Sea Glass Hunting on Lynyard Cay

Good news today - Karen's foot is much improved. Apparently shaking a leg at the Barefoot Man concert was good for her foot.

A long travel day by Abaco standards - 25 nm from Great Guana Cay to Lynyard Cay. Karen wants more Sea Glass and Jill and Wayne on Born to cruise offered to show us the "good stuff", and they did - we found a bunch!!

The trip down was okay - left Great Guana around 9 am then 7 nm of on the nose motoring then we motor sailed down to the Pelican Cays, then pulled in the sail and motored across the north bar - pretty rolly with 4 - 5 foot rollers but it was only about 2 miles.

Anchored easily at Lynyard just off the sailors signing beach (a place where flotsam and jetsam is hung in a tree with the sailor's names and boat name and date signed on the piece. We have one hanging there from a previous trip.

No internet connection down here so it will be a couple of days before we get one - probably Monday. If you need to contact me use the SSB Radio email address - wd0etl@winlink.org.

There are actually about 10 boats strung along the Cay this afternoon - thought we would have it all to ourselves.. Ohh well plenty of room.

Should be a great night with a ¾ moon and clear skies and NO light pollution. Just need to get to bed earlier. Jill and Wayne had us up till nearly 10:30pm playing Farkle and Mexican Train Dominoes - p

Barefootman concert

Made it to the Barefoot Man concert. This is a big deal in the Abacos. Never heard of him before we came and never heard of him after but he is good. Fortunately it was not too crowded probably because it was cool and also on a weekday.

We met the crews from Celtic Cross and Born to cruise and Flash II over there. Stone McCuen opened and was pretty good but the Barefootman was the real draw.

Folks were pretty well behaved and nothing outrageous occurred but we didn’t stay till the end. We left around 3:30pm and stopped at Milos fruit stand for some fresh veggies and fruits --- Milos has the best.

We are planning to fix dinner for the crew of Born to cruise and maybe have a “Games night” over here tonight.

I would write more but I need to help with dinner and this PC is giving me problems tonight., Hopefully the pictures will display.. Enjoy.

Ghost town in Marsh Harbour Anchorage

Hmmm something bad happened to yesterdays BLOG entry... I didn't see it this time and I looked for it in the edit area and found it listed under February 27th "Some days are better than others".. I'll see if I can get it put in the right area...


Just a quiet day here in the anchorage. The wind is strong but the fetch is small. Comfortable on the boat but rough at the dinghy landing. The anchorage has cleared out quite a bit too since so many boats went to Guana Cay yesterday and today to wait for the Barefootman concert tomorrow.

I made a trip to town to get an ACE bandage for Karen’s foot. Seems to be better than yesterday but still favoring it.

I tried to buy some Conch Salad but my Conch man George still has not shone up!! I guess he just doesn’t like the wind.

Speaking of the wind -- it is getting monotonous and on top of that the radio is full of talk from folks planning to stage to head back to Florida – Grrrr – it is too early to start that mindset. Unfortunately once the “seed” of going home is planted it is difficult to think of anything else.

Not sure if we will make it to the Barefootman concert now. If Karen’s foot is still sore we probably won’t go. That and the anchorage has cleared out here in Marsh and I have a great spot that has been tested by strong winds so I’m inclined to leave the hook down especially if Karen’s foot needs some professional attention – too early to tell yet.

Also it is blowing 15 – 20kts and the ride up to Guana Cay will be rough and it is already crowded and the holding is POOR. Better to stay put here today and head up tomorrow morning with forecast 10 –15 kt winds. We will just have to watch the forecast though.

Now this Cold front was COLD!!

Brrrrr - coldest day of the year I believe. It was 55 degrees this morning when I got up!!

What a night - dead calm.. Great contrast to all the wind that came yesterday. The weather forecast looks great for the rest of the week although I should have thought about that wind direction a little more before making our plans today.

We left about 9 am with the intention of running the whole length of the hub of Abacos - Treasure Cay to near Little Harbour. We intended to go to Tiloo Pond for the night and do some sea glass hunting. We had a nice light wind aft of us leaving Treasure Cay a little more west in it than I expected but it was supposed to go North then NE. Once we got down past Boat Harbour near Witch Point the wind was still W-NW at 300 degrees and increasing. Lots of white caps and heading into Tiloo Pond -
thus we will be on a lee shore with the swell coming at us. Not good. We diverted to the Turret under Tavern Cay on Tiloo Cay but found it very inhospitable. Bouncing and rocks all around. We thought about Snake Cay but if the wind does go N to NE then that will be bad and the holding is not good there.

Thus I swallowed my pride and backed up 6 miles and anchored in the NW corner near Boat Harbour. Quite sheltered in this wind. Unfortunately it was now 3pm and most of the day has gone by. Ohh well at least it should be a quiet night.

There were already 4 boats here so plenty of room to anchor. I dropped the CQR into the sand and grass and it did not connect. Ohh well fool me once shame on me fool me twice shame on you. I retrieved the anchor then dropped the 22lb Delta and it bit immediately.. Ohhh well we are secure for the night.

I thought internet would be good here because of the proximity to Boat Harbour but it is not. Karen is not impressed. The only good thing is we have an excellent view of the Out Island Doctor's Castle in the air from here. The book is great and I recommend it to all sailors coming to the Bahamas - "Out Island Doctor" by Evans Cottman.

Now to rethink the plans for this week!!!

Weathering Cold front passage in Treasure Cay

Fortunately the cold front did not pack much of a punch when it got here – no strong squalls just a little rain. The holding in Treasure Cay is very good although one large trawler kept resetting an anchor in the wee hours this morning. I was awakened about 1 am by the sound of a bow thruster near my head. Then I heard the low rumble of a diesel just outside. A quick look and sure enough a trawler that had been anchored behind us was trying to re-anchor next to us – not doing very well watching him drag back on the anchor. I watched awhile and felt sorry for him because it is tough to anchor in a crowed anchorage and to do it the dark and rain – just miserable.

He moved off and tried another location and when his motor sounded distant I went back to bed. Ten minutes later he was back trying next to me again. It was bad. Finally he moved out in the channel and dropped the hook. I suspect he worked at it for more than an hour. At one point I saw he was using a Danforth style anchor and was clearing grass from it before trying again. I don’t think the Danforth style is appropriate her in sand and rock. Need something with a point that you can bury.

It has been a moderate blow all day but no really big gusts. Probably 14 – 17 with an infrequent gust to 20. The temps have turned chilly – low to mid 60s so we are just relaxing on board and Karen made some bread today – ohhh smells good.

We made one trip to town to mail some letters to the USA – 1st class postage is .65 cents to USA. Hit the grocery store for a minor provisioning run and get ready to go to the lesser-visited areas here in the hub of the Abacos. Plan to be back to Fishers Bay by Friday morning so we can go to the Barefootman concert in the afternoon.

As a long shot – if the weather is right then head across Whale Cay passage to Green Turtle Cay and spend the remainder of March up in that area planning to head back to the USA late March or early April . Gosh I can’t believe I said that. Scared myself. Ohhh well still plenty of time to enjoy the Abacos yet.