Green Turtle

We travelled the short distance from Treasure Cay through the Whale Cay Passage in flat calm weather.  The Whale can be very dangerous in rough weather, but not today.  We anchored behind Noname Cay adjacent to Green Turtle's "Sand Dollar Beach" and gathered good shells for two days.  Here's a typical view of the waters from the bridge; this is what we see every day while underway.

Dawn at Noname Cay.

 From Noname we went to Black Sound in Green Turtle Cay for a night.  The entance channel is marked with "day marks for dummies" -- the color always tells which side of a mark to pass, but these guys throw in arrows just in case.

 Views of Black Sound

 New Plymouth is the village on Green Turtle.  The houses are all painted in tropical pastels.  This is a pretty town, very well kept.

We moved to Bluff House at White Sound on the other end of Green Turtle for a few days waiting for the winds to die down before heading home.  Bluff House is like a good stateside yacht club.

This is a view from Bluff House across the anchorage to New Plymouth.

Nancy looking for shells and stuff at the beach below the bluff.  She found several large sea urchin shells.

She also found some mystery objects.  These large blobs of slime appear to ooze out of holes in the sand.  Anyone know what they are?  (Laura B. says they're egg casings.)

She found an injured sea star too.

We don't know what these are.

About once a week Bluff House they serve a Bahamian buffet:  fish, lobster, chicken and ribs with peas & rice, corn bread, etc. 

Sometimes a Junkanoo band shows up.  (Junkanoo: think island mardi gras.)  All instruments (except the police whistle) are percussive, and very loud.  The players march slowly in tiny half-steps to a persistent island rhythm that gets into your bones.

These bass drums are made from big cardboard barrels that are used to ship certain kinds of dry goods.

 We don't know what the costumes signify.  Some items appear store-bought, others home-made.

More From the Abacos

From Little Harbor we continued northwestward in the Sea of Abaco, stopping at Hopetown, Man of War, Great Guana Cay and Treasure Cay.  This region is much more developed than the Exumas.  In general, the houses are nicer and better kept, the restaurants are nicer, and there's more available in the stores.  Here's Hopetown harbor and its famous lighthouse.  This light still uses a kerosene flame magnified through a multi-faceted Fresnel lens.  Its beam is visible 20 miles out at sea.

Man of War Cay has a long tradition of boat building.  If you're looking for a birthday present for Peter, here's an idea....

Anchorage off Man

 of War Cay

We found a bunch of sea biscuit shells in 9' of water. 

This sand dollar was alive, so we put him back.

Nancy picked up a few live sea stars; we put them back too.

Great Guana Cay has a small settlement, a beach five miles long, lots of new vacation houses and the infamous Nippers, where we had lunch before looking for shells.  Wonder who their decorator is?

From Great Guana we enjoyed a nice 9-mile ride to Treasure Cay in beautiful weather.  Treasure Cay is an American-style beach resort. 

We hung out on the beach and took a long walk looking for sand dollars.  Nancy did more of the walking, Peter did more of the hangin' out.  The sand here is like powdered sugar.

 

Spanish Wells to the Abacos

 From Allens Cay we enjoyed a 50-mile boat ride to Spanish Wells in perfect weather and calm seas.  Spanish Wells is a fishing town adjacent to the north end of Eleuthera.  While in the area, we also took a commercial ferry through the reefs to Dunmore Town on Harbour Island.  This is the working waterfront at Spanish Wells.

The ferry arriving at Spanish Wells.

Harbour Island has several beach resorts for vacationers, but there's also an active fishing industry.  These fellows are cleaning conch (well, two of them are....).

Most of the villages have a government building,with post office, social services, and sometimes a clinic.  This is the government center at Dunmore Town, Harbour Island.

Southerners will recognize the local grocery....sort of.

Harbour Island has pink sand beaches (if you look closely, in just the right light).  Nancy scooped up jugs of it for use in shell projects.

From Spanish Wells we endured an uncomfortable 50-mile crossing to Little Harbour in the Abacos.  Leaving the Eleuthera Banks we went from water depths of 10-15 feet to 10-15,000 feet.  Seas came from every direction and the winds were higher than forecast.  About 40 miles out we encountered heavy rain with nearby lightning strikes, but not much wind.  The rain was welcome, washed all the salt off the boat.

Little Harbour is home to the world-famous Johnson Foundry, where they pour bronze art works in the traditional lost-wax method.  We were able to witness a pour.

They make the bronze out of scrap metals, with some glass thrown in, heated to more than 2000 degrees.  Sometimes they get slight burns even through their heat-resistant clothing.

 Here is Pete Johnson, son of the original artist, pouring the molten bronze into molds.

We had lunch at the equally world-famous Pete's Pub.  Peter said the mahi sandwich was the best he's ever had.  Here's Pete's Pub.  The floors are sand.

 

Northbound Through the Exumas

Our first stop after Black Point was a large cay called Big Majors Spot, a short dinghy ride from Staniel Cay and Thunderball Grotto.  Big Majors is uninhabited except for these guys.  They're used to being fed by the cruisers.  We had to take care to keep them from joining us in the dinghy.



Nancy gave them our garbage.  They seem to like banana peels a lot.

Staniel Cay has a friendly marina with a nice restaurant.  We walked through the village.

Thunderball is smaller than it looks in the movies, but snorkelling there is too cool to miss.  We entered through a small opening, careful not to hit our heads on the sharp rocks.  Once inside we found many fish and corals, illuminated in patches by sunlight coming in from holes in the top of the cavern.  We found an exit on the opposite side of the cave and rode the currents around the island, enjoying a wide variety of reef creatures on the way.  There were also pairs of birds nesting in the rocks just over our heads.  It was so beautiful, we went around twice.

The cruisers anchored off Big Majors got together on the beach for an impromptu party.  Happens all the time wherever boaters congregate.

We spent a day poking through Pipe Creek by dinghy.  It's a beautiful place -- not really a creek, more like a lagoon surrounded by cays of various sizes.  We visited nearby Sampson Cay Club, perhaps the nicest marina/resort we've ever seen. 

We intended to anchor off Shroud Cay and take the dinghy through the creeks in the island's interior.  The winds had other plans for us, so we hid from them in the anchorage at Norman's Cay.  Norman's was a drug smuggler's den until the Bahamas Defense Force cleared them out (with a little help from the U.S military).  We dinked around and found some shells.  This little island holds the graves of an American couple who loved these islands.

Our last stop in the Exuma chain was Allens Cay, famous for a species of iguana found nowhere else.  Tour boats from Nassau bring hordes from the cruise ships down to see them.  When the tour boats come, dozens of iguana hit the beach looking for handouts.

Off the south shore of Allens we found a nice patch of reef with a wide variety of corals.  Allens is home to many juvenile conch, too; we found a small queen helmet shell, but it was inhabited, so we left it.

We enjoyed the Exumas.  Here's sunset at Big Majors Spot.

Black Point

This is the anchorage at Black Point, Great Exuma, the southernmost point of our trip.  From here, we're headed home by way of about a dozen more cays.

Dinner at Lorraine's Restaurant & Internet Cafe is a must for most cruisers.  The fish and conch are done Bahamian style.

"De Mail Boat" comes once a week or so to these islands, delivering fresh vegetables and all sorts of special orders. 



Its arrival triggers a flurry of activity all over Black Point.  People pick up their goods, then clean out the grocery stores.

Barb, Barry and Nancy waiting for the mail boat.

After checking out the newly arrived groceries we walked across the island to the beach.  On the way we found a blowhole -- a deep hole in the rock, open to the water in the bottom, which makes a guyser or a fine mist when hit by waves.

Nancy found this on the beach and wondered what took a bite out of it.