The trip over to the Abaco Islands was calm and uneventful. We left with the intention to round the bottom peninsula of South Abaco before the waves built up too much, but that also meant we were arriving at the shallow entrance to the Sea of Abaco a little too early with respect to tides. We took advantage of the forced wait and dropped anchor near Lynyard Cay at about 4am to catch a few zzz’s until it was deep enough to make our way towards Marsh Harbour. Unfortunately timing worked out that we would be dropping anchor right as Kevin was starting a meeting (trying to juggle sailing life and work life can get complicated sometimes) so we decided to drop anchor again for a couple of hours along the way to avoid the clash. The place we dropped anchor was listed as an anchorage on various charts but we quickly discovered why there were no other boats there. The ferries between the islands would zoom past, way too close, making us bounce and roll all over the place. At one point we looked over and a ferry had stopped, pointing straight at us, as if deciding what to do, and then suddenly hit full throttle and went right over our anchor chain. As soon as Kevin’s meeting was done we were outta there! The anchorage we settled on was much more peaceful and we were comfortable leaving the boat that evening to head into Marsh Harbour for some dinner.
Laurel and Vernice stayed on board at anchor for a couple of days and we did some trips in to explore Marsh Harbour and get some more supplies. We did anchor a bit far out from the shore and several of our dinghy trips into the town were a little bumpy, resulting in us looking a little wet and bedraggled on arrival to shore. We did also happen to arrive on Easter weekend, leaving not many places open so our exploring was mostly stretching our legs and taking in the scenery, which Kata thought was perfect! Vernice is very good at pointing out the local plants that can be eaten, which made for a cool tour by taste of the area.
On the Sunday, we had a crew change, as Laurel and Vernice headed off to Treasure Cay and Katy and Gunnar arrived on board, having flown in from Georgia. We let them take a minute to put bags down and then quickly picked up anchor and headed for Man O’War Cay. We had a fairly eventful first night there. The waters around Man O’War can get quite shallow and while dinghying into the town for dinner we came across a boat that had run aground and they asked if we could help pull them out. Try as we might, our little dinghy was very unsuccessful but thankfully our commotion attracted the attention of some more powerful nearby boats who came over and were able to pull them out. After a very tasty dinner we headed back to the boat to hang out in the cockpit and catch up. While we were talking we noticed this little light in the distance, which started to grow. It was another launch! This launch lit up the night sky in a way that we had never seen before. What a treat for Katy and Gunnar’s first night aboard!
We spent the next few days dotting around several different islands. My personal favourites were No Name Cay and Green Turtle Cay. The Bahamas have multiple islands with “wild” swimming pigs. It’s a bit of a touristy gimmick but we couldn’t resist visiting the Abaco version. The pigs are very clearly fed and socialised. They came running up as soon as we landed the dinghy to greet us!
Green Turtle Cay had (as one might guess) turtles. This was the last Cay we went to before the sail back to the Florida so we headed in to have a birthday dinner, since my actual birthday was going to be spent in the gulfstream. At the dinghy dock we went for a quick swim to see if we could see any turtles. This didn’t take long! As soon as we got in the water a giant turtle swam right at us. As with the pigs these “wild” turtles are often fed by tourists. We missed the memo on bringing food but that didn’t stop them from checking. One came swimming up to me so fast that I have to give him a gentle nudge in the other direction because I thought he was going to collide with my face!
Finally and sadly it was time to leave the Bahamas. Katy and Gunnar stayed with us to help with the crossing and were awesome crew. We left on the Friday and headed for Fernandina Beach. We had two nights at sea and rode the gulfstream up with 4 knots of current, which we needed because the Saturday was windless! Thankfully the wind picked up to some great sailing overnight. The passage was abnormally quiet in terms of traffic. We would go through entire watches without seeing another boat. It was an uneventful trip with an only slightly eventful ending when the marina put us in a slip for which the entrance wasn’t deep enough and we got a little stuck!
Leave a Reply