Foxtown

We arrived in Foxtown after a 6 hour motor – yuck! The town is laidback and has more of a local flavor than most of the Abacos, a nice change. Fishing is the main livelihood here, inside the local bar was lots of pictures to prove it, this big “black tipped gruper” being one of them.

The area surrounding the approach to the harbour was filled with small rock islands, totally different than we have seen so far in the Bahamas. Tomorrow we head to our last stop before crossing to Florida.  

Manjack Cay

Manjack Cay is a neat little island that is privately owned. The owners like us “cruisers” and have opened up the island to them! They have lawn chairs, tables etc set up on the main beach when you go in. There are also well marked trails that go to beautiful beaches but to get to them you must go through their back yard where there is laundry on the line, sort of strange! The water is very clear here, you can see lots of turtles and rays swimming around.

This catamaran that we are anchored beside has three permanent furlers on board, no way to tack without furling them in…

Green Turtle Cay (White Sound #2)

We stayed in White Sound another 4 days as there was some nasty weather coming our way.  Gusts of 30-40 knots were predicated for Friday night. I had the riding sail out and our 40 lb kellet on the anchor chain to do everything I could to ease the load on the anchor. About 7 PM the lightning show started, it was quite impressive; of course we would have been much more impressed if we weren’t sitting on the water only a few feet from a large lightning rod!!! Fortunately most of it went from west to east and was just to the north of us. That didn’t stop the gusts of high winds from coming – up to 36 knots then steady for the rest of the night at about 25-30 knots. For a short period of time I put the engine in gear to ease some of the load on the anchor. We took some shifts watching things and keeping an eye on other boats but unlike the other day nobody seemed to break free.

Besides the storms, it has been fairly quiet here and we see a window (April 1^st eek!) to go back across to Florida although it looks like it will be a motoring crossing. We left this morning and went 5 NM to Manjack Cay to get ready for tomorrow morning.

Green Turtle Cay (White Sound)

Well it was a quick jaunt to White Sound from Black Sound. There is a bit more room in here than the other harbour for anchoring but still there are a lot of mooring balls in the way. This area here is not known for good holding but when you bring up the anchor there can be a lot of mud on it soooo it appears like the anchor sets ok. Our friends Scott and Michelle on Malaika are here, Scott is quite a good lobster hunter and has agreed to bring me out when the weather settles. Speaking of weather, there are another few fronts coming through in the coming week and there is not a lot of good hiding spots in the northern Abacos after this so we have decided to stay put. Also a large barge sunk in the Ft Pierce inlet (where we are checking into Florida) a few weeks ago and they are still trying to remove it. Right now there are restrictions in place for vessels coming through the inlet so delaying a bit would not hurt – plus there is still that nasty white stuff at home…….

After supper the first night we started seeing some lightening in the distance – this is the first lightening we have seen since arriving in the Bahamas! The weather up here in the Abacos is more like Florida than what we are used to, a lot more cloud and rain. We had just settled down to a movie when the winds picked up from nothing to maybe 30-40 knots. We started the engine to warm it up in case we had to reset anchor and if needed to use it to ease the load on the anchor. Heather watched the GPS and I watched the boats around me but fortunately we didn’t move. This micro burst only lasted about 10 minutes but one big catamaran on a mooring broke free (some of the mooring balls are not well maintained…) and drifted behind us to the shore, fortunately it never hit any other boats. Also two other boats dragged as one left the harbour to go somewhere else (it was fully dark) and another circled the harbour many times before finding a new spot. The owner of the cat was on the boat but the hired captain (I don’t understand it either…) was on shore having supper. After a few frantic calls on VHF 16, the hired captain proceeded back out to the boat. Myself and another cruiser from Canada (who also has a Tartan 37!!!) arrived in our dinghies to lend a hand, it was raining hard but the wind had calmed down quite a bit. There was some damage to their steering but they were able to get off the shore under their own power and steer using the two engines. The large waterproof spotlight that Kevin give me as a Christmas gift worked great and I was able to help lead them to a open spot to drop anchor once they figured out how to steer and to miss all the other boats.

The next day was flat calm so Scott, Greg (from Kelowna) and I went to the other side of the island to go after lobster/fish. It wasn’t long before Scott found a lobster and he gave me the first chance to get it. I got most of the way down but it was just too deep for me to get my ears equalized quick enough and to hold my breath that long. I can do about 20 ft of depth now but this was deeper. He went down and speared it - probably a 2-3 lb lobster! I did find my own lobster however, managed to hurt it enough that I couldn’t get it out of it’s little cave. Scott was back to the rescue and managed to fish it out! He also got another two lobsters after this and gave us two of them for supper! At one point Scott got a hog fish which quickly bled, he got it out of the water, but in no time there was a couple of sharks circling us from a distance! Time to get out of the water and move to another spot!!! Getting lobster doesn’t attract the sharks but when fish bleed they are there within seconds. EEK!

Later in the afternoon I tried a new sport that Scott made up called “derfboarding”. Basically using a dingy to pull you around while trying to stand on a surfboard. For some odd reason I got up the first time, sort of like water skiing with one ski but there is nothing to put your feet into – hard on the legs but it was fun!

Heather was occupied cleaning up the boat while I was out playing most of the day and even washed the floor! There is a wood polish that she uses that is orange in colour that works well, however later in the evening when I asked what the orange “goo gone” bottle was doing out….well you can guess what happened! On a side note the floors looked good and have a great grip – maybe we should write the “goo gone” company…..

   

Green Turtle Cay (Black Sound)

The trip to Green Turtle Cay went well, we had to go thru a cut (Loggerhead channel), outside of Whale Cay and then back inside Whale Cut. These cuts are prone to nasty waves and current when there is any sort of wind opposing any sort of tide (called a “rage” when it is bad). Fortunately our preplanning was on and we had a good passage. There are two distinct parts to Green Turtle Cay,  “Black Sound” to the south and “White Sound” to the north. We choose to go to Black Sound for the first day as it was closer to the town, which is New Plymouth.  The town is very colourful with each house painted different. Sort of reminds us of Lunenburg but with more pastels.  

In town is the Memorial Sculpture Garden, it is full of busts of important men and women of the Bahamas. Some of these busts are quite old and were made in the 1800’s as the dates are inscribed on the back of each one.

This tree seemed to be a combination of many trees growing together, take a look at the large thorns on the branches, guess there is no climbing that tree. The roots were also unique in that they were very oval shaped as oppose to round.

In the harbour is a small area with lots of mangroves, these boats must not have moved since the last big storm and are well tied to the trees.

Treasure Cay

We left Guana Cay and motored to the lee of Fishers Cay. There looked to be some coral there, so our idea was that we could anchor near by and go snorkeling. As it happened the coral was not very interesting so we just swam for a while and had an early lunch. About 1:00 PM we left for Treasure Cay and could actually sail!

Unfortunately we arrived at the windy and shallow harbour just after low tide. We made it in ok but had a few local boats come up behind us as they were more familiar with the approach but there was no room for them to pass. The harbour was man made many years ago with 3 main arms going off from the center. There are many condos/villas and a large marina in here. There is also a beautiful beach (rated #4 in the world – not sure who or how they rate these things….) but we did a walk on it and it was pretty amazing. Tomorrow we are heading to Green Turtle Cay.

Guana Cay

We arrived in Guana Cay by 10:00 following a quick motor (no wind) from Man-O-War Cay. The main harbour has a lot of moorings balls so we chose to anchor around the point yet still having access to the facilities. As the weather has been crazy hot (at least for us…) we jumped into the water for a cool down when we arrived before heading for shore. Two of the main attractions here are the complexes of Nippers and Grabbers (cottages, bar etc). Nippers is a small walk to the other side of the island where there is a great beach and view.  We walked there, had a drink and a walk on the beach. You can tell this part of the Bahamas is geared toward the tourist crowd as a rum drink is $9:00 eeek! We are cruisers and are here for 6 months so we can’t afford that very often. It is a neat place though, but is more commercial than what we are used to.

Man-O-War Cay

We were up at 7:00 this morning so we could arrive around high tide as the entrance to Man-O-War Cay is very narrow. It was only a short motor/sail to the harbour. We had intended on anchoring but there is very limited room and what there is has mooring balls in it, so we decided to take one. Even the mooring balls are very close to one another as you can see by the trawler behind us! He eventually pulled back on the large chain that is part of the mooring and that helped a bit.

The town is very quaint and is much less touristy than Hopetown and Marsh Harbour. There are of course some “snowbirds” that live here in the winter but a lot of the residences are local.

The vegetation is very colourful and abundant as apposed to much of the Bahamas which is quite Sparse. There was even cotton that was in bloom.   

The weather has definitely been getting hotter and to cool off we took the dinghy  out around the harbour. This Trimaran looks like something out of Star Wars, probably goes about as fast too.

Marsh Harbour

Being the largest shopping area in the Abacos, the harbour and Marsh Town is a very busy place and it has the feel of being in Florida. We were in desperate need of finding a place to fix our Iphone, which wasn’t charging, and after a lot of walking and asking around we found a guy at a pawn/computer store who thankfully was able to replace the connector for us. We then headed on to the grocery store before making our way back to the boat.

     Boaters are a very friendly and a social group of people, so shortly after arriving we had a couple dinghy over for a visit. They hail from Martins River and are neighbors of people who we know from our home church. They are on a Cabot 36 – Old Sam and also know a lot of the LaHave Cruisers. They were quick to point out several other Nova Scotia boats in the harbour so we will have to do some visiting.

    Wifi and our phone are our lifelines here and fortunately we have been able to pick up free wifi in most spots with our booster. Unfortunately here, we haven’t found any free access that isn’t password protected. We did find a bar with a signal that we could pick up so we headed over for drinks and the password. Like most things here it took us a lot longer than anticipated as we ended up stopping to visit with Malakai and Chances and then went for a tour of our neighbours boat, a Pearson 422 that Is one of the boats that Richard has been interested in seeing. So by the time we finally got back to the boat the winds had changed direction and we could no longer pick up the signal for the password!

The next day was the annual “worlds shortest St Patrick’s Day Parade”.  Everyone was dressed up and we walked  about 200 yards to a kiosk where there was free drinks. After this was about another 200 yards to Snappers bar and grill for another free drink and Irish food if you wanted to buy any. It was fun and we stayed until the sun was going down. Our plan was to get up early the next morning to go to Man O War Cay, which is only a few miles away.

Richard has taken to pretending to be a cowboy.... Actually a lot of cruisers do this as it keeps your behind dry.

Hopetown

 High tide was forecast at 3:30 pm today so we figured we could go through the cut at about 1:30 and still have about a foot under our keel…wrong… we didn’t actually hit bottom but our depth sounder showed zero although we do have it offset for our comfort zones! There were two boats that left earlier than us and we know one of them drew more than we do so they must have scrapped bottom…

    From inside the harbour it looked relatively calm outside but once we were in the cut it was anything but calm… our first forty-five minutes today was absolutely wild! Once past this it did calm down and we had a great sail winding through the narrow, shallow channels to Hopetown.

  We anchored outside Hopetown in front of the lighthouse so our view was magnificent even though we only had about two feet below our keel.  It is no surprise how many catamarans are here given the shallow depths. After getting the boat settled and checking that our anchor was secure we headed in to see Hopetown. We had heard that it was a nice place but very touristy and both comments are understated. The town is like a post card with beautiful little pastel cottages and narrow little pathways big enough for golf carts all surrounding a lovely harbour where you couldn’t possibly squeeze in another boat. We had a great time wandering around and had a delicious meal at Captain Jacks before heading back to the boat for the night.

     Sunday morning we went to the Methodist Church in town which is a lovely peach and yellow building and has large windows at the front of the church overlooking the ocean, talk about a distraction if your mind tends to wander off the sermon! The congregation was all retired foreigners with an average age of about seventy (not hard to tell that this is not only a tourist destination but a wealthy retirement area as well) The choir consisted of about half the members of the congregation and it was obvious that they took their roles very serious as their they sang beautifully. The Pastor was the only Bahamian and was a young woman in her mid thirties she was absolutely amazing as she delivered a phenomal sermon. We truly felt blessed being able to be part of this lovely service.

     After church we had lunch overlooking the harbour before heading over to tour the lighthouse. We couldn’t have picked a hotter time of the day to climb the tower but it was well worth it as the view was phenomenal. It is one of the only old Fresnel lights still in operation so the lighthouse keeper must wind it up every two hours… he must be in great shape!

   As the tides were in our favour we decided to head over to Marsh Harbour, which is about an hour and a half away.