Little Harbor to Hope Town to Great Guana

Our friends and companions for the past week have been Pat and Gary on board Asolare, that beautiful Pearson 42 we first encountered at Great Sale Cay. We reunited in Marsh Harbor, sailed south towards Little Harbor, which is in fact a very little harbor down at about the ankle of Great Abaco Island that has at its entrance three feet at low tide. Journey draws five and a half and Asolare, six feet.

Little Harbor is located at one of the cuts between the Sea of Abaco and the Atlantic. It is a staging point to sail from the Abacos south to Eleuthera and the Exumas. Swells surge into the area. We anchored outside of the mouth of the Harbor, left our boats yawing in the surge, and checked the harbor out by dinghy, returned to the boats and went a few miles back north to anchor in Spencer’s Bight, that offered some protection from strong southwesterly winds. Next day we motored back south and entered Little Harbor at high tide without incident.

It is a beautiful spot, a true hurricane hole, with its narrow entrance, high bluffs to the west and high dunes to the south and east. Its opening is exposed to the North, but not far off of the entrance is shore that limits fetch and the chance for major seas to build and waltz in unwelcomed.

It’s the home of Pete’s pub, an open air bar with a makeshift roof, picnic tables on beach sand that sells t-shirts that say: “Where the elite eat with bare feet.” There’s another sign that says “pay your mooring fee at the bar”, or else. Next to the pub an old cabin cruiser has been pulled up high on the dune with a deck built off the back. A few tiny cabins line the low-side of the harbor. New, large homes perch on the bluffs on the other side. A boardwalk leads over the dune to the beach that is sand and jagged limestone, faces the full force of the Atlantic, and was serving well a few courageous surfers.

The other attraction is the bronze casting studio founded by Randolf and Margo Johnson in the 1950’s, now operated by their son Pete – caster of bronze and pub owner. The pub is the finer work, and the food wasn’t all that good. Bahamian, Kalik (kah-LICK) beer is very good and the four of us sat and talked until they literally turned off the lights.

Next day, March 13, we left at high tide, sailed back north and anchored off of Sandy Cay, an iffy holding ground, but okay for a day anchorage, and took the dinghy to moorings off of Sandy Cay reef for the best snorkeling outing yet. The four of us, based on a field guide fish chart claim that we have seen at least the following: Blue Tangs, Sergeant Majors, Yellowtail Snapper, Yellow Jack, Blue and Yellow Head Wrasse, Squirrel Fish, Spotfin and Four Eye Butterfly fish, and Stoplight, Red Band and Blue Parrotfish.

We headed for Snake Cay or Cormorant Cay as both offered lee to an expected north wind. Perhaps it was the rusted jagged tanks left from American logging operations that had denuded Great Abaco Island in the 1950s, perhaps it was the smoky fire from someone burning trash, perhaps it was the iron bulkhead of the company’s pier that had rusted into a jagged toothed jetty, more likely it was buzzards circling above and slouching in the trees that led us to take a pass on anchoring off of Snake Cay, and choose Cormorant, a half mile further north.

Next morning we piled into Asolare’s dinghy for the dinghy tour route noted on the chart that wends a channel between these low, uninhabited islets and Great Abaco Island. We spotted Spotted Rays, huge creatures, perhaps a six to eight foot span with a ten foot tail trailing. Magnificent!

That night we anchored off of Tiloo Cay, which gave us a mile long dinghy ride to Cracker P’s restaurant on Lubbers Cay. Cracker P’s got its name from a Georgia Cracker who killed a man, fled to the Bahamas, bought land, gardened a special hot pepper, and lived out his life, often naked, on Lubbers Cay. It’s perched on a dune, open air with ceiling fans and serves very good food.

On Saturday, March 15, we sailed back to Hope Town to introduce Asolare’s crew to this very special place and our base of operations for the next month or so. Over dinner we decided that you know your friends when you can talk about politics, religion and family.

We hauled the dinghy on a little beach on Hope Town harbor and were followed to shore by a Canadian couple with the same task in mind. We turned them, the dinghies that is, bottom up and scrubbed the slime, not much considering it had been in the water for a month.

A fleet of 15 Moorings charter boats with 90 people from a Rye, NY yacht club had reserved moorings in Hope Town months ago so we had a scheduled eviction on Tuesday, the day after Pat and Gary left on the pre-dawn high tide to begin their voyage back to Florida, to make room for this armada. We sailed yesterday in strong south easterlies about eleven miles to Great Guana Cay and rendezvoused with Nancy and Ed on Troubadour who received parts, made repairs and were eager to leave Marsh Harbor.

Joanna and Scot told us when we saw them a week ago that they had left a package for us at Grabbers, a beach restaurant on the Sea of Abaco Side of the Cay. It contained great pictures of Roland and his cat boat, whom they had encountered a year ago heading north on the ICW, and a book, Sailing Away from Winter, by a Nova Scotian. We’ll get the pictures to Roland this summer and enjoy reading another cruising story.

We also visited Nippers, and bar, pool, restaurant perched on the Atlantic side of the cay. It is a tiered palace of patios filled with teens on spring break being gangly and goofy in courtship. A sand floor inside the air conditioned gift shop was a bit much.

Today it is off to Marsh Harbor to a Mangoes Marina, to charge-up, restock, dust the chain plates and welcome Susan and Dennis on board on Thursday.

We are vacationing tourists, but we are foremost sailors on a journey. Between each of these spots, each day is marked by an exhilarating sail in warm, strong winds, but in the moderate seas of the protected Sea of Abaco. We often reef both jib and main and still reach 7.4 knots, even with the drag of pulling the dinghy with the outboard on it. The only frustration – and it is minor – is the distances are too short between anchorages and harbors to lengthen the time on a reach when the boat is perfectly balanced, pressing through the waves.

A benefit of these short sails is that they leave time and energy for riding another conveyance of our journey: to read and reflect on good books in the luxury of being fully awake and alert to what they have to say. They enrich these travels of sea and spirit and put into context the snippets of current events that we allow to come our way. The sea and authors of wisdom are humbling. They make for a truthful way of being.