White Sound to Cooperstown

Tuesday May 20

Yesterday we left White Sound and briefly stopped at the town on Green Turtle Cay, New Plymouth. It was also established by Loyalists and has an old New England flavour to it. We anchored offshore and took the dinghy into town to replenish my sadly depleted fishing supplies (with no fish to show for it), as well as a few groceries.
Dinghying back to the boat was quite a challenge as a sizeable chop had developed and we got pretty wet getting to, and trying to clamber back into the boat.

New Plymouth

Then we sailed west to Powell Cay where our friends recommended the conching. We really wanted to give this a try and managed to get one legal size conch and a Queen Helmet shell. The snorkelling was all in shallow water in grassy areas, which is where the conch live. There were lots of sea urchins there and our Queen Helmet was in the process of eating one when we found it. Quite a number of small colourful fish swam about. The Cay has a tree where visitors have hung flotsam on their branches. Old fenders, fishing nets, shoes, bikinis are all fair game.

Flotsam tree




Powell Cay - we're the only ones here



Water or air?

On the leg from Powell Cay across the water to Cooperstown (maybe a mile apart?) we started our engine and alarm bells sounded! Overheating! Again! So out went the anchor and Chris once again replaced the water pump and belt. Success! Both our alarm lights went out, even the one that had been on permanently for a few days. What a relief!

Until 15 minutes later when they all started blaring again! Oh well.....off with the motor, up with the sails, and we sailed to the shore north of Cooperstown where we anchored for the night.

We crossed a Whale??

Thursday, May 15

We moved north to Green Turtle Cay today, bypassing Marsh Harbour. We have learned that Geoff and Ruth on sister boat Geru are at Green Turtle and would like to get a chance to see them before they continue their way south. The route we chose took us out into the ocean for about four miles, then back into the shallower water via the Whale Channel. Getting into the ocean was quite something as there were huge swells rolling in, and the markers placed to show the narrow route out were described by our charts as "unreliable". This is where GPS is a big help and reassurance though of course our eyes are the final determiner. Once outside in the ocean we had to cross parallel with the swell before turning our back on the huge waves and passing through a very narrow entrance to the shallow area. We met a monohull coming towards us which emphasized the size of the swell as there were times we couldn't see his mast, other times when he seemed to be entirely out of the water. As for ourselves, the boat handled it well, riding the waves very comfortably. The swells were between 8 - 12 feet, and the water was that glorious turquoise colour that you wouldn't believe was real if you didn't see it with your own eyes.
Once we turned our back to the ocean the view ahead was quite disconcerting. The swells were racing ahead of us towards the reef and rocks, breaking all along the length. Somewhere in there was our entrance but it wasn't obvious to the naked eye. I always understood that where there were no breakers was the place to enter, but there were breakers everywhere. A catamaran was trying to exit this same channel. To our eyes it looked to be heading straight for a large rock we couldn't see but which was marked on the chart. As for ourselves, we followed our GPS route and the chart, but based on the other boat's line weren't sure we were right. Suddenly the other catamaran backed off and turned around, heading along the swells towards where we felt the correct route lay. We continued, being picked up and carried by the turquoise waves, and several times actually riding on a breaking wave as it's top collapsed into a froth of surf and spray. We were a lot happier when we had passed through where we surmised the channel entrance to be though the waves were still just as high and moving along as quickly. Looking back we could now see the large rock the other catamaran had been heading for - it was quite visible from this side and I don't know how they didn't see it earlier.
The whole ride was exhilarating and beautiful and we were able to enjoy it for quite a while longer before we turned again and left the area behind us. The wind was such that we could finally sail a bit, so put the headsail out and switched the engine off. The dinghy was bone dry after this roller coaster ride, handling it as professionally as the boat.

Chris opened the engine compartment to give it a bit of air and noticed the lower part was now full of seawater! There was dried salt over most of the engine and the batteries were sitting in salt water. Not good. Chris pumped out as much seawater as he could. Luckily the sailing was great, and we were at Green Turtle just after one. Geru was in a very sheltered lagoon, White Sound, and we needed the engine to get in there. But it wouldn't start! We tacked back and forth while Chris tried to get it going but there was no success. In the end we anchored just outside the entrance in a place appropriately named Joyless Point, though to be fair it was just as lovely as all the other anchorages we have enjoyed.

A small taste of the Whale,Atlantic side

Friday, May 16

We managed to get the motor going with the help of the generator and limped into White Sound, anchoring next to Geru. We spent a nice few hours with Geoff and Ruth and friends of theirs, and learned that we had crossed Whale Channel during a "rage".
Prior to coming to the Bahamas we had never heard of these, but our book says "a "rage"....needs your utmost respect.". Something to do with very strong opposing currents/winds/tides. Since arriving here the cruiser's radio is full of messages from people asking the state of the channel, their crossing of the channel, other people's crossing of the channel, etc. I think I'm happier we didn't know about it as it all turned out well in the end. Though I guess if we had known, we wouldn't have attempted the crossing in the first place.
Now Chris is working his way through the engine, and it seems as though the alternator is shot. Thinking it through we can probably manage to get back to the U.S. without it, but it means our batteries won't be charging while the engine is running. As the generator is also giving us warning lights after 10 or 15 minutes, we are going to have to be careful using too much power. Hopefully the solar panels will work well enough to be of help. We blocked off the hole where we felt the seawater had got in during the Whale crossing so hopefully that will be the end of that problem.

Sisters at White Sound

Hope Town

Views of Hope Town

Our dinghy - commandeered!
(center back)

Wednesday May 14

Yesterday we made a hop north and anchored just south of Hope Town. I was there 50 years ago as a child and would love to see it again. These days it is billed as a must see stop for visitors but I imagine all those years ago it was just beginning to establish itself as a get-away destination. We towed the dinghy for the first time and managed to get it full of sea water due to the very choppy, though shallow, waters.
Hope Town itself is a delight. The red and white striped lighthouse is home to the only remaining manned lighthouse in the Bahamas. The lodge I stayed at all those years ago has expanded into a lovely resort with fine snorkelling on the Atlantic side. The homes in the town, many of them rental cottages, are painted in pastel colours of every shade all of them looking as though the job was just done yesterday. Small gardens trail glowing boughs of bougainvillea, have oleander hedges and hibiscus bushes. There are blooms everyway, many of them new to me. Vehicles aren't allowed in the center of town making walking a pleasure. There are a few stores; a grocery, liquor store, some gift shops. One of the town's founders (1785) was Wyannie Malone, a Loyalist widow, who moved here to start a new life and there is a museum in town in a building similar to her original home.
Happily there is still a healthy local community on the island too as the many school children testify. We passed a uniformed group of young ones leaving school led by their teacher all singing rousing Christian hymns as they filed along the road on their way home. Later we found our dinghy had been commandeered by a group of excited young school boys who must have thought that anything that old and battered looking had to have been abandoned for them to find. We were cross-examined about the viability of the outboard before we were able to claim it back.
Since we arrived in Little Harbour we have been noticing plumes of smoke, and here in HopeTown we can see red glows at night coming from the mainland. It seems Abaco is suffering several out of control fires. They don't have the resources to combat anything of this magnitude and are having to basically let the fires burn themselves out.

Little Harbour, Abaco

Green Turtle in Little Harbour

Thursday, May 8 - 12

Moving a short distance up the coast got us to Little Harbour and the shallower waters between the cays and the mainland. Little Harbour was settled in the 1950s by a sculptor who established his studio and gallery there. These are still present, and Pete's Pub is run by his son. It is a small circular harbour with lots of mooring balls and surrounded by homes very reminiscent of modern cottage country in Canada. A quick look at real estate prices shows that these are astronomical. The harbour is almost full of boats despite the total lack of any facilities other than the bar. There are fishing charters operating out of here and as we are on the mainland, access by car to other parts of Abaco. One of the first things we noticed was that there are several green turtles living here, and they rise to the surface frequently to breathe and glance around. They are pretty timid and it's hard to get a photo of them. They are protected in this harbour, though local people can catch them elsewhere for food.
We visited Pete's in the late afternoon and had some killer rum punches (Pete's motto: "why walk when you can crawl"). We met some local ferry operators and a delivery captain. Some areas of the Abacos are still supposed to speak English accented similar to old English, vestiges of the Loyalist settlements, and we felt we could certainly discern that in the ferry captains. The pub's ceiling is hung with T-shirts sporting boat logos and place names, mainly from the States and after we left it got very busy. People must drive there, as well as having the cruiser traffic.
Twice largish rays jumped out of the water near our boat, arcing 3 or 4 feet into the air before reentering the water. Amazing in a place so full of boats and dinghys. There have been a lot of rays most of the places we have been since the Grand Banks but this is the first time we have seen them jump.
Maintenance wise we have been able to trace the wiring for the solar panels that are on the boat and have managed to hook them up. They seem to work though we have yet to determine how well. Our generator is giving us a red alarm light so Chris has accessed it to try and find the fault. So far he hasn't been able to fix it, but it seems to be something we can live with (carefully) until we can get back to the States.

SandyPoint Settlement to Cherokee, Abaco

Cherokee, Abaco

Wednesday, May 7

We left Sandy Point Settlement early to go around the south end of Abaco and up the east coast. The north of this coast has a line of reefs and cays bordering the perimeter of the island with shallow waters between them and the mainland. This is one of the more popular cruising grounds for boaters. There are also larger communities with stores and services and established holiday centers. Several parts of Abaco were settled by Loyalists from the U.S., and have also provided havens for people looking to get away from the U.S. Civil War and later conflicts. We decided to stop early at an anchorage in Cherokee with a beautiful white beach and turquoise lagoon before heading further north to Little Harbour. Already we are noticing that there are more and more houses bordering the coastline, and the community of Cherokee looks wealthier.
In the deeper waters bordering this part of the coast, we saw two huge dolphins. They were obviously a different type to the ones we were seeing in shallower waters. They looked like those dolphins but blown up with helium as their fins and tails seemed the usual size but the bodies were enormous! We'll have to check the book.

Sandy Point Settlement

Fishing boat at Sandy Point Settlement

Tuesday, May 6

We decided to try for the dock at the marina today, though as yet we have seen no signs of a dock master and our radio hails have not been answered. Chris wants to check/replace the various fuel filters on the engine, as well as a few other things, in order to try and solve our loss of power problem. He would rather do that at a dock than bobbing about. We waited for a gap in the line up of local boats getting gas, then tied up at the T-end of the dock. It turned out the dockmaster was out towing a broken down car somewhere along the road, so while we waited for him we walked around the town. It is a charming place, with just about every house well maintained with lovely plantings and tidy lawns. People were pleasant and helpful, though there were't many about. Apparently since the road went in a lot of residents are able to go to the larger communities for work.
When the dockmaster returned we bought fuel and got the rates for staying overnight. They were pretty hefty, but he also said we could stay where we were all day for free while we fixed our problem. That was really nice of him, and we took him up on the offer. We also filled our tanks with potable water for the first time since we left Brunswick. Nowhere in Miami felt their water was safe to drink (!) and in Bimini it was the same, though more understandable. As a result we have been pretty frugal with our fresh water use. On opening up our tanks at Sandy Point it turned out they were more than half full! This translates to us using less than a gallon a day between us for EVERYTHING since we left Brunswick 6 weeks ago! No wonder no one was anchoring downwind of us! A flipside of the frugality was that the water remaining in our tanks was growing large quantities of gross stuff even though we had given it a very healthy glug of chlorine when we filled them. Good thing we hadn't looked in there while we were using it.
Chris was able to change the fuel filters so we left the dock once the tide was high enough and anchored out where we were before.

Little Harbour Cay to Sandy Point Settlement

Sandy Point Settlement, with Government Dock at left, Marina dock at right

Monday, May 5

Today we left Little Harbour Cay at 7, with Sandy Point Settlement,Abaco as our destination. Abaco is the second largest island in the Bahamas (about 100 miles long) and is on the eastern edge of Little Bahama Banks. This is similar to the Grand Banks with shallow clear waters, but separated from it by deep ocean waters. So we had deep ocean to cross. With the water being deeper we again had several tankers along our path, and a Coast Guard vessel criss-crossing the area around us. We think it was a U.S. vessel, but can't be sure. Sandy Point Settlement is on the west side of the southern part of Abaco, and only relatively recently got a road to it. Until then it was quite isolated. Few cruisers visit it as it is on the very shallow side of Abaco,and not part of the more popular cruising grounds which are to the north and east of the island.
We arrived at low tide, with just a foot and a half of water under the boat. On the way we had engine problems with the engine losing power very noticeably and the revs going down and we were hoping to dock at the marina there. With the low tide the marina dock looked really high off the water so we decided we would anchor out until morning.
Sandy Point is certainly a fishing settlement, with small local boats coming to the marina dock all day for fuel, then zipping off again to set their nets or look for conch and fish. Larger U.S. sports fishers seem to be fairly common here too. We saw two or three during our stay.