Depths of 10,000 Feet

The candy cane lighthouse at the mouth to
Hope Town Harbour has greeted sailors for
over 150 years.

There is quite a view from the top of the Hope Town Lighthouse.
Salty Paws is, perhaps, the smallest boat in the harbor.

 

Our last two days on Green Turtle Cay included Friday night dancing at Pineapples (with a rum drink or two) and a golf cart tour of the entire island.  We then continued our cruise south, entering the well-protected Sea of Abaco where we anchored or moored off Great Guana Cay, Hope Town (Elbow Cay) and Little Harbour.  We enjoyed food and the specialty Bahamian rum drinks at great places on each cay including the floating bar anchored off Tahiti Beach on Elbow Cay, perhaps, the most famous beach in the Abacos.

Tahiti Beach is very large at low tide.  In the background is the floating bar that offers food and drink to beachgoers.

Di Hunter, our 92-year old inspiration.

One cruiser in Hope Town Harbour who motored over to our boat to say hi was Di Hunter.  Di is 92, and against the advice of most of her friends and relatives bought a sailing catamaran when she was 75.  She has been taking her boat from Duxbury, MA to Hopetown for 4-5 months every year since.  Most of those friends and relatives have now died, and Di’s biggest problem is finding crew to go with her.  We had a great chat, and were in awe as she easily pulled the starter cord on her dinghy motor, which fired up right up.  I remarked to Molly the next day, not even thinking that it was April 1^st, that I had three more years to scout out my first catamaran!

Now it is time to leave the Abacos, and I am not sure that we will return to these waters.  The highlight of our first two trips to the Bahamas were the Exumas, and one can not help but compare the Exumas and the Abacos, both revered by countless cruisers from the US and Canada.  In the end they are very different.  In general, the Abacos are more populated, have more resources, but with far fewer islands.  The Bahamians in the Exumas are majority black, the descendants of former slaves, while the Abacos are more white, the descendants of English loyalists, except for Great Abaco, where many black Bahamians and recent Haitian refugees live and commute by simple speedboat ferries to work on the more wealthy outer cays.  Cruisers in the Abacos are much more likely to spend weeks, if not months, in one marina or mooring field.  In the Exumas that only happens in Georgetown, on Great Exuma.

We hiked to the ocean-side beach
from Little Harbour.

On the morning of our planned departure from Little Harbour I wake and check my illuminated L.L. Bean watch.  It is just before 5 am, my typical waking hour.  I can do Wordle and attempt to reach the Genius Level in Spelling Bee before checking the weather and preparing for our 55 nautical mile open water crossing from the Abacos to Eleuthera.  Molly is already awake and exclaims that the weather report has gotten worse and asks me to check it as maybe we shouldn’t depart today (Monday, April 4^th).

I look at my two go-to apps, Windy and Predict Wind, as well as Weather Radar and Garmin InReach weather.  They don’t seem any different that what was forecast yesterday, but I double check and look at the detail of the wind and wave forecast by the hour.   Everything seems to confirm that today is a good crossing day, and Molly accepts my conclusion.  Molly is by nature apprehensive of open water crossings as bad conditions can toss our boat pretty violently.  Plus, she won't let me forget the time we broached and took on water on our last Bahamian trip.

We then both go back to our word games, each of us reaching the Genius Level before comparing words.  At 6 am I rise, prepare the coffee, and start preparing the boat for departure.  Sunrise isn’t until 7:20 am, but it is light enough by 6:45 am for me to dinghy Tory ashore.  The goal this morning is not exercise but just to get her business done before our departure.  At 7:05 am, back on the boat, Molly and I review our Open Water Crossing Checklist, and I quiz her on the three separate ways we can send out distress signals.  She has them all down to memory.

This shows our 55 mile route from
the Abacos to Eleuthera.  The white
indicates speeds over 20 knots and
improving conditions as we crossed.

We depart the Little Harbour mooring field at sunrise and after just two miles or so are in the open ocean.  The 3-foot swells and light winds are off our aft port side, a little rolly, but not too bad.  As we venture more offshore, the seas flatten further and soon we are at WOT (wide open throttle), cruising at roughly 20 knots.  The crossing proves uneventful, except for noticing the deepest ocean waters I have seen, almost 10,000 feet down.

Our depth sounder only goes to 1,000 feet, and it starts blinking when it can no longer register.  Sun light can not penetrate more than a few hundred feet in the oceans, and early on Molly told me that she doesn't want to know how deep the waters get.  It really shouldn't make much safety difference whether we crossing water 100 feet deep or a few thousand, but there is something daunting about realizing there is 10,000 feet below us! 

In three hours, we reach a beautiful anchorage off Egg Island, Eleuthera.  The only other boat in the anchorage is named Laurel, a 240-foot luxury yacht.  On the beach we met Bradley, one of the crew, setting up 6 beach chairs and umbrellas and standing by for the 6 guests on board to be ferried to the beach. Two hours later Bradley was relieved by another crew member, and in time it seems that the guests had found something else to do on the giant yacht. 

We learn that the yacht has 24 crew, 7 of whom are from South Africa.  Bradley waited 2 years to get his H1B1 Visa from the US, and within two days of receipt had a job offer and plane ticket to Miami to work on the Laurel.  Evidently, there is a crew shortage in the States, but not in Europe where he has a friend still looking for work on a yacht.   In addition, sanctions on the Russian oligarchs probably aren’t helping the European job market for crewing on a yacht.  Bradley mentioned that those mega-yachts have crews of 70, and he is so glad to be on the Laurel where duties are rotated, whereas responsibilities for crew on the mega-yachts are fixed and narrow.

Our anchorage off Egg Island.  Salty Paws may not even be large enough to be the tender for the 240-foot Laurel.

Changing weather conditions had us making a hasty late afternoon departure from Egg Island to what seemed a better anchorage off Meeks Patch, now home to 15-20 pigs for the tourists who take tour boats from nearby Spanish Wells.  Here, too, conditions changed in the middle of the night, and sleep proved to be intermittent as the boat swung frequently from side to side.  We were quick to depart after sunup and pleased to reach the protected harbor of Spanish Wells.  We will spend the next three days here before taking the dangerous Devil’s Backbone to Harbour Island, where we will meet daughter Elizabeth and family.

We all enjoyed watching the dolphins in Hope Town Harbour.  We don't have pictures to show for it, but other sea creatures
that have come near our boat are turtles, sharks, sting rays and assorted fish.

This sign captures much of the attitude of the Bahamas.

Bougainvillea lines many of the quaint streets of Hope Town.

We had the cheapest mooring in Hope Town Harbour, but it gave us access to the marina and its beautiful pool.

I made stairs to give Tory access to our bow, where we have often have our nightly cocktail. 

One of favorite spots was Nippers on Great Guana Cay.

Tory was a big hit with most people we met including these two school girls on Green Turtle Cay.

On Da Beach on Elbow Cay was another great stop.

These are some of the remains of the lighthouse that used to stand at Little Harbour, but mostly destroyed in Hurricane Floyd.

The family members who founded Little Harbour in the 1950s are now 3rd generation operators of
Pete's Pub and a foundry where they create artwork that is often priced in the thousands
of dollars.