Update: Back to Florida, Across the Little Bahama Bank and The Gulf Stream Crossing

We can report another successful trip from the Abacos to Florida. We arrived safe and sound at Vero Beach City Marina around 4:30 Monday afternoon (May 9th) after a 181 nautical mile trip at sea from Green Turtle Cay, Abaco. The trip took us 29 hours and we ran it straight through to Vero Beach with our buddy boat “Casual Class”. We departed Green Turtle just before high tide and had smooth seas until around 1:00 am Monday morning about two hours before starting across the Gulf Stream. The weather forecast was for light winds out of the south clocking around to west Monday and to the northwest and north late Monday into early Tuesday (after our arrival into Vero Beach). Well the weather guessers were correct with the forecast except for the most critical part. The last part! The part where we cross the Gulf Stream. The wind clocked alright. It clocked northwest and then north early Monday morning and was stronger than forecast. Well guess who had to pay the price for their forecast. To make matters worse our Autopilot would not hold a course once the weather started to pipe up. This meant I had to hand steer the boat for 16 hours straight. Not exactly a relaxing trip getting flopped around in steep building seas. Lessons learned from this trip. 1.) Weather Guessers (Meteorologist) are all the same. They are mostly wrong and they still get paid (Actually I have known this for a long time but somehow believed them this time). 2.) Making the trip straight through while long, was not a bad way to attack the beast. 3.) Autopilot should be the highest paid member of the crew.  

Update: Last Days in the Abacos Before Heading Home

What a trip this has been! We have had great weather, met awesome new friends, visited with friends we met from last year’s trip, seen some of the most beautiful water in the world and caught 2 fish. Yea, that’s right, two lousy fish. A “Horse Eyed Jack” and really small “Mutton Snapper” which I released. Good thing we didn’t have to rely on my fishing skills to eat or we would be real skinny now. I wanted to believe there were no fish in the area and it wasn’t a reflection of my fishing skills. Well, my fishing ego has a serious hole in it. We recently talked to many cruising sailors who have caught more than their fair share of fish this year. Guess I need to take some fishing lessons before next season.

Anyway, enough of that! Our last two weeks in the Abacos were pretty busy in cruising terms. After Easter weekend, we moved back to Hope Town and had several great visits with our friends Lance and Debbie, Jeff and EA and Milo and Linda from North Carolina who rented cottages on the Hope Town harbor. These guys have been coming to Hope Town for many years and always rent an Albury Brothers center console runabout. They invited us to go with them down to White Sound and Sea Spray Marina for lunch. After lunch we anchored on Tahiti Beach for a walk and then hit Cracker P’s for afternoon adult beverages. What a great day! 

The stories these guys can tell keep us in stitches all day. My sides still hurt. Somehow the subject of fishing came up and low and behold the only fish Lance and Jeff caught last season was a “Horse Eyed Jack”. Ah, we have something in common. We fished all season and all we caught was a “Horse Eyed Jack”. During the conversation, it was revealed that a story was written (complete with illustrations) about Lance and Jeff’s fishing expedition which produced 1 uneatable “Horse Eyed Jack”. The group now refers to them as “Horsey Eyed Jacks”. Borrowing a line from a friend, I told Lance “we would never amount to anything” when it comes to fishing. 

The next day we were invited to join the group for a run over to Guana Cay and Grabbers restaurant. We had lunch served up with you guessed it, adult beverages and lots of funny stories. After lunch we ran up to Baker’s Bay Marina and resort to hob knob with the rich and famous. Man, what a beautiful place loaded with Mega Yachts. We found out later that the 1^st large Jet to ever land at the Marsh Harbour airport came in from New York with 50 or so passengers with thick wallets headed for Baker’s Bay. Not sure if they were F’n with us, but everyone we talked to at the bar said they had either lived previously in the Triangle Area or were moving to the RTP area in the future. The world seems small sometimes. We ran the boat back to Hope Town and prepared for a steak on the grill party at Milo and Linda’s cottage. We had a fabulous dinner from the grill garnished with funny stories and booozzzz. We are truly blessed to have Debbie, Lance, Jeff, EA, Milo and Linda as friends. The time we spent with them was a highlight of our trip. We will always be thankful to them. I also have to thank Jeff over and over again for turning me onto his Ipod. Jeff knows his music.

We left Hope Town after getting haircuts and re-provisioning the boat - destination Green Turtle Cay. The route takes you around the infamous Whale Cay otherwise known as the Whale. It’s one of the dangerous passage points in the Abaco area. It is where the open ocean swells and waves ride up on the shallow bank that is the Sea of Abaco. Even in mild conditions the Whale can be uncomfortable due to the swells, tide and wind interaction. We picked a good window and had a fairly comfortable passage around the Whale to Green Turtle. 

We anchored “Wind Dust” off New Plymouth and ran the dinghy into Black Sound to check out the marina and the channel depths. We saw our friends on “Casual Class” and “DayO” and arranged to meet them at Pineapples bar and restaurant. Now Lavonne at Pineapples bar knows how to make a drink and she made us several while we were BS’n with our friends Stew and Diana (s/v Casual Class), Walt and Maggie (Day’O). 

Friday at high tide we transited the entrance channel to Black Sound and made our way to the tee dock at Black Sound Marina. Black Sound Marina is owned by Roy Boles and Roy makes everyone feel right at home. What a great Marina and place to meet great people. We spent several days at Black Sound and enjoyed the Island Roots Heritage Festival and dinner with our friends before preparing to head back to the states. 

Update: Ok. We admit it. We are becoming Worthless.

Not sure what has come over us, but we both agree every morning when we get up, we are becoming absolutely useless. It was best said by our friend Ray McCoy after a few drinks on the Sailing Vessel “Megerin”, “We’ll never amount to anything”. I thought about what Ray said and laughed my proverbial butt off. He’s right! All we do is wakeup to some of the most beautiful waters in the world, drink coffee, eat breakfast, read emails, check the weather, read a book, eat lunch, check the weather, walk the beach, read emails, check the weather, read a book, swim in the pool, buy groceries, have a couple or 7 cocktails, eat dinner, read emails and check the weather. Man, I’m exhausted! Oh, I forgot, we do take a shower every now and then.

Treasure Cay, Abaco, The Bahamas

Here are a few pictures of Treasure Cay.

We are anchored in the harbor and enjoying this beautiful resort. A $10 /day anchoring fee gets us free showers, use of the pool, beach access and use of the beach and facilities.

Update: Cape Eleuthera, Rock Sound, Hatchet Bay, Current Cut, Royal Island and Spanish Wells.

Prior to leaving Warderick Wells north mooring field we managed to find a piece of driftwood and create a boat shingle for Boo Boo Hill and placed it there with the many others.

You can see “Wind Dust” on the mooring behind the picture of the shingle I took to the top of the hill.

We also attended a cruisers happy hour on the beach Tuesday afternoon. We met many cruisers we had heard on the VHF radio. Great time and great food and as usual Ginny made friends with the locals.

We left the north mooring field at Warderick Wells Wednesday, March 23 at 8:30 am along with our cruising buddies Mike and Barb on “Goose Bumps” headed for Powell Point and Cape Eleuthera Marina.

This leg of our trip took us across Exuma Sound (which can be a rough body of water) to the banks of Eleuthera. We had a beautiful crossing and pulled into the marina around 2:00 pm. The afternoon was filled with chores (laundry, trash, boat cleaning) and a little beer drinking to celebrate the crossing.

Thursday we and our buddies had a car reserved and hit the road to Rock Sound to re-provision the boat. There’s a great grocery store in Rock Sound and we were able to purchase almost everything we needed at reasonable prices. On Eleuthera Island you either have a car or use your thumb. The Island is extremely hitchhiker friendly and is approximately 100 miles long.

We unloaded our provisions back at the boats and hit the road again to see the southern portion of Eleuthera by land. What a rugged and beautiful Island it is. We headed north along the Queen’s Highway to Governors Harbor which is about half way Eleuthera. What a darling little Bahamian Village. Many beautifully painted and landscaped  hillside homes overlooking the harbor. We 

stopped for a couple beers to patronize one of the local restaurants.

We also stopped at a famous “Ocean Hole” in Rock Sound. Ocean holes are inland salt water ponds that are connected to the ocean by underground caves. The ocean holes have lots of sea life and experience the same tidal flux as the nearby ocean and sound. Apparently Jacques Cousteau and a team of his divers tried to find the cave connection to this particular ocean hole however were unsuccessful.

Friday we left Cape Eleuthera Marina headed for Hatchet Bay. Hatchet Bay Harbour is a small anchorage that was created when they blasted a channel through the rock bluffs connecting an inland lake to the ocean.

The opening to Hatchet Bay is only 90 ft wide and from the water seems even narrower with the jagged sides.  The wind on Friday was out of the southwest and the seas were pushed up against the coastal cliffs adjacent to the cut which made for what we call a “Tight Sphincter Approach (TSA)” through this small opening. 

To make things worse there was a small boat in the channel as we approached and it turned out to be a local diving for lobster who pulled the boat out of our way.  We set the hook and relaxed the rest of the afternoon enjoying the calm waters of Hatchet Bay. Note the pictures were taken on our way out the next day and the seas were calm.

Warning - Ginny Says This Section is BORING. I say It's for anyone who will transit the cut in the future for the first time.

Saturday we were off to take on the dreaded Current Cut. Current Cut is a small inlet between Current Island and Eleuthera Island which carries tide water to and from the shallow Great Bahamas Bank and the Northeast Providence Channel. The current can be extremely strong (some say 10 knots during spring tides) and the route through the cut is not at all straight forward for deep draft displacement hull sailboats. To further complicate matters there seems to be a lot of different opinions on how the tides are related to the Nassau Tide Tables. We timed our arrival at Current Cut so we could determine the slack flood tide visually and also run the preferred route through cut in the dink and also sound the route with our hand held depth sounder. Why all the trouble? Well many sailboats have gotten into serious trouble here and we wanted to make sure we got it right. Cruising friends of ours who have made this passage several times before ran aground in the cut just a couple weeks ago and another experienced cruising boat that came in behind us said they ran aground coming through this past November. 

Mike lowered their dinghy and picked me up. We ran the route at approximately 12:20 pm (2 hours before high tide at Nassau) and found the route had plenty of depth ( 8.5 ft in one spot was the shallowest) and that the current was running west to east at about 2.5 knots on the surface. The wind direction was from the south southeast at about 12 to 15 kts which created some steep waves to negotiate on our trip back to the boats. We decided to wait until 2:45 pm before we made our run through the cut. As it turned out we made it through just fine and encountered a 1 to 1.5 kt west to east current. Our little study confirms to me that the current prediction for Current Cut runs approximately 1.5 hours behind the Nassau Tide Tables. The other thing to note is time the passage so you run against the current for maximum control and time it an hour before high slack tide. I have placed the way points for the route we ran for anyone who would like to use them. Our vessel has a draft of 6 ft.

Once we passed current cut we headed for Royal Island for the evening. Royal Island has a well protected anchorage and was planned to be the home of a major resort and marina which Roger Staubach is a partner. Apparently the the plan is on hold for now. There were at least 15 vessels anchored in the harbor as this is a favorite anchorage to stage the crossing to the Abacos. The wind picked up and shifted to the south during the night and one vessel slipped anchor. Ginny and I took turns at anchor watch from around 1 am till dawn and our anchor held.

Our original plan was to head for Little Harbor in the Abacos the next day as the weather looked like it would be good for a crossing. As it turned out however everyone was ready for a little rest so we decided to head for Spanish Wells Yacht Haven. We waited for a few hours after low tide before shoving off so we would have a little more water depth on the rising tide.  Like a lot of places in the Bahamas the charts show just enough water for a 6 foot draft vessel to make it in at mean low tide however with any wave action the boat could bounce off the bottom. The short trip was uneventful and we pulled into the marina around 11:00 am. Ginny and I rented a golf cart and explored the island. 

This is a special and beautiful place. Spanish Wells is the home of the Bahamas Fishing Fleet and the Lobster Capitol of The Bahamas. The island is very clean and much pride is taken in the multicolored homes with their beautiful gardens and landscaping. The working waterfront is also well maintained and melds well with the homes and business. We will have more on

Norma's home of the Confused Sub - It's Awesome.

Warderick Wells Cay Land and Sea Park, Exuma

Can't stay away from the place. 

Update: Sampson Cay and Black Point (March, 6 – March 12)

We left Warderick Wells Emerald Rock mooring field this morning after 4 nights swinging on the ball and chain. The wind was kicking pretty good everyday and we were glad to be on the heavy duty mooring protected from the NE & E wind by the island. 

Every afternoon we gathered with other cruisers on one of the local beaches and shot the (xxxx) along with a few beers.  The park has a good Wifi Network and it’s a luxury to have internet so we can check the weather and gather other information about the cays.

We pulled into Sampson Cay around 1:00 pm and set the hook. Our friends on Goose Bumps gave us a ride into the marina and we had a beer at the bar. We ate a late lunch at the restaurant and admired the beauty of the island. This place is simply gorgeous.

6 ft to 8 ft nurse sharks hang out around the marina and they are pretty darn big. The water is so clear and with the white sand bottom these dark guys really stand out.

We also saw a seaplane pull into the marina and drop off some guest coming to the resort. As we understand it there are two flights from Fort Lauderdale to Staniel Cay every day. Staniel Cay is just around the corner from Sampson Cay.

After a good night on the hook we went into Sampson Cay Marina for diesel fuel and water then headed out for Black Point on the north end of Great Guana Cay. Black Point is an authentic Bahamian village and is very charming. The residents are extremely nice and inviting. Rockside laundry and store is awesome. 

Black Point Starbucks

After a few nights in Black Point we decided to head back to Sampson Cay and stay at the marina and wait out the cold front forecast to come through on Friday. We love this place (Sampson Cay Club). The Harbor is well protected and the views are what I call “slap yourself silly – it’s real”! and the staff is awesome. 

Here are some photo’s of the Club.

 The harbor at Sampson Cay Club.

Wind Dust at the dock.

Ginny's Palm Tree

The grounds at Sampson Cay Club are awesome.

Wind Dust likes the dock at Sampson Cay Club.

The water clarity is "slap yourself silly" beautiful.