Underway Again #22:  Little Harbour

 

Finally we were on our way to the Abacos.  The Spaniards called it Habacoa.  Although they were the first Europeans to explore the Abacos, they did not settle there and returned only to enslave the gentle Lucayans as mentioned in my earlier blogs.  Although sites of their numerous settlements have been discovered, none have been fully excavated.  Abacos was well situated for piracy as the small cays offered excellent anchorages as well as good lookout points and the combination of the shallow banks and the reefs discouraged pursuers and for over 100 years, pirates were the only settlers, if you could call them that.  Not until late 18th century were any permanent settlements attempted by again the Empire Loyalists.  They had come to farm and found that there only small pockets of soil in the predominate limestone rock and at the dawn of the 19th century saw only about 400 people (200white and 200 black) left in the Abacos.  They were joined by migrants from Harbour island Eleuthra and made their living primarily fishing.  The Abacos were and are still known for their boat and shipbuilding skills.  Although the majority of boat builders turn out sleek fibreglass boats, old fashioned boat building still persists.  Crafting and carpentry skills have been passed from father to son from generation to generation.  The greatest industry in the Abacos and indeed in all of the Bahamas is tourism and it caters to the cruising boaters such as ourselves.

 We left Little Egg Island at 1:00 in the morning and it was a very easy passage with calm waters but little wind so we motored most of the way. I really enjoy sailing or rather, in this case, motoring at night. It was a clear night; there is no ozone layer or pollution here so the stars are phenomenal. I wish I knew more about finding the different constellations. We reached our destination, Little Harbour, by 10:00 in the morning and we anchored at Tom Curry Point, rested and then went to Pete's Pub for a late lunch and a drink. 

 

 

The Gallery

 

 

 

One of the more famous scuptures showing the progression of infant to old man.

 

   

Bill entering Pete's Pub.

 

View of Little Harbour from Pete's Pub

     Pete is the son of Randolph Johnston, a world famous sculptor who was born in Toronto, lived in the States and in 1950 left the "rat race" with his wife and three sons and lived on a boat for two years before finding Little Harbour and deciding that this was the place for him and his family.  Randolph Johnston, one of the greatest sculptors of the 20th century, spent the next 40 years pursuing his dream of living free to work in an unspoiled environments, remote from the constraints and pollution of life in the developed world.  His son, Pete, maintains not only "Pete's Pub" but also a gallery devoted to the art of his father, his own art and those of local artists.  Roman and I had lemon pepper tigerfish which was tasty.      

Waiting for a "Blaster" at the bar.

The Four Adventurers

If you look closely you will see a sculpture at the beginning of the boardwalk to the Atlantic Ocean.

At the end of the boardwalk 




Collecting shells

Pete's Pub from a distance

      Just behind the pub was the Atlantic Ocean and I walked the shore collecting some shells.   Roman spent the time photographing a hummingbird.

       The next day we anchored off Sandy Cay and went snorkelling at the reefs there.  This was the most interesting and best snorkelling that I have yet experienced in the Bahamas rivalling even Thunderbolt Grotto.  Bill and I snorkelled while Maureen and Roman kept each other company as they waited for us to get tired.  They had a long wait as there were so many different kinds of fish and coral.  I saw a brain coral that had to be half the size of the dinghy.  We saw a school of blue tang fish, angelfish, snappers, blue parrot fish, tiny cardinal fish and so many others that I felt that I was swimming in an aquarium.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Underway Again #21: Still at Spanish Wells

Spanish Wells Yacht Haven in the Eleuthra guide book is listed as having water, laundry, WiFi and even a restaurant. There is no restaurant. The Laundry is one washer and one dryer. It costs $9.00 to do one load as you have to run the dryer twice to get things dry. I did two loads of laundry and used two tokens in the dryer to dry the heavier things but the shirts and smaller items I dried on a line Roman put up on the boat. The water that is $.20 is not for drinking and the drinking water is $.50 a gallon which is delivered in large bottles. We ordered 40 gallons. You don't realize how precious water is until you have to be careful with the usage. We watched The Gods Must be Crazy I and II and besides being very entertaining, it really shows how people can survive with very little water. I highly recommend this movie. WiFi is unreliable; most of the time you cannot get on the internet, but sometimes I will get on and ten minutes later, the connection will be lost. Very Frustrating!!! However the shower is hot and the staff is great not to mention the camaraderie of our fellow boaters, so we have little to complain about.  I have just found out the reason for the description in the guide book.  Apparently there are plans to turn this marina into a mini-resort with accommodations, swimming pool, restaurant, updated laundry and showers by the end of the year. It sounds wonderful, but the question remains: the end of which year?   In the Bahamas things do not happen quickly but maybe this will be the exception.

One of the things that kept us busy was cleaning the rust off the stainless steel.  Yes even stainless steel cannot resist the effect of the sea water.  The salt is terrible and big flakes of salt stick to everything on deck after every sail or crossing.  I cleaned 95% of the boat but Roman didn't take a picture.  I, however, caught him as he cleaned the part of the bow sprint that I could not reach.

We are currently in a holding pattern waiting for the weather. The swells on the Atlantic Ocean are 12-14 feet high and we will not be able to get through the cuts into the Abacos so we are waiting. We have been to see the little museum.

View from the one lane bridge

 

The bananas that grow here are the small very sweet ones called little sugar bananas.

One of the wonderful things about a trip such as ours is that we have time to appreciate the beauty around us and to spot even the little crab on the flowers which abound everywhere.

 

It was too windy on the beach and too cool with the north wind so Roman hauled out the bikes and we biked not only around the island but also crossed the one lane bridge to Russell Island where there are beautiful and very large homes built on huge lots,who have gone over to Russell Island, especially those that made a lot of money fishing. The price of lobsters is down and the economy is hurting

Pelican Bay, a resort started on Russell Island viewed from the road where we were biking.  It has a multitude of properties and lots for sale.

I talked to one of the shopkeepers who told me that there were many who had bought homes and then could not keep them in this economy. This explains the multitude of the For Sale signs on many of the homes in Spanish Wells as well as on the many lots for sale on Russell Island. Some of these look like cottages but there are a few very large waterfront properties with mansion houses for sale as well. It would be nice to have a cottage here but the airfare is very expensive to get here and there is really no where to go but around the island unless you make use of the extensive ferry system to one of the other islands.  

Roman's starter motor bit had to be rebuilt and fortunately we were in the right place. Spanish Wells has excellent mechanics as they service the multitude of fishing boats and they are quick. Roman took the motor in on Monday morning and it was ready the next day. We have played farkel and enjoyed time with our friends. I have collected shells for my grandchildren on the beach. Roman has finally made himself a conch horn to blow at sunset.

Roman and Bill collected and shelled coconuts.  Bill even made coconut cups.  The coconut milk is delicious as is the coconut.  But we really want to get going!



This is the exit through Spanish Wells harbour.  You can see the sand bars only when the tide is down.  When we came in at high tide, none of the sand bars were visible and it was lucky that we read the paper charts about which side to hug while entering the harbour.  The electronic charts are great but we have found them not to be accurate 100% of the time.  Paper charts and visual sighting is critical in the Bahamas.    Below is a picture of a boat that relied on the electronic charts only and got stuck on a sandbar during a falling tide and had to put up the sails and four boats were required to pull him off.  The captain even put up the sails to enlist the aid of the wind to get off the sand bank.  If he was not pulled off in time, he would have had to wait many hours until high tide. 

 

The weather has continued to improve and we finally left Spanish Wells after spending eleven days at the marina. It was very nice there but we were glad to move on to Egg Island where we anchored, rested and left by 1:00 in the morning so that we could go through the cuts at high tide. All passages between the Atlantic Ocean and the Sea of Abaco are impassable at times due to breaking seas. Breaking seas occur not only due to high winds but also when ocean swells build after travelling miles over the deep water of the ocean. These swells seen on the horizon, look like what Bill, captain of Kalunamoo and an author, calls "elephants in the water". The swells encounter the shallow water and reefs of the Bahamas. If these swells are forced through a narrow passage or cut between two islands or cays, as they are called here, what occurs are huge swells and gigantic waves especially when they encounter an opposing tide or current making these cuts impassable. Some cuts may be better than others in certain wind conditions. That is why, as sailors, we need to pay attention to wind direction, wind velocity, wave height, wave interval, water depth, reefs as well as the direction and speed of fronts. It is always better to err on the side of caution so that is why we waited for eleven days in Spanish Wells.



Our last sunset at Spanish Wells

Underway Again #20: Spanish Wells

On Monday, the winds died down a little and Bill picked us up in his dinghy and took us over to Kalunamoo for supper.  We looked at the charts and decided to try for Spanish Wells the next day.  We would leave before dawn and try to make Current Cut at slack tide.  Current Cut is a difficult cut as the water pours out of the cut at 4-6 knots and with the tide running against a strong breeze, a nasty chop is raised at the entrance.  If you enter is with the tide, your boat would be tossed to and fro and it would be difficult to maintain stability.
 

We left at 4:15 in the morning and it was mostly motor sailing on quite calm waters with little wind.  Now we would have liked a little wind!  We made good time and went safely through the cut about 2:00 staying to the side as the guide books indicated and then into Spanish Wells Harbour again reading the guide books about what side to hug. 




First view of harbour in Spanish Wells

There are numerous sand banks in the harbour and at high tide, when we were entering, the sand banks are not visible and we guessed that the pole sticking out near the shore and the mooring ball were the markers for the entrance. 

Spanish Wells Yacht Haven Marina

We had contacted Spanish Wells Yacht Haven Marina and reserved a spot and we were placed on a long dock behind a 42 ft. sailboat. 

Can you spot our boat?

 

The first thing that I did was take a long hot shower - what a luxury!  The first thing Roman did was to walk to the marine stores to look for glue for the dinghy but he did not have any luck so he will just have to use the rest of the glue he bought in Georgetown.  This pictures illustrates just how much of the dinghy has come apart.  Hopefully this last attempt will last us until we get back to the mainland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The name Spanish Wells is said to have originated three centuries ago when the Spanish explorers declared the local well water the sweetest in The Bahamas.  It is a very insular community quite unique to the Bahamas in that in more than 300 years the makeup of its population has hardly changed.  Most residents used to grow up, marry and remain here.  Spanish Wells has a long association with the sea.  It is a remarkably self-sufficient; even the power system is locally owned. 

 

As a premier Bahamian fishing port more than seventy percent of the annual harvest of lobsters is caught by the Spanish Wells fishing boats.  The boats now have to travel further and further to find lobster.  There is difficulty in keeping young men in school as they can go out on the lobster boats at age 16 and earn $100,00.00 and more yearly.  That is a great incentive to leave school early.


The next day we walked around and explored.  Prosperity is reflected in the neat and tidy houses surrounded by colourful gardens, carefully tended and many with beautiful hibiscus plants, roses, cacti, and prolific trees. 

Everything is orderly; most shops close on Wednesday afternoons and all day Sunday and there is no liquor store on the island.  However one man came and handed us a card that he has a liquor store and even has a license for it.  We plan just to check it out for curiosity's sake.  Spanish Wells is located on St. Georges Cay and along the north side is a beautiful beach. 

We walked along the beach noting that most of the homes along the beach are private homes with a cement wall along the edge of their property where it meets the beach.  Some workers were painting one of the walls and they told us that the water comes up to the wall at high tide and during a storm the water goes right over these walls often right into the homes.

 

 

Every evening at sunset the boaters blow their conchs.

That night the boaters organized a pot luck on the dock.  This was a great opportunity to meet the rest of the boaters.  Most are waiting for a weather window to go north to the Abacos although some are travelling south.  These are the boats that plan to get down to Trinidad or Grenada for the hurricane season.  It was a great evening and the wind was strong enough that there were no "noseums" which just love to feast on humans.  There are many Canadians here in the Bahamas and often the Americans joke that Canada is taking over.

Waiting for the fast ferry seen coming up behind us.

Look closely to the right and you can see the waves breaking on the reef.

The next day we took a fast ferry through  the Devil's Backbone around the north coast of Eleuthra to Dunmore Town on Harbour Island.  The Devil's Backbone is a passage through the reefs reef so named as it is potentially very where there is only one way to go or else you will land up on the reefs as have many ships.  If you wanted to go through with a sailboat, a guide is the only way to go and you cannot attempt the passage with wind, waves, or swells coming ashore from the N, NE or NW.  You can't go with the sun in your yes in the morning as you must rely on visual navigation and on top of that, high tide is an extra bonus with two extra feet under your keel.  Thus the decision was made to take the fast ferry and just spend the day on Harbour Island.


First view of Dunmore Town, Harbour Island

Harbour Island, known as "Briland" to the locals, is one of the oldest established settlements in the Bahamas and was the first capital city of the Bahamas dating back to the 1700's. 


You see a multitude of golf carts as they are the main form of transportation

Dunmore Town boasts of old churches, art galleries, quaint shops, stone walls and a unique blend of colonial architecture combined with striking  Caribbean colours.  We walked up and down the hilly streets to the wide 3 mile tinted pink beach which draws a multitude of tourists.

 

Overlooking the beach

Steps down to the beach from the seat above

 

Most of the island's tourist accommodations sit on a bluff  overlooking the rosy beach.  Many restaurants and bars offer a fantastic view.  We walked along the beach and although its is advertised as a "pink" beach we did not think it was very pink although it was very beautiful.  Surprisingly, as you can see from the picture above, there were few people on the beach, perhaps because the wind was from the north. 

There are a multitude of restaurants most of which are very pricey.  We had grilled grouper for lunch and on the way to the ferry, I bought a wonderful tasty conch salad made by Martin who lives in Eleuthra and takes a small ferry to Dunmore every day to a stand on the beach right near the government dock where the fast ferry docks.   He brings with him sweet sour oranges, cucumbers, tomatoes  and green peppers all grown in Eleuthra.  Roman got a conch burger at a local stand and we ate on the ferry on the way back.  It was delicious!

Making a conch salad is harder than it looks.  First you choose your conch.

 

 

Next Martin has to take the conch out of the shell.

 

Then he has to cut only the part he will use.

 

Now he will chop up all the ingredients, add the orange and lime juice and, of course, the conch.

 

The finished product!

Some of the little shops - quite unique displays!

 

 



 

 

Underway Again # 19:  Eleuthra

Eleuthra  is an island about 110 miles long and 2 miles wide. We are staying in Rock Sound Harbour as wait out the weather.  Right now the wind is really howling, the boat is rocking but the sun is FINALLY shining after two constant days of rain so there is hope in the air which is, by the way, very cold as the front dropped the temperature 15 - 20 degrees. We slept in socks and layers last night and Roman slept in the pilot house keeping "anchor watch" as we had dragged the night before.

Our rental in front of a really neat shop where Roman bought a shirt.

We arrived in Rock Sound a couple of days before the front moved in and here, as in Long Island , we rented a car to see the island.  This time we only had 12 hours in which to see everything so it we decided to just go north as we wanted to see the Glass Window which is the point of the rocky spine of Eleuthra that once was a natural arch undermined by the ocean which connected the Northern Eleuthra to Southern Eleuthra. 

Atlantic Ocean

Bahamas Banks

 

 

This natural arch became a real break and now there is a new bridge spanning the divide.  New bridge is a relative term and this is the newest in the series of storm-damaged bridges.  If you look closely at the pictures you can see where the last bridge moved about 7 feet when it was hit by a rogue wave on Halloween Day in 1991.  This is the skinniest part of the island(about 30 feet) and the road is only one lane over this part.  When you stand on the Glass Window you see to the east the restless deep blue of the Atlantic Ocean and to the west, the tranquil turquoise green, far shallower water of the Bahamas Banks. 

 When the Atlantic rolling waves come surging in, particularly the swells of  a storm, the force can hit the bridge and throw walls of water 100-200 feet high.  Fortunately when we were there it was moderately calm but we could appreciate the strength of the water as dark blue met turquoise. 

If you look at how the bridge is supported, you can see why we don't think that this bridge will last too long.

 

You can see several places where there are stress fractures.

This area is made of sturdy rock formations and one of the many formations we saw along the way was this giant bolder which is said to resemble a bull with a cow.  Do you see it?

One of the most spectacular things we saw was the area known as the  Queen's Bath which is a series of little indentations in the limestone rock which filled by the Atlantic waters, warmed and formed hot salt tubs. 



Here I found many unusual little shells and when I lifted one of them a little hermit crab who came out of his shell to look around and very quickly hid back inside.

If you continued and climbed down to the ocean below, you could go into a large cave at low tide. 



 

Maureen, it was thiiiiiis wide!

"I have to get a picture of this!"

The colours are quite spectacular!

 

 

Next we came to one of blow holes which you find throughout the Bahamas.  It took several tries to get a picture just as the blow hole shot up as this lasts just a second and two.

We passed Gregorytown where we had anchored 5 years ago.  At Hatchet Bay, we met some friends of Bill and Maureen and had lunch with them at a little stand set up which served delicious ribs, rice and macaroni and cheese.  The helpings are so generous that we shared one meal.  I love the macaroni and cheese and Roman prefers the rice. 

Here a young man shows off his catch.

The entrance is very narrow into this Governor's Harbour well protected harbour.

We tried to find the pink sand beaches marked on our map but the roads leading there were mostly dirt and rock and once after travelling on what seemed like the right roads, we came right back to Governor's Harbour where we had started from.  All part of the adventure of exploring  new places. When I downloaded this picture, the sand looks like it has a pink tinge but we didn't see we were there. Can you spot me in the picture?

Next we visited the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve which is Eleuthra's first national park and consists of  25 acres dedicated to the conservation of native species and to the research and documentation  of Bahamian Bush medicine.  Bush medicine involves brewing the bark, roots and leaves of particular plants to make beverages to reduce anxiety, restore appetite, relieve respiratory infections, increase sexual vitality, treat asthma and skin allergies.   Along the Medicinal Plant Trail, plants are grouped according to the ailments they treat. 

The Mangrove Boardwalk takes you through an otherwise inaccessible wetland ecosystem.  This preserve is only in its second year and was very interesting as you walked marked trails through a mangrove  and the medicinal plant trail.  Each species is identified.  Many plans are in the works and this is a facility which I would want to visit again. There is a beautiful natural waterfall, which I believe is the only one in the Bahamas.

Tarpum Bay used to be a centre for the exporting of pineapples, a principal crop of Eleuthra.  It is said that the pineapple plants were taken from Eleuthra and planted in Hawaii where they flourished.  The Bahamas could not compete in the world market and this led to the decline of the industry.  A few pineapples are grown mostly for local use. 

In Tarpum Bay we saw a house that brings to mind the saying " His home is a man's castle" or is it a man's castle is his home.????

Back to Rock Sound where there is a large inland blue hole named Ocean Hole that local people claim is bottomless.  The sea water rises and lowers with the ebb and flow of the tides and is filled with tropical fish and turtles.

Off to the side of the road is a "boiling" hole which the locals believe has healing powers.  All I can say, it certainly has mosquitoes.  I must have been bit at least a dozen times!
On the southern Cape Eleuthra are countless snorkelling and diving sites but we had run out of time and headed back to return the rented car.  
The next few days were spent rolling and rocking with winds howling around us and rain pouring down upon us.  As I said at the beginning, the sun brings hope that things will calm down and that we will be able to move on tomorrow.