Abacos

Friday, March 2nd, we checked out of Nassau Yacht Haven; the dockmaster threw us our lines, then we called Nassau Harbour Control for permission to leave the harbour. Unfortunately a cruise ship, Disney’s Dream, was coming in and we had to wait until it docked to leave. We finally received permission to leave, cruised past the huge hotels on Paradise Island, and the anchorage where we waved at Silent Wings, and were out! We hoisted all our sail, and had a glorious sail to Royal Island Harbour in Eleuthera, with a steady 12K on the beam the whole way.

Saturday March 3rd, we left right at dawn, motored out of the harbour into a strong SE wind which had kicked up large waves on the shallow Eleuthera banks. A large sailboat had anchored right outside the harbour and must have spent a miserable hobby-horse night. Been here. Done that. No fun. Another sailboat was anchored closer to Egg Island. Once outside Little Egg Island Cut, it calmed down and we thought we’d have an easy 50 miles to Little Harbour Inlet in the Abacos. It was not to be. Once out into the Northeast Providence Channel the waves were huge, way over our boat, although the interval between them was fairly long so we’d bob up and down them, but never were able to adjust our sails since they were behind us. I was worried about going through the Little Harbour Inlet with the SE swell and possibly missing the incoming tide, but it wasn’t bad just missing high tide by 30 minutes. We anchored at Spencer’s Point protected from the south wind with the catamaran that came over with us and a small sailboat with 4 young men that looked like they were enjoying themselves.

Sunday March 4th we were going to wait until Cruisers’ Net at 8:15am to leave. We could tell the wind was picking up; the small sailboat had left. All ready, we heard on Cruisers’ Net of possible gale force winds to arrive at Marsh Harbour around noon. We upped anchor and were on our way, pulling out the jib and were making 6-7 K with the wind gusting up to 30K. We thought we’d grab a mooring at Hope Town then heard there were 39 boats in there and, it being Sunday, I couldn’t rouse any marina to see if anything was available. We even entertained going on to the protected harbour at Treasure Cay, where, later we heard, there were 20 boats anchored.

On to Marsh Harbour. Almost to the harbour, pounded by gusts up to 36K, with waves breaking over the dodger into our faces, we caught up with the small sailboat, Sabrina III, and the 4 young men started lobbing water balloons with a sling at us! The resiliency of youth!

We slowly made our way into the roiling harbour, found a space, dropped the hook among about 50 boats, and waited the front. On the VHF people were announcing the approach of the storm: West End, Freeport. Then we saw a line of dark grey to the west, tied down the sailcover and awaited the storm, which hit with a vengeance upping the depth of the water considerably. All the boats held and we clocked around to the NW. It is to stay windy for the next few days.