner.
Finally with the weather calmed down I made my way back u to the nun jack, green turtle area to spend the last three weeks of my trip. After another week there I went north with a group to Allens Pensacola cay where I saw the old military tracking site. We also stopped and free dove a sunken plane off the coast of Spanish cay. At allens i saw the signing tree, and explored the super shallow mangrove areas in the kayak. I also got the closest to a 8foot black tip shark. After a few days here I returned to the nun jack area to wait of another blow.
Early April, I decide to start on my way home. There is rarely good time to start or leave on a journey. Leaving often means leaving behind good friends, places, and experiences for the unknown. If this trip has taught me anything is that despite the tough decisions to leave often the reward is worth it. This trip has also reinforced the value of being flexable with plans. when i started the trip i had all these grand plans to rush through the Bahamas to see everything in one go. I am glad I didnt do that and instead took my time, it allowed me to meet people and develop real friendships, and allowed me to see alot of one area of the bahamas instead of a tiny anount of a larger area. Now it was time to start home, I was home sick, the weather was getting better and I missed mountain biking, my friends, and refrigerated food. Leaving also meant leaving behind new friends, whom I had shared some amazing experiences with, as well as the most picturesque landscape I had ever had the good fortune to live in. But the weather window was here and I did not know when the next one would present itself, so I sadly said my goodbyes, made the final rounds of the beautiful island I had called home for the last month and departed. I had been warned that the first time you depart the beauty I had lived in for the last two months the sadness might be overwhelming. It was its hard to process when your still inside one of the most beautiful places in the world but I was genuinely going to miss this place and the good people I had met while here.
In order to get home I would have to cross back to the united states, now there are a couple of ways to do this. However, the best would be to sail to the edge of the bank, anchor overnight then to sail the final 70 mile leg to Florida. Leaving nun jack I sailed to great sale cay a 55 mile sail, that I was able to sail most of way too. However, I had to motor into the anchorage due to the direction of the wind and narrow sandbars prohibiting sailing upwind into the anchorage. After dropping the hook, and cooking dinner, and prepping the boat for the following days crossing the little Bahamanian bank to the edge of the bank I went to bed. Hopefully after making iot to the edge of the bank I would be able to snorkel a wreck known as the sugar wreck. A 100foot steel schooner from the early 1900s that had been wrecked on the reef carrying molasses. The wreck lie in about 20 feet of water. Setting sail early in the morning the weather was cloudy, rainy, and gusty wind. Good sailing conditions but not sunny and warm. I sailed the entire way to the edge of the bank and dropped the hook in 8 feet of water. I was not able to dive the sugar wreck due to the swell.
Despite my best efforts the weather was not totally cooperating, noaa forecast was calling for extreme thunderstorms off the coast of Florida moving towards the Bahamas. High winds gusting to 60 miles per hour and quarter sized hail in the gulf stream. The spot I chose to anchor was like anchoring on the edge of the world. Looking around 360 degrees it seemed that I was anchored in the middle of the ocean. The closest land was 20 miles away and the next closest boat was 8-9 miles away. I was truly alone. A sea swell of 4-5 feet left the boat pitching and diving around made cooking and even just standing a challenge. After cooking dinner I decided to take a nap and monitor the thunderstorms that I could see in the distance. Sleep was near impossible and with the thunder storms off the coast of Florida I opted to wait a few hours to track the thunder storms in the gulf stream. Off in the distance I could see the thunderstorms system and they were moving straight towards me....great.
I pride myself as somebody who can find sleep just about anyplace, standing up in the shower, sitting upright in a chair, and once I am asleep I tend to stay asleep. Settling into my bunk for the night I tried in vain to get some sleep managing to doze off for about an hour I was awoken around midnight. Trying to sleep in a spot with no protection is similar to trying to lay down and sleep on a roller coaster. You feel yourself ride 3-4feet up a wave and then the gut dropping 1-2seconds of free fall as the boat sails/drops off the other side. Needless to say I wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight. Looking out the window I could see the thunderstorms now just a few miles from where I was anchored and in the direction I needed to go. The good news is that they appeared to moving away from Florida at a snails pace. So after making a few gallons of coffee, and some food I pulled the anchor and set off for the memory rock channel to get out of the little Bahamian bank. Just as I crossed the edge of the bank the outer edge of one storm swept over the boat, heat lighting, light up the entire area. Pea sized hail, and 30-40mile an hour winds stirred the sea into a rage of 5-6 waves. The Exodus plowed through this maelstrom without even blinking and in less than a half hour I was clear of the storms, back into calmer waters of the gulf.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, after clearing the edge of the storm I was able to deploy the head sail and shut the motor off for a few hours, for a nice downwind run towards the states. I sailed most of the day until sunrise and then was forced to start the motor after the wind became so light I couldn't even tell which direction it was coming from. I motored the rest of the day until I approached Fort Pierce then deployed the head sail again to take advantage of the wind off my stern. Sailing right into the port of Fort Pierce I made my way to an anchorage I had used at the beginning of my trip and dropped the hook. Making a phone call to my parents to let them know I was home I went to bed around 8:30 and slept for close to 16hours. My final leg back to the states I had covered approximately 210 miles in 36 hours, mostly under sail and with about 10 hours of sleep total.
