We left Spanish wells on the third of April and headed to
the anchorage at Royal Island. This particular anchorage is famous as a jumping
off point to go from Eleuthera (or Spanish Wells) to the Abacos. From Royal
Island to Little Harbor – the nearest safe harbor on Great Abaco – is, for
sailboats, about one good days sail. Spanish Wells is another hour or
hour-and-a-half that can be just a little too far. There are times, we have
heard, when there are twenty or more boats waiting to cross. The night we were
there, I counted only seven, some of which were dinghy-ing over to Spanish
Wells during the day. Moreover, it is a cool anchorage. It is almost completely
enclosed except for two small inlets, only one of which is large enough for a boat.
The anchorage is almost like a lake. The night we were there the wind was
blowing, probably 20 – 25 MPH. We were snug in our little harbor and didn’t
feel too much of it at all.
Unfortunately, you can’t go ashore at Royal Island. Some
years ago a development company (among whose investors were Jack Nicklaus and
Roger Staubach) bought the island with the intention of developing it into a
luxury island resort consisting of five villas which they would rent to you for
the trifling sum of $12,000 per night. Let me say that again – $12,000 per night. Now, I have to admit that I
have never stayed in a luxury villa that cost $12,000 per night, but I can
assure you that for that much I would want the whole island (not 1/5 of it), a
gourmet chef and Roger Staubach as my next door neighbor. As is the case with
so many endeavors in the Bahamas, however, this one stalled a couple of years
ago. That said, when we were there, there was something going on. Could it be that, with the end of the recession
in sight, they think they can make money? Or could it be that the Canadians are
using Royal Island as their staging base for the forthcoming invasion? (You
will have to see one of last year’s blog entries for the full intelligence
analysis.) There was some pretty big machinery, some men who stayed on the
island and about a half dozen that commuted from Spanish wells on boats.
The temptation to spend $12,000 at Royal Island
notwithstanding, on April 4 we left and crossed another portion of the
Northeast Providence Channel. The seas were 3 – 5 feet with an occasional
6-footer. The problem was that there were coming abaft our starboard quarter.
That means they were slightly behind on our right side. The problem that
created was that the seas would tilt us over sideway s and then let us fall
backwards. The boat didn’t have a problem with it – and neither did Ann – but I
sure did. I didn’t get seasick or anything but I sure hate tilting sideways. I
keep thinking we could tip over. (Actually, it would take a lot of water to
tilt us on our side, but it sure feels like we could go over!) Anyway, we had
to move about 10 MPH because we had to get to Little Harbor, our next
destination, at high tide.
Little Harbor is another cool anchorage, or in this case,
“mooring-ball-age.” There are about 15 or so mooring balls at $20 per night.
The harbor itself is VERY protected and we decided to stay there for three
nights. However getting in can be an issue. At low tide the entrance to the
harbor is 4 feet deep. Now, our boat draws 4.5 feet – and we really didn’t want
to leave the last six inches on the bottom of the sea., so we had to make sure
we got there somewhere around high tide. And we did. We arrived right on time
to scoot on in, pick up a mooring ball and recover from our crossing.
The first day we didn’t do much but get the dinghy down. We
didn’t really want to go ashore as the skies were a bit threatening and we
didn’t want to get caught ashore in a rainstorm. Nothing happened that day, but
that night there was deluge. It was raining so hard we couldn’t see the other
boats in the harbor. I mean it was a gully washer, a deluge, a tropical
rainstorm, however you want to describe it, it rained like hell. I think it was
the hardest and most rain we have seen since we have been on the boat. The good
thing was it cleaned the boat! After the crossing of the day before, we had
plenty of salt on the hull, the decks, the hatches, the windows, the portholes,
on just about everything. The gully-washer took it all off. There were two bad
things, however. First, the dinghy got VERY full of water, I am guessing there
was six inches of water in the bottom of the little boat – all of which we
would have to bail before we went anywhere. The second bad thing was that we have
a leak in our salon (living room). Now usually we can get away with putting
down a towel to catch the water. This time, though, we had garbage bags under
the sham-wows, under the towels. Eventually, we had to put pans under the leaks
to catch all the water. Man it was pouring!!
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| More examples of sculptures. If you look closely, you can see a turtle and two rays. |
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| An example of the Johnson family sculptures |
In addition to being the first good harbor on Abaco after
leaving Spanish Wells and heading north, Little Harbor has another claim to
fame. It is the location of the home, workshop and foundry of Randolph Johnson.
Johnson is one of the top American sculptors of the 20th Century. In
the early fifties, Johnson had what we might today call a mid-life crisis and
moved his family and his work to Little Harbor on Abaco Island, which at that
time was not as popular among the vacationing crowd as it is now. He produced some magnificent
sculptures and had a Life Magazine article written about him in the sixties.
Although he has passed away, his son Peter has taken up his work. The family
now runs the foundry and a gallery to sell the art (yes, we bought a piece, a
little turtle. I think it was the cheapest thing there for 90 bucks!). In
addition, of course, there is Pete’s Pub. I can hear you now, “What?” you must
be saying, “What does a pub have to do with sculpting?” I guess my only answer
would be that an artist has to get drunk, too!
Anyway, Pete’s Pub is one of those places you just have to
go if you are in the Abacos. We missed
it last year, but we weren’t going to this year. We went twice. The first day
we went to visit the gallery and for lunch. It was okay, the conch was a little
tough, but the setting was great. It is kind of a classic Tiki bar with
thatched roofs, sand on the floor, rough carpentry and articles of clothing
(mostly T-shirts) from previous customers. The second day we went for dinner.
The food was better and we met some of our fellow boaters. On Tactical Directions we met Tony and
Sarah. Tony is from Australia and, based on the name of his boat, loves to
race. Sarah just joined Tony’s crew in Nassau. She had spent 20 months there in
a Yoga retreat and finally decided Nassau didn’t “speak to her.”Now, she is
headed back to the States (hence the ride from Tony) and headed to Micronesia.
Although she seems to be a sweet girl (she is about 30, I would guess) and has
an interesting story, I think Sarah is about 50 years too late; she is truly a
flower child.
We had to leave Little Harbor rather early in the
morning on the 7th because we needed to get out at high tide. North
of Little Harbor, the island of Abaco is protected from the ocean by a chain of
islands, some little, some not so little. The point is that inside this chain
of islands, exists the Sea of Abaco. I know, I know, I almost made it sound
like a magical place. Well, it kind of is. For the previous several days we had
been in some serious ocean. The seas hadn’t been that bad, but they were 3, 4,
5 and yes some 6-footers. Inside the island chain, the wavelets were around six
inches! The seas were beautiful, the weather was wonderful, the wind was just
right – in short, it was one of those magnificent days that boaters live for.
It was just a great day to be a cruiser!
We arrived at Great Guana Cay about 2 PM or so. Now the
anchorage at Great Guana – which is inside the Sea of Abaco – is not choppy at
all. Ok, maybe not a piece of glass, but it is much smoother than many of the
anchorages we had been in before. However. And there is always a however. The
anchorage is known for poor holding. In fact, there are two sandy patches and
the guide books suggest heading for one of those. (Anchors, you will recall,
work by digging into the bottom. If the bottom is sea grass it is much more
difficult to penetrate the root system and grab hold of “the bottom” than if
there is sand, mud, or some other great anchor-holding material. That would
have been a good idea, except for the fact that there were already about 25
boats in the anchorage, all of whom had read the same advice. Yep, the sand was
all taken. As a result, we followed our normal anchoring procedure; we dropped
the anchor and let the wind blow us back, then, when the anchor chain was
taught, we would put the boat and reverse and try to “back down” on the anchor.
If it didn’t catch we would do the procedure again. We ended up dropping the
anchor at least three times before it finally caught.
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| A few of our many neighbors at Fisher's Bay off Great Guana Cay |
Typically, if I am not sure how well the anchor has caught,
I stay on the boat – especially if there is any significant wind. I don’t mind
it if other people go ashore, but I, personally, am staying on the boat until I
am 100% confident that we are stuck. I was pretty confident that we were
caught, but, since I wasn’t 100% certain, we decided to go to Grabbers Bed, Bar
and Grill rather than Nippers World Famous Bar and Grill, which would otherwise
be our destination of choice. From Grabbers, you see, we can observe the boat;
from Nippers, we couldn’t. Anyway, we had a nice tropical drink and some fries,
then headed back to the boat. The following day we did make our trip to
Nippers, but Monday at a happenin’ bar ain’t the same as a Sunday at the same
place. Nevertheless, Nippers does have a beautiful view.
On Tuesday the weather was almost as good as it was on
Sunday and we moseyed over to Marsh Harbor. We went straight to our favorite
Marina in the Bahamas, Marsh Harbor Marina and the Jibroom. We kind of lazed
the rest of the day away as the weather was good and … well … we wanted to laze
the day away! Oh! I almost forgot. When we pulled into the marina there was a
catamaran docked by the fuel dock. Her name was Sun Cat. Hmmm we know that
name. In fact we had their boat card. But before we could put everything
together Bob and Shirley from the very same boat came over. Sadly, we could
spend only about 15 minutes together as they were on their way to the Airport
so they could fly home for a month or
so. Next time we see them we won’t let them go – appointments back home
notwithstanding.
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| When Ann dreams about food, this is what she dreams about: A BLT with onion rings and a Kalik beer. |
We felt so badly about wasting all Tuesday that we really
got to work on Wednesday. We cleaned the boat from stem to stern. Man it was
dirty. While the rain in Little Harbor knocked off the salt it did not knock
off the dirt. That was left to Ann and me as we worked our little touches off. You
know this boat really looks good when it’s clean. Anyway, Ann’s reward for
working so hard on the boat was a visit to the Jibroom. Now for those of you
who don’t remember, Ann loves their BLT’s (apparently made on a particularly
sinful type of bread) and their onion rings. In fact, she has waited nearly a
year to savor this Jibroom delicacy. Well, she did. I had a beer (oops, okay,
maybe I had two) and a few of her onion rings, but she really enjoyed
lunch.
On Thursday, Jim Guy and his wife Diane pulled into the
marina. We had met them last year at this very marina on their boat, Ocean Dance. We had also run into them
(figuratively, not literally) late last year at Vero Beach when we were heading
north and he was heading south. It was good to see them but since we are
leaving tomorrow we won’t be able to. Also on Thursday we re-provisioned our
boat. Yea, yea, we bought some groceries and stuff like that. But we also
stopped at Skaggs Wholesale and Retail to refresh our lobster supply. Now,
today I am not going to rub in the fact that these lobsters have a specially
scrumptious taste, because if I did, I could only do it once. But since we now
have ten pounds of lobster tails, I can rub it in every time we have one! And
yes, I will!
Also on Thursday we went to the Cruiser’s Meet and Greet
held weekly at the Jibroom (Happy Hour prices if you bring an appetizer to
share), where we met Steven and Joy who are aboard their Fleming 55, Meandering Joy. They are as new to cruising
as we were at this time last year so we gave them a tour of our boat (and they
gave us one of theirs) and we both passed on some of the wealth of knowledge we
had gained since we had started (he said with tongue-in-cheek).
ANN’s NOTES: It has
been a wonderful few weeks of cruising. We have seen many new places, met some
new people, re-connected with some old ones and returned to a favorite harbor.
What more can you ask for when you live on a boat? Ok…maybe win a million or
two in the lottery…
I have to update you on the dinghy… last year the Boston
Whaler and our winch was one of our main issues. I have to tell you that since
we bought the inflatable dinghy it has been much better, and since we got the
winch fixed and we have a new, better, stronger cable on it, I feel much safer
getting it on and off the second deck of our boat. It can be a bit of a
challenge at times when it is very windy and dealing with rough water. I now have
learned where to tie off the dinghy on the boat in order to reduce all the
things that want to push me around. It is always a learning experience when you
have something new to deal with.
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| Ann and the sea along our walk at Little Harbor |
We had a really nice time in Little Harbor, Michael and I
took a nice long walk on the island. The area is not flat so we got our heart
rates up on a few good size hills. We also had some very pretty views from the
top of those hills. While at Pete`s Pub, I saw the ground moving, it turns out
that they have a small army of hermit crabs. They were all over the place, all
of them in different size and shapes of shells. The people at the table next to
us picked them up and were having crab races, Michael offered to be their “bookie”
and give them “odds” but they saw through the scam and passed.
Another interesting thing I saw was after the big rain storm
we had. Next to us was a thirty something foot sail boat that had its dinghy
out like most of us. After the rain stopped the first mate got into her dinghy,
put in laundry soap and dirty clothes and washed her clothes in the fresh rain
water. She rinsed them out in another bucket she had caught rain water in and
then hung the clothes in the wonderful breeze. She had bed sheets, underwear,
shorts, shirts…just a normal wash day on a sail boat. I think she had done this
more than once since they more than likely live on the sailboat.
I am enjoying my time in Marsh Harbor, it is nice to be back
in a place that you know where everything is: The bread store, the bank, hardware
store, all the places that make living on a boat more normal. I also got my
BLT-best-onion-rings ever fix. I had to work my buns off before lunch but it
was well worth it…plus the nap that afternoon. We also saw LeeAnn and Jerry
from m/v Bella. They were anchored out in the harbor and came in for dinner at
the Jibroom so they stopped by for a little while. They are such nice people.
It really has been a fun time for us, remember you are
welcome to join us ... we would love to share this wonderful life style with
you.
Wildlife Count:
4 April 2013 Flying
Fish (lots of them ) Northeast
Providence Channel
5 April 2013 5 turtles spotted by Michael…I have to
trust he saw that many (HEY, I resent that remark! MB)
6 April 2013 3
turtles: I saw them this time
5 turtles: again I trust Michel he saw two more than me
7 April 2013 1
turtle
Curly tail lizards (a few)
8 April 2013 1
Starfish
Curly tail lizards a few more
Somewhere along the line: A billion noseeums!
Traveling Soul….OUT
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