The Abacos and back to the USA!!!!

We spent a few more days in Spanish Wells, doing chores such as oil changes, etc. fun, fun, fun. Thursday morning we left for the 7 mile trip back to Royal Harbor, to await a chance to cross the Northeast Providence Channel to the Abacos. It was a good choice – we met back with our friends Marion & Greg and Joanne & Paul. It’s always good to find sailing friends again.
We were delighted to find out that friends Bonnie & Roger were going to Royal Harbor for the night. We had met them carying groceries, looking like cruisers, on the street in Cape May NJ back in June of last year. They’ve been great mentors via e-mail, giving us advice on the SSB radio, charts, passages, etc. Unfortunate, our paths hadn’t crossed since then until we both ended up in Royal Harbor. It was great to catch up with them again.

We crossed the Northeast Providence Passage in company with about 10 other boats, all leaving from Royal Harbor. The seas were rough, so it was nice to have a group, all checking on each other, feeding information back from the lead boats. The wind was not bad, about 15-20 kts SSE, but the seas were high, with 8 to 10 foot tall swells, with an 11 to 13 second perion. While 10 ft is high, when they are widely spaced, like 12 seconds, it's just a gentle up and down motion. This is what this ship looks like from the top of the swell…

THIS is the same ship, but with a 10 ft swell between us and the freighter.
Here is a shot of the Warwick and Wendy's boat, next to us, with a large swell blocking most of her.
The swells are great if they catch you and give you a little roller coaster ride down the back side. Not so much fun if they catch you sideways and make the boat roll.
It was a long trip, 9 hours. Our intention was to go into Little Harbor (Abacos) but the cut was experiencing a “rage” – a common occurrence in cuts when the wind and the seas are opposing, especially when one or the other is especially high. The group opted to sail another 6 miles up to the North Bar for our entrance. We rode a 15 ft swell through the cut, hitting about 9 knots on the down side of it. A couple of the other boats hit larger swells, or ones that were breaking, and one boat actually hit 21kts riding down the swell into the harbor. That’s scary. Luke did a good job of timing our entrance as much as possible. This is a swell breaking on the rocks from the inside of the cut.
Next, to Marsh Harbour for the night – replenishing of groceries, cheap rum (yes, it really is cheap here), trash disposal, and fill ups of diesel and water.
We also took the ferry to Hope Town, across the Bay of Abaco, along with friends Wendy and Warwick. The weather was windy (catch Luke’s hat and my hair…) Plus, the town harbor is too shallow for us to go into except near high tide. That was about noon, which would have meant staying until noon the next day before we could leave again. Hope Town is another cute Loyalist settlement, starting with the classic lighthouse.

Look at the detail on the doorknob at the top of the lighthouse --- not the main entrance, but the lighthouse keeper's entrance to out walk around the outside at the top.

The light house still uses a huge, multi-glass segment, Fersnel lense, one of the few in the world not in museums. I think it is a first or second order lense (if Luke has the nomenclature right, for those conniseurs of Fernel Lenses). The light source is still a kerosene light, with kerosene sitting in big jugs around the base of the lighthouse. They actually shade the lense with cloths to keep the sun from possibly igniting the kerosene in the burner. If it worked 100 years ago, why not now ----

Then the usual exploring with Wendy and Warwick..

And the gardens and pink houses.

We left early on March 30 and had the most wonderful gentle sail for about 9 hours to Spanish Cay. It was perfect sailing - enough wind, no waves on the Sea of Abaco. Dinner with Wendy and Warwick (she makes bread!!!) and an early start to the sail to Great Sail Cay for the night. We caught another small Almaco Jack en route! Dinner! We also caught a really ugly fish, a toothy fellow - I was told it's a torpedo fish. Not good for eating.

En route to Great Sail we came across a fellow boater who was headed through the night, straight for Ft. Pierce, FL, our intended US landfall. We double checked the weather and decided to adopt the same plan and go as buddy boats. There is always safety in numbers and you can’t dismiss an opportunity. A big mutton snapper hit the line around lunch time (SEVERAL more meals!). I've learned a great trick to kill the fish instantly --- cheeaaappp vodka down the gills. Drops 'em like flies. It has been suggested that you take a mouthful of the stuff and spew it in the gills, but I'll stick to an old catsup bottle and a squirt from afar. Besides, $6 vodka isn't quite what I like.

We also managed to snag a 3 ft barracuda, one that fortunately managed to throw the hook as we got him by the stern of the boat. I've caught all of these fish with the same lure, so I'm investing in a few more! I'm still working on making the fishing tackle pay for itself. It'll take a few more fish...
Then, the BEST thing --- as evening approached, 6 huge dolphin greeted the boat and swam with, under, and around us for at least 15 minutes. They were wonderful, darting back and forth under the bow of the boat, riding in our bow wake, blowing a gentle "poof" as they came up to breathe. These pictures don’t begin to do justice to actually seeing them play in the water.

The trip was about 140 miles and long night. We actually had to go slower than wind and wave would have allowed us to do, so we could to hit the Ft Pierce inlet with ingoing tide at 10:30 this morning. We had winds for sailing most of the route, which was great. It was a bit "lumpy" so our usual shifts didn't really let us get much sleep. So, we are BACK IN THE USA, Y’ALL! The Bahamas were great, interesting, beautiful, different --- but it’s wonderful to be back home. The plan is to stay in Vero Beach for a few days to see some friends, do some maintenance, and then work our way northward.