April 20-24, 2009 Sea of Abacos

We’re now in Marsh Harbour, the hub of the Abacos, as we look back on week #4 of this trip.

On Monday April 20th we were “respecting the Whale”— waiting in Green Turtle Cay for the seas to settle down so we could go south through the Whale Cay passage – the most dangerous passage in the north Bahamas. We listened to the marine radio for the 8:15 am Cruisers Net and heard a 50 foot motor yacht in the Whale saying it “wasn’t too bad” so we decided to “stick our nose out” and see for ourselves. As we left our calm mooring in Black Sound we found it more windy than we expected but the seas weren’t too rough. We motored the 20 minutes towards the Whale and passed two other boats that had completed the passage northbound—they also told us it wasn’t too rough. We continued towards the narrow passage where the seas should be the worst… and found them quite manageable. We kept going and within 30 minutes were safely into the Sea of Abaco heading for Great Guana Cay.

This island is one of the most popular destinations in the Abacos for two reasons—the long, deserted beach facing the Atlantic Ocean and Nippers, the famous bar on the bluff overlooking the ocean. We got a slip at Orchid marina—

the only one on the island but it wasn’t as protected as it looked on the charts and we were rocking quite a bit so we ended up spending more time at Nippers—

not a bad thing as we took a walk past the painted tractor to the bluff overlooking the ocean, talked to family on the Skype phone, had a dinner of cracked conch and conch fritters and took a long walk on the beautiful beach.

We settled down after sunset and were rocked to sleep.

On Tuesday April 21st, with the boat still rocking in the slip, we decided to cruise the ten miles to Hopetown—the favorite harbor of most cruisers. Just as we saw the famous striped Hopetown lighthouse in the distance we used our radar to watch some of the squalls leading the cold front sweeping east from Florida—a couple of large squalls passed north and south of us but a small squall hit just as we entered Hopetown harbor and washed all the salt off the boat! We picked up a mooring in the west end of one of the most beautiful harbors in the Abacos.

The next four days we really felt we were living our dream—relaxing on the boat with a simple breakfast of coffee and homemade raisin bread we bought at a local bakery, working out on the treadmill, dinghy to the public docks and walking to the beach for a swim, exploring the charming streets and stopping in a coffee shop or bar for a drink then back to the boat to relax and read and, at sunset as the conch horns were blown, watched the incredible light show as the stars came out brighter than we'd ever seen them.