Harbor Island and Man-O-War Cay

We spent one more day at Little Harbor, waiting out rain and wind. When they both finally subsided, we took the dinghy ashore for a chance to stretch our legs. Luke explored the foundry and art gallery while I played dominos with some of the other cruisers.

Here’s the foundry

But out of it comes beautiful work. Here are a couple of examples.

We left the shallow channel out of Little Harbor at high tide, unfortunately, at 6:30 a.m. Better early than aground! It was an uneventful 25 nm motor sail up the Sea of Abaco until we were almost at Marsh Harbor. Then some idiot in a very large yacht decided to pass behind us at only about 20 feet. We hailed him repeatedly on the VHF radio, asking his intentions so we could take evasive action (we did have the right of way, being overtaken). He never answered but did pass so closely that we caught my fishing line, reeling it out wildly, and of course breaking it. Hope it fouls his prop somewhere along the line…

We spend a few hours in Marsh Harbor, provisioning capital of the Abacos. Groceries and wine. It’s a really popular place for the cruisers – plenty of anchoring space, the afore mentioned groceries and alcohol, large laundry mat, and a few variety stores.

After our stop in Marsh Harbor we took the quick 7 mile scoot over to Man-O-War Cay. There is yet another cold front today and we wanted to sit it out someplace new. Man-O-War is a cute little settlement, with the short waterfront crowded with boats, mostly workboats.

The families here have long been boat builders and their craftsmanship shows. The local boats are beautiful and lovingly maintained. This one was built in the 30’s.

Sailing dinghies are built here, too. Here is a beautiful example. Look closely in the right front of the picture- someone with a sense of humor has “anchored” a model workboat in the sand.

Here is the little boat at it’s tiny anchorage.

The streets are golf cart narrow. A few cars on the island, but mostly golf carts.

A short walk across the island to the Atlantic side shows a rough beach, lots of iron rock and a little sand.   No shells, beach glass, or beach junk to be found.

There is a small grocery store, a few shops that cater to the tourists (handmade bags and kitchen accessories, all in local fabric), a bank that is open only for 4 hours only on Wednesday, and a clinic but no doctor or nurse on the island. The all age school is tiny; there must be few children living here full time. We did learn that the children on the island are now required to go to high school at Marsh Harbor.

The "shell" today is the sea biscuit. Technically a seashell is the empty shell of a sea creature, such as a mollusk.  Sea Biscuits are echinoderms, not mollusks, but they ARE sea creatures.  The hard part that washes up on the beach is called a "test" and is really the skeleton instead of the shell.  But I'm including them in my "shell" collection!  Other echinoderms are sand dollars and sea urchins. All have 5 "arms", a system of internal water-filled canals, and suckered tube feet that they use to move or grip objects.
These look a lot like the sand dollars that I’m used to, but are fat. We’ve seen them in every size from less than 1 inch to about 8 inches. This guy is about 3 inches long.  I've got the larger ones all wrapped up in bubble wrap for the trip back home.

The cold front has started - wind of about 30 knots, some rain.  We shall be here tomorrow (Tuesday) too, but then plan to spend about 2 more days in the Abacos before crossing back.  The weather forecast looks good for the crossing from Memory Rock to Ft Pierce, about 75 nautical miles, but with the gulf stream push, effectively about 60 miles. We'll be back in the USA, home of McDonalds, endless internet, free drinking water, cell phone coverage, Wal-Marts, and plenty, but I will miss the Bahamas.  We'll cross with mixed feelings.

Spanish Wells, Harbor Town, and finally, the Abacos! Little Harbor

As mentioned in the last post, we spent a couple of days in Spanish Wells, where we took a dock as the moorings were full.

We stayed here for a couple of days, riding out rough weather. It was beginning to blow harder as we got here – glad to be in a protected dock. The town is cute, narrow streets, full of golf carts and a few cars.

On Wednesday 5 boats hired a pilot boat, Bandit, to take us from Spanish Wells to Harbor Town, a whopping 10 miles away.  Bandit got his name from his earlier escapades as a free spirited boater willing to make runs from dry (very dry!) Spanish Wells to the very well stocked Harbor Town for booze. He lined us up like a little wagon trail, gave us all numbers, and lead us carefully through the narrow, shallow waters surrounded by reefs. Latitudes was #3 of 5.  He will lead as many as 25 boats at a time!

The system is for him to take command of the lead boat, pulling his smaller boat (for his return trip) behind.

He pulled us past Able Lincoln.

Through the narrow waters, past the dangerous shallow water.   The route between Spanish Wells and Harbor Town is narrow, shallow, full of reefs, and also through a small cut into the ocean for a brief period.  Pilots are always recommended for this route.

Presto! Into the harbor of Harbor Island, home of many rich and famous, such as Christie Brinkley and Richard Gere. No, of course, we didn’t see them, but we did each get a free (?...) loaf of bread, home baked by Mrs. Bandit at the end of our trip. No movie stars on hand to greet us, but we did see the pink sand beaches.  The pink hue is caused by the crushed coral on the beach.

And the bareback rider on the beach…

Looks exotic, but he was only drumming up business, unfortunately. This is sort of like being back into a mixture of paradise and the commercialized FL Keys.

We did do more sightseeing – the old blue door..

The narrow street with shops (expensive)

Roosters everywhere (alllll night…..cocka doodle dooooooooo)

And this beautiful church with a beautiful organ with the unseen woman lying between the last two pews, crying to herself.

We had sundowners on Latitudes on Tuesday and then diner in town on Wednesday with the 10 friends that “wagon trailed” with us. It’s always wonderful to meet new friends.

Thursday, to the Abacos, about 63 nautical miles across the 15,000 ft abyss of Northeast Providence Channel from Harbor Town to Little Harbor. Wind was 10 to 15 kts, from near our stern, leaving only 7 to 10 kts of relative wind -- motor sailing time -- again. Trolled for fish the whole way, no hits -- again! Close to Little Harbor Cut (inlet) is the small bay of Little Harbor. The entrance channel to this small bay (less than 1/4 mile diameter) is shown on the charts as about 3 feet deep.With our 5' 6" draft, we need most of the 2 1/2 to 3 ft tide range to get in. Well, we happened to hit Little Harbor at high tide, and decided to give the channel a try -- 1/2 ft showing under the keel at the shallowest spot!!  For you landlubbers, that means that our 42 ft, 20,000 pound boat had only 6 inches between us and the sea floor!  Not good for the nerves!

Little Harbor Bay is where a US family settled in the 50’s, establishing an art colony of sorts (lived in a cave until they built their home). Today Pete's Pub and Foundry is still a flourishing art colony with a sculpture foundry that son Pete owns.  The "pub" part is self expanitory...

The small bay has inexpensive moorings for about 10 boats -- pretty crowded and shallow - we've moved to a better mooring this morning.

And there's a very congenial outside bar for the cruisers. That’s a can of the local Bahamian beer that I’m holding (no, not any cheaper than other beer). It’s called “Kalik”, meaning “cowbell”. Pronounced “click”.

Today is rainy and dreary.  When -if - the rain stops we plan to dinghy in and take a tour of the foundry & art shop, plus walk over to the Atlantic side of the bay and do some beach walking.  If the rain continues, we may stay another day so we can explore.  At the current pace and plan, we may be across to the US within a week, weather permitting.
Todays shell lives up to it's name --- a Bleeding Tooth.

They are part of the Nerite family, a group of sea snails named after the ancient Roman sea god Nereus.  Most have white "teeth".   I found this Bleeding Tooth only in one spot, on Rum Island.   The animals are vegetarians (hah!) feeding on algae.  They live just at the tide line and are exposed at low tides.  The big Bleeding Tooth that I have is broken - here is what the back looks like on a whole Nerite.

Internet here is marginal -- I better post this while I can.  Been waiting for over an hour to insert this last picture!

More of Eluthera Island

We spend a day in Rock Sound exploring the north shore. It was a hike, over 1.5 miles down a fairly deserted road (thought we’d manage to hitch a ride!). We turned off of the main road onto a dirt road and finally crested overlooking the shore.

It was a pretty beach to walk on, nice sand, no shells, but lots of beach junk, including this wooden boat mast and some bottles.

A hike back to the road, a little further down, and we finally came to the only bar/restaurant on the north side. Open, completely deserted, one sleeping cat who didn’t even wake up. We waited around and sure enough, after a while Rose drove up with a car full of Canadian tourists that she’d picked up for lunch. We had taken our lunch with us (we’re getting smart) but sat on her deck and had a couple of her beers with lunch.

Rose offered us a ride back to town, which we quickly accepted. Turned out she planned to drive northward up the island to the next town and a few shops. She asked if we wanted to go along to see the island –again, a quick yes! The next town is Tarpum Bay, a cute town very different from Rock Sound. Instead of the 1 story, square concrete buildings, this town was full of 2 story houses, many made of wood.

It seemed a little cleaner and better kept up than many of the towns we see.

Next stop by boat, Hatchet Bay, home of Alice Town. This is about 36 miles further northward, up the Eluthera coast, motor sailing in light favorable breezes. Once again we were visitied by several large dolphins racing at our bow. They really seem to see or hear the boat from a distance, bounding to the bow like enthusiastic puppies, and then racing along with us, under our bow, for a few minutes, then turn away and dissapear - always a thrilling event. The entrance to the Hatchet Bay anchorage was narrow and not visible until we actually got almost there.

Inside the entrance we found a tiny “hurricane hole”, a spot protected on all sides from wind and waves. The Bahamian government has placed 9 free moorings here. We were lucky enough to snag the last one. Folks seems to want to stay here – one boat has been here since mid December.

We walked into town, a “family settlement”, meaning a black only town. This particular settlement has a couple of small places to buy groceries, couple of bars, couple of take-away restaurants, maybe 3 little shops of some sort or another, and an internet café. But, the town also was more crowded, unmaintained, lots of trash on the streets, etc. We've been to many family settlements, but generally we were not as impressed as we have been with some of the others. Here is a pier closest to the largest grocery store.

We left Alice Town to go to Spanish Wells, about 30 miles north.  En route we passed the Glass Window, an area of the Elutheras which has high cliffs and the only man-made bridge across the island.  The bridge was destroyed in the early 1990's but rebuilt recently.  Now you can drive across the island. 

Onward through the Current Cut to Spanish Wells, about 30 miles of downwind and broad reach sailing in 15 to 20 kt winds. It's important to hit Current Cut at near slack tide, as currents there can live up to its name. We are now at a marina in Spanish Wells, sitting out yet another frontal passage. We'll spend a couple of days here and hopefully on Wednesday we'll use a boat pilot to guide us and several other boats to Harbor Island.  Today, as the front came through,  we wandered through the driving rain to do some errands.  We had 3 folks offer us rides (which we gratefully took!), incuding the grandmother of the girls who run a great little diner.  We happened to sit at the table with Grandma.  She drove her golf cart home in the rain to pick up her car in order to take us back to the marina.  En route she gave us a tour of the island.  Very sweet, as are all of the people we've met here.

And today's shell!  A cute little member of the Tun family, the Atlantic Partridge Tun.  This little one is only about 1.5 inches long.  Found in S.E. Florida and from the West Indies to Venezuela, these small shells are thin with a large body whorl.  The animal itself is a midnight blue.  Would love to see that!  They are carivores, preying on sea cucumbers, bivalves, and according to some, even fish, engulfing their prey whole!  The females lay their eggs in broad ribbons and the larvae are free-swimmers for the first 8 months or so.  Bet not too many of them make it...

Tomorrow we will do some sight-seeing and maybe move the boat from the marina to a mooring or anchor it outside of the harbor.  Hopefully on Wednesday we'll be in a little boat train of 6, following our pilot boat through the narrow, winding, shallow cut known as "The Devil's Backbone" to Harbor Town.

Anchorages at Cat Island (and another fish!)

We like Cat Island. It’s isolated enough (never saw but our two boats the entire time we’ve been here this trip) yet has the necessities. Like an honor bar at Fernandez Bay. Honor bars are common here – grab your own beer, make your own drink, keep a tab, and pay when you’re done. And what a view! Here is our Latitudes sitting at anchor in the harbor, a mere 7 nautical miles from our previous stop at New Bight.

Wind and squalls predicted from the SW, W and NW for the next few days left us with few options for anchorages here at Cat. We ended up going about 25 miles from Fernandez to Alligator Point. This point of land extends from the island’s west side to offer some protection from the SW. When the wind went further to the west we moved north across a 7 mile bay to Orange Creek, another point of land exteninng to the west that offered some protection from winds from the west and north west. That little bit of land gave us some protection from the winds and ocean swells. You can see the tip of land behind me - with just another endless, deserted, beautiful beach!

Luke put out an “anchor bridle”, a set of 2 extra lines that attach to the anchor chain, essentially enabling us to anchor the boat pointed between 30 and 90 degrees off the wind. These lines allow us to force Latitudes to always face into the swells rather than the wind. That keeps us from rocking and rolling as much – without this help, the boat just rocks wildly from side to side when the waves and swells slap us on the side. It helped tremendously.

We arrived on Sunday – surprisingly, the little grocery store was open until 1. That gave us time to scoot over to the government dock, leave our dinghies, and pick up a few supplies. In general cruisers like to help support the local economy in settlements by buying a few groceries, maybe some straw work, eating out, having a beer or two at the local bar, etc. We appreciate the ability to cruise these beautiful waters in another country and the generosity of the local folks in allowing us to use their docks, throw away our garbage, fill our tanks with their limited reverse osmosis water, and wander their wonderful beaches.

There is also a mangrove creek that runs beside town. Very beautiful, but very shallow. Even at high tide we could not get very far up the creek. Apparently it’s a really popular place for bonefishing. Wish we could have tried!

We didn’t do any of town, but went to the long, deserted beach. It was great for shelling (to follow!) and assorted animal stuff. Like this big, dead puffer fish--- he’d been dead a little too long.

And this bird beak. Kind of interesting. I think it’s an American Oystercatcher.

How about this crab? Look how different his pinchers are.  We don't know what type crab it is.  I need to look this up when I have time and internet service.

The entrance to the dock is shallow, too, even at high tide. Looks great, lots of water, huh?

But look at low tide --- this is sand flats where the water used to be, with the town of Orange Creek in the background.

Caught in the small tidal stream that Luke is standing over where about 6 starfish. I don’t know what they are – can’t find them in any of my books. But they are beautifully marked.

Monday the winds howled and the boat rocked. We stayed aboard and did difficult things like reading and knitting.

Tuesday was calm and beautiful. Back into town where the kind folks at the store found a customer who would give us a ride to Arthurs Town, about 3 miles south. Arthurs Town is the government center of Cat Island. The island high school is there, a complex across from the ball field. $ 1000 fine for littering! They mean it – this was a clean town.

A disappointment is the government dock. Government docks are meant to allow mail boats (who also bring in groceries), fishing boats, cruising boats, etc, to land safely at the town. This is a sad pier – no one could land safely here. Pilings are broken off, the concrete pier has crumbling, and the water is so rough that a cruiser could never land his dinghy here. With improved ground transportation on the islands, a few, centralized ,upgraded government docks support the island, with some local town government docks falling into disuse and disrepair.

There are more Loyalist ruins here than we’ve seen in any other location. Lots and lots of them, including this one that has a plaque over the door “Erected in appreciation. Rendered to Cat Island by Sir Harold Christie”.

And even the Loyalists needed the ol’ outhouses!

We found this monument – no inscriptions, etc, but I think it’s to recognize the fact that THIS island was actually Columbus’ first landing in the new world…there is no end to that controversy… For a period of time, present day Cat Island was named San Salvador - reflecting the belief that Columbus landed here.

It was lunchtime and we were hungry. Finding a cute little waterfront bar (open since 6 a.m.) was easy, but finding food was different. The bar owner was great – he called around until he found someone who would make us lunch. We ended up at the Cookie House - fish and fries were all he had to offer for lunch – but there were yummy. The owner gave us a real lowdown on the crooked politics of the islands – the kind you expect to find especially in a second/third world country. Things like building commissioners wanting debilitatingly huge sums for themselves, in advance, for approving new constructions or renovations. It was sad. He also generously gave us a ride back to Orange Creek after our lunch. The people here are virtually always kind, helpful, and genuinely nice.

Next stop, Rock Sound,  Eluthra, about 63 nm (nautical miles) from Orange Creek, light winds, motoring, calm seas. perfect for fishing. On part of our route, we followed the edge of "the bridge", a 60 to 70 ft deep ridge between Little San Salvador Island and Eluthra, bordered by 1000 ft + deep abyss on each side. We know that the best place to catch fish is along the “walls”, the sharp drops of sea depths. It doesn’t always work. But it did this time! Something snagged the line – almost too much for me to reel in. Then the line got a lot lighter and I figured I’d lost it. But no, it kept diving and pulling, just without as much force. It still took a bit but I got it to the boat, brought it alongside for Luke to gaff, and we realized just why it got easier – Mr. Shark again. But this time he left us most of the large King Mackerel, taking only the tail section. Luke did his usual great fillet job out on the deck – what was left was still over 32” long, a little more than half of the fish. I fine tuned Luke’s big slabs into enough large fillets for over a dozen meals. We had the first piece last night and it was wonderful – white meat that is dry and not oily.

Today is Thursday. We left the boat fairly early to do errands - leave laundry to be done (yeah!!!), groceries, liquor store, garbage, and a walk. The groceries here on Eluthera Island are "interesting". For the most part, things are cheaper than any of the other islands we've visited, probably because of the closer promimity to civilization, like Nassau. But then you get things like the 2/$1 bottles of plain seltzer --- $2.59/bottle. Nope, didn't buy any. or a crossword puzzle book. Plainly marked $1.99 with a local sticker of $9.95. You are right - that is still there, too. Oh, well, at least the essentials are mostly reasonable.
The shell of the day! Luke’s favorite, the Sunrise Tellin. Tellins are beautiful, long, thin, highly glossed shells, with richly colored valves. We see a variety of colors, mostly pinks and yellows, but also mixtures with ranges of greens to reddish browns, too. These bivalves are burrowers, living in coral sand from the intertidal zone to 20 fathoms or more. They really prefer areas where there is a steady renewal of oxygen. We see a lot of them in this area, but this big 3” fellow is one of the most vivid.

Tomorrow we'll try to walk to the east side of the island.  If the winds hold as promised, we'll leave for yet another anchorage in beautiful Eluthera island.