Abacos Bahamas

January 02, 2013

Today we had to pass through Whale Cay Passage. A notoriously pass famous for its “RAGE” (A Rage is when heavy swells  from the Atlantic flows into a narrow entrance and  produce very rough conditions as the water piles up on the shoals.)


Leaving Green Turtle Cay - New Plymouth



The dreaded Whale Cay Passage

 To keep going further south along the Abaco’s we have to leave the safety of the Abaco Sea and enter the Atlantic Ocean. The Whale Cay Passage is known by everyone because everyone has to use it. The inside passage is very shallow and could only be used on extra high tides and if you have local knowledge.

Fortunately for us we picked a very calm day to travel and even though we had 2 foot swells; they were long and rolley. As we rounded Loggerhead Pass back into the Abaco Sea we decided to anchor off Great Guana Cay. We dropped the hook in crystal clear water off a pristine white sand beach that is about 7 miles long.

I had been baking bread and there was still an hour left for the bread to finish so we decided to run the genny to keep the batteries charged rather than deplete them using the bread maker. Sure enough, about an half an hour later the genny quit on us again. With a shudder it came to an abrupt halt. Oh no, Gary had just spent half of his birthday working on it and here it was broken again. But Gary is an extraordinary problem solver, he quietly sat and thought about it for a while and figured out that the problem can’t be what we originally thought it was (the starter switch) because it would start with no trouble and run for a while. So he figured out it was over-heating…He climbed down into the engine room again and took out the fuel filters. They were filthy!!!! He replaced them and the genny started up no problem. (And later when we ran it for a good ¾ of an hour it still worked well, so keep your fingers crossed!!)

At this stage I was chomping at the bit to go ashore and go exploring. Gary was all sweaty and dirty so he decided he needed a wash/swim first …..as he was about to dive into the clear water (visibility about 12-15 feet) a big old Barracuda swam by….It was about 4 feet long!!! Needless to say, Gary decided to shower using the solar shower instead and didn’t go for a swim. J

I cannot get over the colour of the water



Great Guana Cay

The Spoils Island , great for shelling

Crab underwater - in attack mode

Conch

An old outboard washed on shore,Gary thinks it could be a good fixer upper



Sunset ,Great Guana

At last

We dingied over to Spoils Bank (dumped soil from the channel excavation) and spent the next few hours collecting shells. I really want a big conch shell but the problem is, if they are harvested for food they usually have a big hole in them from where the meat is extracted. If you find them on the beach they are almost always broken or they still have a living conch in them. If you want a whole shell you have to put the live conch in a freezer to kill and then you can pull it out and have your shell, BUT I just can’t do that. It seems very cruel to me to do that to a living creature just for its shell. So we walked around picking up conch checking to see if we could find a dead one but they were all alive. I told Gary, just wait and see, Neptune will reward us with a nice one that we won’t have to kill and about 2 minutes later I found my shell. It isn’t perfect but I didn’t have to kill anything for it, which makes me happy.

Later in the evening while we were sitting reading in the back of the boat, we heard splashes in the water and turned off all the lights, used the flash light to watch hundreds of little fish skirting along the top of the water. They would follow the light from our flashlight and every now and then we spotted something a little bigger, obviously making a meal of these little fish. A major big splash we heard later, was something very Big ….probably that Barracuda we saw earlier.

January 03, 2012

We had been promising ourselves that once we get to the Bahamas we would slow down and relax. We love to anchor out, there is always a breeze and it is quiet. The cats also enjoy being at anchor because they get to roam around the boat without us being worried about them getting on a dock and wandering away, (or getting on sailboats as Jessie likes to do. That poor cat wants to be a sailboat cat, not a powerboat cat.)

The colours of water

Abaco sea

Hopetown Lighthouse

Poor Time&Tide looking like a toy next to a super yacht

Anyhow, we had heard that the bad economy had been tough on the Bahamian marinas and that you could get into a marina, stay for a month for a very good rate.  We got excited at the thought of staying somewhere for a while and just relaxing. We would be safe if the weather turns nasty when a cold front comes around, and if there is a forecast for good weather we could just take Time&Tide out for a couple of days and go and anchor somewhere…..and there are a lot of nice places around.

We had heard that Marsh Harbour is a mekka for boaters and that there are a lot of friendly Canadians around. We tried Hope Town but the rates were better in Marsh Harbour.

January 4, 2013

So now we are at the Marsh Harbour Marina and will be (on and off) for the next month. Yesterday we went snorkeling on Mermaid reef and all though the water was a little chilly ( next time we will wear our shorty’s), it was an amazing. The water was gin clear and we saw many fish including a big old lion fish . Afterwards we went into town for some shopping. Fruit is VERY expensive here but meat (chicken), bread, eggs, butter and cheese are cheaper.

It has been HOT the last few days but I am not complaining, the marina has a pool so we can go for a dip anytime we want to cool down. The social life here is pretty active. On Saturday nights they have their steak bbq nights….delicious.

Every bar seem to have their own specialty drink, names like Goombay Smash, Tranquil Turtle and here in Marsh Harbour, Bilge Blaster. They are usually a concoction of several rums and fruit juice. They are very good but after the second one you feel it working on your knees.