We had previously visited the Abacos in the spring of 2013, towards the end of our 2012-2013 Bahamas cruise, a description of which can be found in our TravelPod blog through the table of contents. The Abacos region is a very popular cruising ground due to its close proximity to Florida. Its location not far from the continental US, however, has its drawbacks—mostly those associated with the strong weather systems that regularly reach this northern portion of the Bahamas, bringing the cold fronts at full strength that routinely exit the North American continent during the winter months. As the fronts proceed southeast through the long expanse of the Bahamas chain, they diminish in strength, if not dissipating altogether. But the Abacos get the full strength every time. There's no snow, of course, but it can get quite chilly in the deep winter. Nonetheless, there’s a big crowd here and many cruisers spend the entire winter in the Abacos, year after year. By spring time, the winter fronts are ending and the weather improves. As a result, cruisers like us who have been farther south begin moving north through the Bahamas and a visit to the Abacos makes sense as a stepping stone on the route back to Florida or further north along the US east coast.

The Abacos are a group of islands and cays forming a 120-mile long chain stretching over 650 square miles, covering the same latitudes north to south as from Ft. Pierce to Ft. Lauderdale in Florida. The coastlines are scalloped with bays, coves and protected harbors. The Sea of Abaco itself is a terrific and challenging sailing ground. Google Earth this, zoom in and look around >> 26°33'N, 077° W. Bordering the Sea of Abaco is the island of Great Abaco on one side, with numerous smaller cays on the other, creating barrier islands and reef separating the Sea from the Atlantic. The Sea itself is terrific because it’s (generally) sheltered from the ocean and the waters found will be the beautiful Bahamas-renown zillion shades of blue, and is a fabulous protected water sailing ground. It’s challenging because shallows and sand banks abound and some portions are narrow, requiring short tacking to move upwind. Even with our shallow draft we have to be mindful of the tides for both moving around and anchoring – true of many areas of the Bahamas. But the charts are very good. The downside is that this area can be quite crowded with other cruisers, charter boats, and plenty of power boats. But with some research you can find certain areas of lovely solitude. A vessel from Florida can get here with only one overnight transit – across the Gulf Stream – then "day sail" in protected water to their ultimate destination amidst these islands and cays, making the Abacos a certain destination of choice.

Hope Town, on Elbow Cay, is a center of attraction for the populated portion of the Abacos. It has a beautiful, small harbor surrounded by a charming, quaint village that primarily caters to the tourist trade with villas and other accommodations to rent and a lovely Atlantic coast beachfront. The “streets” are wide sidewalks with largely benign bicycle and golf cart traffic. The uncontested highlight of Hope Town is the candy-striped Elbow Reef Lighthouse. Many boaters find appeal with the harbor chock full of private and public moorings and packed full of boats. The harbor is so full of moorings that anchoring is not permitted. On our visits, we anchored just outside the harbor, as this type of tight cluster of moorings never appeals to us and it is quite easy to take the short dinghy ride to one of several dinghy docks available free to cruisers. Since we rarely saw moorings vacant, they are obviously occupied by those who may prefer the appeal of a protected harbor for the length of their stay. Many stay for weeks or months at a time here and we imagine the expense of the moorings may be comparable to fees they would have been paying back at their marinas in Florida or elsewhere—so why not travel instead to a gorgeous spot like Hope Town?

Marsh Harbour, on Great Abaco, is the commercial, government, and industrial center of the Abacos as well as having the major international airport for this area. Marsh Harbour is also a fine protected harbor with only a few private moorings and plenty of anchoring room, along with multiple marinas. The ease of air travel to and from Marsh Harbour makes it a frequent anchorage for Pas de Deux while in the Abacos as Donna and our guests and crew come and go.

After Donna’s return on April 5, Dave was quite ready to finally leave Marsh Harbour, having spent too many days there. After tending to some chores and waiting for some strong winds to pass, we would leave Marsh Harbour on April 7 to explore some islands and places we hadn’t visited back in 2013 along the Sea of Abaco. We would return to Marsh Harbour in early May to greet our crew, Carter and Bob, for our direct passage back to the Chesapeake Bay.

Our first stop was not far away, on the east side of Lubbers Quarters and just west of Tahiti Beach on the south tip of Elbow Cay. In keeping with our “new places” theme, we came here specifically to try out Cracker P’s bar and grill on Lubbers Quarters as we hadn’t been there before as well as for the decent protection from the forecast north-northwest winds. We went in to Cracker P’s for an early dinner the next day and were satisfied, but underwhelmed. It was a pretty typical tourist stop—but just average compared to others that can be found in the Abacos.

On April 8 we departed the Tahiti Beach area bound for Manjack Cay, over 30 nm north west. We had been to Manjack twice before, once in 2013 and again last month at the northern anchorage area, but we had not explored the island on foot on either occasion as these were one night stops at the time. Friends had raved about the hiking trails on the island and we knew we needed some exercise!

Departing Tahiti Beach we planned to exit the Sea of Abaco to the Atlantic through north Man O’ War Cut and sail northwest in deep water for trolling, then re-enter the Sea through Manjack (aka Nunjack) Channel on the north side of Manjack Cay. This route would bypass the Whale Cay Channel, which is the popular route for transitioning in and out of the Sea of Abaco from the central points of Marsh Harbour and Hope Town.

A brief description of “The Whale” is warranted here. The Sea of Abaco appears on charts as a lengthy body of water in a generally northwest to southeast orientation along the east coast of mainland Great Abaco. But in fact, its navigation is disrupted in its central area by a narrow and shifting shallow sand bar over very shallow water, across which exists the “Don’t Rock Passage”, which is not passable by most cruising boats at even the highest of tide. This area is between Whale Cay, a small barrier island to the Atlantic, and Treasure Cay, actually a peninsula off of Great Abaco Island. To get from the northern span of the Sea to the southern span (or vice versa) around this shallow water obstacle by the shortest route, minimizing distance traveled in the ocean, requires most vessels to exit to deep water in the Atlantic for a short distance, passing around Whale Cay, then re-entering protected waters, thereby bypassing the impassable shallows.

The entry/exit on the west side of Whale Cay passes through a narrow, but deep cut through the reef, which can itself become impassable when large swells are present in the Atlantic or when wind against waves or tidal current create “rages” or conditions of swells breaking across the reef cut. (The entry/exit on the east end of Whale Cay is not as challenging.) So, for the crews of any vessels desiring to bypass the shallows mid-Sea, the conditions in “The Whale” are an anxious prerequisite to passage and this becomes an incessant topic of VHF radio chatter: “How’s The Whale look?” or “Anybody been through The Whale today?”  On days of benign conditions when this passage is not challenging, the boat traffic through it can be very busy (reminiscent of rush hour) whereas transiting The Whale on somewhat less-than-perfect days to avoid the crowd may be an advantage when safe to do so.
 
So, for our passage to Manjack Cay to the northwest, and being comfortable making an “offshore” passage, we exited the Sea of Abaco through Man O’ War Cut, at the north end of Man O’ War Cay, which is about 12 nm southeast of Whale Cay Cut. We exited the Atlantic and returned to the Sea of Abaco at the next cut beyond the Whale Cay Channel, at Manjack (aka Nunjack) Channel, on the north end of Manjack Cay, some 12 nm further, completely bypassing The Whale. This gave us a good deep water ocean trolling opportunity in addition to avoiding the hustle and bustle of The Whale on this benign condition day. However, despite trolling four lines, we caught nothing and also encountered an uncharted strong counter current that significantly slowed our progress. Still, we arrived relaxed and content at our planned Manjack Cay anchorage at 1530, having traveled 37 nm total.

At Manjack, we anchored in the same small bay, Nunjack Bay, we were in when we anchored here earlier with S/V Our White Magic. At that time, constrained by being able to stay only one night, we didn’t go ashore to explore the well-regarded hiking trails that wind through the sparsely populated island. This visit we budgeted a three-night stay to give us plenty of shore exploring time and to sit out some stronger winds over this period.

We spent a good portion of the next day, April 10, hiking trails to the Atlantic Ocean side beach and circling back to the west side via the beach rimming the north end of the island back to the well-built and maintained dinghy dock.  

 
 
Back at the dock we met the crews of several other cruising boats and the friendly population of sting rays that lurk around the dock. The rays, apparently conditioned by food handouts from visiting humans, approached anyone wading into the water next to the dock. They were very docile and not afraid and would swim around your feet in shallow water, actually rubbing your ankles and tops of your feet! They were very soft and gentle and didn’t seem offended if no morsels were offered.   We hadn’t seen them when we arrived because we climbed a ladder on to the dock and didn’t wade in the water. Quite the Manjack Cay welcoming committee! We accepted an invitation for Happy Hour that evening aboard the Leopard 44, Freedom, of Kim and Bryan with another two vessel crews. It was very nice and enjoyable.

The next day we continued exploring the island, hiking the rest of the ocean side beach southward and taking different trails back to the dinghy dock, where the welcoming committee was still on duty. All the trails were fun and made for casual and enjoyable walking. See our pictures of sights along the way. Again that evening we joined the same crews for another Happy Hour, aboard M/V Putzin’ Around. It’s easy to make new cruising friends! Upon leaving, we noticed our anchor had dragged in the recently increasing wind and we had to hustle back to get it reset, which we did with some difficulty due to the thick grass covering most of the anchorage bottom—not a favorite for our anchor.
 
On April 12, we would continue travels northwestward where we wished to stop at some of the islands we had not visited in 2013. We departed Manjack Cay bound for Great Sale Cay, some 50 nm to the northwest, deciding to go this greatest distance because of the strong favorable winds that would allow us to arrive with plenty of daylight to spare. Great Sale Cay is an uninhabited, popular, last-stop staging area in the Little Bahama Bank for cruisers returning to Florida at this time of the year for points north along the US southeast coast. We hadn’t visited Great Sale before, and planned to take advantage of its shelter over four days of forecast strong winds that would prevent us from otherwise visiting the more exposed barrier islands we hoped to see in this territory. The island is rugged and scruffy and reportedly has at least a couple of wild pigs. The anchorage here is expansive and offers very good protection for winds from the northwest through southeast.

We arrived at Great Sale at 1600 hours after a brisk, downwind sail of 52.9 nm, knowing the whole time that we’d have to eventually return even farther east, likely upwind all the way. There was one other small cat here when we arrived. But over the next few days we watched numerous other boats arrive, then depart on their planned “crossing” – the Bahamas cruiser term for crossing the Gulf Stream to Florida. There were about 25 boats here at the highest count. To pass our time, we explored the shallows along the anchorage shoreline, worked aboard on updating our blog, and Dave cleaned the dinghy outboard carburetor again, which was becoming a more frequent chore. It would have been nice to have calmer weather to explore the flats on the southern side of the island, but it was not to be.

We departed Great Sale Cay in late morning on April 16 for Stranger’s Cay, a short sail of about 12 nm to the northeast in east winds of 18 to 20 kts, arriving at 1400 on a tight rhumb line, making it all on one starboard tack with a reef in the main and full genoa. This was the first of many days of upwind sailing we’d have heading back southeastward through the Sea of Abaco.

Stranger’s Cay was another pretty, uninhabited small island that few cruisers visit. We had it all to ourselves! We again found the anchorage to have a lot of grass and we had to try several times to get a good enough anchor set. The next day in lighter winds, we fished the mangrove shoreline all day, taking a break for lunch. We saw lots of various fish and caught several small ones (along with the requisite pesky barracuda) all of which we returned to the water. Despite seeing and casting for bonefish, we caught none. Regardless, the day was very entertaining, including the time that Dave hooked a small cuda which was immediately attacked by another cuda that bit it in half right behind the head, leaving Dave to reel in only the head! Ahhh…the circle of life!!!  

Later, back aboard the boat we saw a small fishing boat approach with a single Bahamian on board. When he got within shouting distance he politely asked if we could give him some outboard gas? He pointed to another small boat about a mile away explaining that that boat was out of gas and they needed to get to Grand Cay, 10 nm to the northwest. We had a 5 gallon Jerri can of extra, pre-mixed 2 cycle dinghy gas and Dave agreed to give him (introduced as Justin) half the contents to help get him to Grand Cay. In the process of handing the jug over, Justin grabbed the nozzle which unfortunately promptly broke off but was still able to pour to his tank. The jug would no longer be ideally functional so Dave just told Justin to go ahead and keep all the fuel. We would be in a position to purchase another Jerri can later and this was a small price to pay for the gracious attitude displayed by all the Bahamians we’ve met--we probably would have given him more if we had any to spare. Justin was very appreciative and made sure we knew we could count on him for anything if we were ever at Grand Cay.

                                                                                    …To Be Continued