Green Turtle Cay, White Sound Mangrove Anchorage, Abacos, Bahamas

 We started the day with much less drama than yesterday evening!  We took the dinghy into the marina for a walk.

Just like we remember it - well kept and busy.  More of a "resort" kind of feel, not an "out-islands" experience for sure.

Nice paved roadways, mostly used by golf carts.

Beautiful beach on the ocean side.

Most everything seems to be rebuilt since Hurricane Dorian...plus a lot of new construction.  The houses are a bit fancier here than we're used to!

On the protected side of the island, there is a beautiful little bay - Coco Beach.  There is a public dinghy dock where they apparently feed the rays and turtles.

Of course, the rays come right up to you expecting a handout - I didn't have anything but that didn't keep them from trying! 

 

Funky feeling when they brush against your ankles!

They even have a lovely bench for a little rest.

Almost low tide.

 

Just taking our time since the weather for a gulf stream crossing doesn't seem to be in the near future!

Going back to the boat, here is a photo showing the dredged rectangle - the boat yesterday was stuck on the left and side.

 

You can really see how "unforgiving" that rock is!!

 Back to Sojourn for a relaxing evening.

 

Green Turtle Cay, White Sound Mangrove Anchorage, Abacos, Bahamas

 It was one of those days.....rainy and stormy at times.

The major excitement for the day was when this 51' charter catamaran named Amajen went hard aground in the narrow channel coming into the mangrove anchorage on White Sound.  You can see his port side boat waterline well above the sea waterline!

While this is unfortunate, this very narrow channel is very easy to read and the extremely hard and shallow edges of the dredged channel are easy to see.

If anyone is interested in the details to prevent this from happening to you - here is a graphic from Navionics.  I will shout that Navionics is WRONG!  We anchored the big boat and explored this channel with our dinghy and depth sounding pole before attempting it.  No excuse for this captain, but don't follow Navionics!

After about an hour, the tide was up enough for 3 folks on dinghies to push the yacht off the hard bar.  More power to them, but we did not offer to help since this is a charter boat and I have no idea what the repercussions might be for damage to the boat.  (This appeared to me to be a bareboat crew with no charter personnel helping with the grounding).

Painful next hour as the crew of Amajen tried to anchor their boat before the coming storms....I have no idea why he couldn't anchor as this anchorage is fabulous.....finally after several radio calls someone at Green Turtle Cay Club invited them to tie up overnight on the fuel dock as storms were all around and all other docks were full.  We were just glad that they left the now crowded anchorage.  We hated the thought of a poorly anchored boat dragging anchor on us in the middle of a stormy night!

 

 

Off and on rain and wind thru the night although not as strong as predicted.  We slept well!

Green Turtle Cay, White Sound Mangrove Anchorage, Abacos, Bahamas

 We decided we should probably head north to escape some high winds coming  up.

Passing the fancy Baker's Bay area at the north end of Great Guana Cay.  Looks like more development is there since our last time thru here a couple of years ago.

 Just a lovely sail, we left the engines off even though we got down to 3 knots at some points with just the main sail up....lazy sailing!  No where to be and only 15 miles to go.  The "Whale Cut" that is open to the ocean swells and feared by many in poor conditions was  smooth and almost calm.  Perfect day to move.

 

Lovely water as we sail along in the protected sound.

 

The obligatory bread photo....made bread along the way.  A little funny shape - I think my yeast is aging even though I keep it in the freezer.

Approaching Green Turtle Cay and the town of New Plymouth.  They had a lot of hurricane damage from Dorian but are mostly rebuilt we understand.

 

 

 The mailboat was arriving as we were sailing past.

 

 We anchored inside of the northern bay - White Sound - just for a few hours.  We had a terrible time a few years ago here when we anchored and got hit with a middle-of-the-night thunderstorm, dragging anchor.  The plan was to wait until high tide and go thru a very narrow dredged channel - we got in the dinghy to depth-sound and formed a plan. The dredged area is about 40' wide (our boat is 21' wide) and a mistake will cause the fiberglass bottom to hit very hard rock on either side of the channel!

After the tide was up mid-way, we executed our plan flawlessly and are now anchored in about 10 ' of water in the middle of a very protected small bay. We'll be here for a day or two while the weather moves past.

Great Guana Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 We were up at sunrise and pulled out of the marina before any winds picked up.

Out the channel - a lovely day but we only had a little over 3 miles to go so we didn't raise the sails....

I'd been chatting with our friend Reid who happened to be down this week for a "boys week" at their house on Great Guana Cay.  So we anchored right in front of their house - they were out  fishing when we got there  

So we did a load of laundry and had the water maker running for the morning.  Reid and his crew stopped by around noon.  Unfortunately they didn't catch any fish....

 

We made plans to go over to their house in the evening to visit and a cookout.

 

I got busy prepping some tuna sushi and thawed some Mahi to share.

 

Late in the afternoon we took the dinghy over and tied up at their dock.  The view back to Sojourn in the middle of the photo.

 

Fun conversations, nice fellows Rick enjoying what I believe is his first Bahamas trip. 

Robert, Dan and Rick.

Tim and Reid chatting with Duane.  We were there when Tim proposed to his then-girlfriend at the sandbar on Scotland Cay several years ago!

Beautiful beach house.  Just charming.

 

 

 

And then we were treated to a lovely sunset.

Late in the evening they fired up the grill.

 

Robert, Reid's partner in the house, mans the grill.

We ate good food and chatted until well after cruiser's midnight.  Back to the boat for a peaceful sleep.

Scotland Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 Rita picked us up in the golf cart to take us across the runway to a snorkel spot.  The winds were calm enough for us to go to an outside reef.

 

Was strange to walk into the surf with our flippers on instead of jumping off the dinghy like we're used to....

Rita has a floating bucket with a weighted rope attached.  Good idea for keeping fish you've caught vs. having to swim back to the dinghy each time to deposit your fish.

There were not many fish and little coral.

 

So we moved on to another spot Rita knows about.

There is a sunken pickup truck....Rita says there is usually a lot of fish hanging around. 

Rita and Duane looking for hidden fish.....

No fish worth taking so we moved on....a cool turtle swam by.

We stayed in the water a couple of hours until we were getting chilled....back to the marina.

Will and Rita invited us over for a late lunch - fun visiting with them and they are lovely hosts.  

Back to the boat  in the late afternoon there was quite a rumble outside - a delivery boat had docked with lots of building materials.  There is quite a bit of construction still ongoing with repairs from Hurricane Dorian.

Uneventful evening but a few no-see-um's caused us to have to close up the boat.  We'll head north just a bit tomorrow to visit with Reid and Laurie on Great Guana Cay!