Anchorage at Great Sale Cay

(Friday March 25 - Dist: 51.5 mi; Avg Speed: 9.2 mph; TTT: 5:40 hrs)

The self named, "3 Putz's", caught up to us, the 5 Amigos, as we were leaving Spanish Cay so the "A" Team was together once again.  The trip was a little rough in the beginning but the forecast was accurate and by the time we reached Great Sale it was quite pleasant.

Great Sale has a huge well protected anchorage that provides wind protection from all directions except the south.  There were 9 other boats already anchored by the time we arrived but as I said there was plenty of room.  The 5 Amigos decided to raft together as we had done a couple of nights earlier.  The 3 Putz's have not let us forget that they felt a little put out that they were not invited.  The fact of the matter was that 8 boats rafted together in a shifting wind was not a good idea and besides our menu had already been planned with whatever was left over on all of the boats.  We had a feast that night.  I grilled 4 pork tenderloins and Joey grilled the potatoes and cabbage.  Everything was delicious and done to perfection.  It was a great evening and the stars were magnificent.  Great Sale is uninhabited so it was dark, really dark.

The only down side to this day was the fact that a trawler on the previous day had run aground and was now keeled over.  Evidently, he ran aground when he cut the corner to get into the anchorage.  As the tide went out the boat keeled over and was laying nearly on its side.  When the tide came in, water entered the vents and port holes which then covered the batteries and killed the bilge pumps.  He was desperate when we talked to him.  Long story short, a salvage crew was able to get the boat to Old Bahama Bay but we still do not know the total extent of the damages.

As I said it was a pleasant night and a pleasant trip to Old Bahama Bay the next morning.

The colour and the clarity of the water is amazing.

Another unfortunate accident.  This sail boat ran aground near Memory Rock but was able to make it to the harbour before sinking.  All persons are OK.

Safe Harbour in Spanish Cay

(Thurs March 24 - Dist: 22.7 mi; Avg Speed: 7.3 mph; TTT: 3:00 hrs)

The 5 Amigos broke camp and started heading for another anchorage called Great Sale.  The wind was up a little and was shifting around the clock as it often does here in this part of the world.  It was not too bad until we cleared Great Abaco Island and started in a more northerly direction.  On Q's End spray was periodically hitting the windshield on our fly bridge.  Really nasty especially since it was salt water running all over the boat.  Nobody else was enjoying the ride so we decided to turn around and go back an hour to Spanish Cay.  That was the closest anchorage or marina to our location.

Docking at Spanish was no bargain with the wind blowing as hard as it was but we all managed to get in safely and without any damage.  We spent the rest of the day touring this private island and spending time in the pool and hot tub.  We also spent a lot of time rinsing off the boats from all of the salt water sea spray.

It was a rough night sleeping because of the water slapping against the hull of the boat and the next morning did not appear any better.  We were anxious to push on because the marina was charging prime season rates which meant $2.75 per foot plus $50 for electric plus metered water.  The forecast was improving through the day so we decided to leave about 11:30 for the anchorage at Great Sale.

Sorry no photos of Spanish Cay this time or from the first visit.

Anchorage at Cooperstown

(Wed March 23 - Dist:30.8 mi; Avg Speed: 7.9 mph; TTT: 4:00 hrs)

It was tough leaving Treasure Cay Resort but all good things must come to an end.  If we ever get other opportunities to visit the Bahamas, we will certainly spend time here again.  Cocoa Beach really is superb.

Here are the 5 Amigos anchored off Cooperstown.  Cooperstown is further north  from Treasure Cay and Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island.  Three of our original 8 from the "A" Team decided to spend a few hours snorkeling near Bakers Bay and then spend a couple of nights at the Yacht Club near New Plymouth.  We might have gone there as well but there was 'no room at the inn'.  We had wanted to anchor out some time anyway so we rafted together and spent the afternoon in the water and the evening sharing drinks and food.  It was a lot of fun being rafted together like we were.

Here are a couple of photos of the boats anchored in the harbour at Treasure Cay.  Have I mentioned that we enjoyed Treasure Cay??

Treasure Cay Resort

(Sunday March 20 - Dist: 21.9 mi; Avg Speed: 9.1 mph; TTT: 2:30 hrs)

Treasure Cay Resort is a wonderful place.  The pool and Tiki Bar are really nice but the best part of Treasure Cay is Cocoa Beach and the Cocoa Beach Bar.  Of course, we cannot share this with you because we neglected to take pictures despite all the time we spent on the beach.  It took the girls almost a whole day to walk the beach from one point to the other.  The shelling was not the best but they still managed to bring home tons of interesting shells and sea life.

Eight of us did take advantage of the golf course and we were pleasantly surprised.  Despite the drought in this part of the world, the greens were smooth and fairly fast.  The fairways on the other hand were a little firm but it was a full nicely designed course at 6843 yards.

Sorry about the lapse in photography.

Is it possible to have too much of a good thing??

Hopetown

Saturday March 19, 2011

On our second day at Man-O-War we decided to rent a small 20 foot boat to take the short run over to Hopetown.  It was a fun 4 mile ride to the small harbor there.  We rented a couple of golf carts and had a wonderful tour of the island.

One of the nicest beaches, Tranquility Beach, was on  the far end of the island.  The sand was nice, the beach long and the bar across the way supposedly delivers.  We tried to contact them but I guess it is not high season yet so we never got our 8 Margaritas.  Oh well, we would just have to stop at the Sea Spray Resort for a drink and lunch on the way back to town.

We enjoyed our day in the quaint little town so I will leave you with more photos.

Man-O-War Cay

(Friday March 18 - Dist: 21.9 mi; Avg Speed: 5.6 mph; TTT: 3:30 hrs)

 

Man-O-War Cay is different than all other places that we have visited.  The roads are paved but are only wide enough for two golf carts to pass.  All street signs are hand made and the sides of the roads are raked and very neat.  There are several churches and nothing is open on Sunday.  In fact, the marina did not even open so when we left we could not check out.  We left the shower room keys in an envelope and just left.  We did receive copies of our invoice two days later.

Man-O-War is a very tight community with most of the inhabitants having been born there and having spent all of their lives there.  Albury boats are made by hand here.  It is a small business but one sees many of their boats around the Sea of Abaco including all of the ferry boats.

We ran across an interesting looking park (which we heard may be a pet cemetery) that had huge fishing lures and painted conch shells hanging from the trees.  The sand was raked nicely and until the "A" Team arrived there was not a footprint to be seen.

I leave you with a few photos of Man-O-War Cay.

A Bad Day in Paradise

(Thurs March 17 - Dist: 24.6 mi; Avg Speed: 8.7 mph; TTT: 3:00 hrs)

Five of the eight boats which made up the original "A" Team (ie. Abaco Team) left Mangoes Marina in Marsh Harbour and headed for Little Harbour on a beautiful sunny day.  The water was so clear that you could see star fish on the bottom as we were travelling.

Little Harbour is small with a very shallow entrance so we decided that we were going to anchor out along Lynyard Cay just across from Little Harbour.  We had to visit Pete's Pub and Art Gallery so we loaded up 2 of the dinghies for the 2 mile crossing.  It was fun; the "Blaster", a rum drink was superb and went down easy....and often.   The food was good to very good.  Even the gallery was interesting to visit.  Some of the nicest sculptures that I have ever seen were here.  There were a number of pieces of the sea life in the Bahamas that I would buy especially the turtles.  For those who do not know me very well, I have never, ever wanted to buy a sculpture especially one made of metal.  In the end it did not matter, all were out of my price range by  factor of 100.

After a fun day at Pete's Pub and some shelling (to make Linda happy) we had a beautiful evening all together on Finally.  Since it was nearly a full moon, it was truly a gorgeous evening........UNTIL....

It started earlier in the afternoon when Jerry on Sassy II went snorkeling with his cell phone in his pocket.  Then Pam forgot something at Pete's Pub and had to go back to Little Harbour.  So far, just annoying, then the wind picked up around 9 PM and swung around from a different direction.  Some couldn't sleep for fear of breaking loose and for poor Richard who was asleep, he was rudely awakened by a sailboat crashing into his bow.  By the time he and Jill rushed on deck the sailboat was pulling away.  Believe it or not, the owner never apologized nor checked how much damage he had done; not even the next morning.  Well after a sleepless night for some (fortunately Q's End was fine) four of us decided to go to the marina at Man-O-War while Sassy II headed back to Marsh Harbour to buy another phone.

Things seemed to be progressing well UNTIL Bade Boomer lost their port engine.  They anchored immediately and wanted to check the props.  Bruce dove under and saw a fishing net wrapped around his propeller.  Bob from Mint Julip and I decided to give them some assistance.  Bob, who was dragging his dinghy, could not get his engine to start which meant that I needed to launch our dinghy.  The wind was still blowing good and the water was rough but I knew that my dinghy could handle it.  It rolled off nicely, then the wind caught it and swung it around behind the boat just as a large wave picked up the swim platform and slammed the davit into the tube.  It put a 5" by 5" gash in the front tube; it deflated immediately.  From that point on Linda and I struggled to save the dinghy and get it back on board....no easy task with the wind and the waves.  We did manage to get it secure again.  Meanwhile Bruce launched his dinghy and picked up Bob to do the removal.  It did not take them long.  As Bruce was returning Bob to Mint Julip, his motor stalled and before long he was a couple of hundred yards down wind.  We had no more dinghies to put in the water so Linda and I quickly weighed anchor to chase him down.  Fortunately, Bruce got the motor running enough to get him back to his boat.  Far too much excitement.

With all this dinking around we arrived at Man-O-War at low tide.  Normally not a problem except for the full moon that we had admired the previous evening.  The water was very low and the channel very, very narrow.  I am sure that it was less than 5 feet must of the way in.  The four of us did get in and tied up without any further incidents.

Shark Attack

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The shark attacked my line so I grabbed him.  It was a very interesting fight; I had a hard time keeping the tip of the rod out of the water.  It was powerful.  It was also the largest fish of the day although Jill had one get away.  Jill's fish started running so hard that she had to hand her rod to the captain.  Captain James tried to keep increasing the drag but was afraid that the line would break.  In the end the fish took all her line, sinker and hook.  It might have been bigger....but it wasn't in the boat. 

It was quite an interesting day fishing with Captain James in his rented boat.  He first took us snorkeling to pick up some conch.  The captain, Jill, Carolyn and I jumped in with our snorkel gear and did spot a number of conch but were not able to dive down to pick them up.  James had no problem and he gathered about 24 for us.  We then went out into the ocean in this small boat in waves that we would never thing of travelling in.  The swells were 4-5 footers but even worse were the 6-8 footers that we climbed when travelling back through the inlet.  We did manage to fish some despite the waves and caught a number of

Strawberry Groupers, some Grunts and a Triggerfish...and of course the biggest of them all, my shark.

After being dropped off on an island to allow the girls to do some shelling we headed back so that James to clean our catch.  In all we ended up with 6 meals of fresh conch, and 4 meals of fish fillets.  It was a fairly good day.

We were hoping to head off to Little Harbour today but it started raining and we decided to stay put for another day.  It is a good thing because when I turned on my radar unit to see the extent of the showers, it blew a fuse on my chartplotter after a few minutes.  It took awhile to find as it has never happened before.  Richard on finally broke a clamp while preparing to leave so he too was scrambling and then the only pump out guy in this area did not show up and two boats desperately needed those services.  I guess we were just meant to stay another night.

Marsh Harbour

(Thurs March 10 - Dist: 27.1 mi; Avg Speed: 9.1 mph; TTT: 3:00 hrs)

Mangoe's Marina, Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco Island, Bahamas

This is a nice little marina with the best ever dockmaster.  Ray is a young guy, super friendly and responsive to all of our needs.  He checks the lines on all of the boats at least three times daily; more if the wind picks up or changes directions.  He brought over tables and chairs to the pavilion to accommodate our happy hours and has generally took very good care of us and our boats.

Marsh Harbour is the third largest town in the Bahamas and is the principle location for the provisioning of most boats in the Abacos.  The grocery store is as good as any Publix on the mainland although a bit more pricey, not outrageous but more costly than the States.  There are plenty of restaurants and bars and some high end resorts on the opposite side of this island.

One of the highlights of our stay thus far was our trip to Nippers on Great Guana Cay. 

20 of us took the ferry across and had a wonderful time.  It was their Sunday special Boar's Roast and the place was packed.  The music was great, the beach was the best that we have seen thus far, the drinks, especially Nipper's Tipsy a frozen rum drink, and the scenery was special and interesting (spring break was in full swing if you know what I mean).

For now I will leave you with some more photos.

Green Turtle Club

(Monday March 7 - Dist: 20.8 mi; Avg Speed: 7.6 mph; TTT: 2:45 hrs)

The photos do not do justice to the colours and the clarity of the water.  It was spooky travelling along at a normal speed and seeing the bottom as clearly as if it was your aquarium at home.  I just wanted to stop and throw out the anchor for a bit of a swim but we were very close to the Green Turtle Club and planned to lunch at the Tiki Bar there.  This was to be an interesting stop because of the special package that the marina was offering.  In short, everything that you ate or drank from the restaurant or bar was taken off your dockage fees.  In our case we could eat and drink $80 per day for no additional charge for docking.  As it turned out that was not a problem for any of us.  The food was very good, the service excellent, the pool very nice and the company was fun.  We even enjoyed a wedding one night, bingo another and then a live band.  The resort was fun.

New Plymouth, a small town a couple of miles from the resort, was quite interesting.  We spent a day exploring the town and its bars.... and we found some good ones. 

The most interesting was Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar, the originator of the Goombay Smash.  A very fine drink that was created by the current owners grandmother.  Four different rums, some pineapple juice and who knows what else.  While there, the owners cousin, a tour guide, brought in 4 visitors to sample this world famous drink.  He enjoyed one as well and then to show off to the ladies jumped atop the counter from a standing start; the counter was at least four feet high. 

Another neat spot was Pineapples over looking the bay across from New Plymouth.  Here Linda, after 2 Goombay Smashes, chose a Pina Coloda....unbelievable from 2 perspectives. 1) Linda rarely has 2 drinks ever and 2) it was an awesome looking drink with a ton of rum.

On the way back we had to spot at the Yacht Club to check it out. 

Not bad, good pool, some decent rates at the marina and of course a Tiki Bar.




I'll end this update with a number of random photos from our 3 night stay at the Green Turtle Club.