Another Week in Paradise
This past week was probably typical for us in the Abaco. We went to several social functions here in Hopetown and spent a few days out on the hook in one of the Abaco’s most beautiful cruising destinations, Little Harbour.
On a recent night here in Hopetown there was a fund raiser put on by an organization that caters to special needs children. It was held at the Hopetown Lodge, overlooking the ocean, and attended by about 150 people. The fund raiser was actually a concert performed by a nonprofit music group called “Music Doing Good.”Knowing nothing about this fund raiser, we were not planning to attend, but the marina was giving away 2 tickets to this show and Dena and I were the lucky winners of the free tickets. I did not know what to expect, but I really enjoyed the concert. Of course these events are also social gatherings. The seating was pre-arranged to ensure that people would sit with people they did not know to allow everyone to expand their social circle. We met a nice couple from Rhode Island who had moved to Florida. They had been cruising in the Bahamas for 12 years, first on their sailboat and now on a powerboat.
Atlantic Coast on east side of Elbow Cay across from White Sound
The day after the concert at the Lodge was the Super Bowl. Every restaurant in Hopetown was having a party. Since the restaurant/bar at our marina was also having a party, we decided to watch the game there. The marina made it worthwhile, the appetizers and beer were half price all night.
The morning after the Super Bowl the weather was calm and several boats from our marina were headed down to Little Harbour in the south part of the Sea of Abaco. Little Harbour is a beautiful natural harbor in a remote area on the east side of the main Abaco Island. It is a must-see destination in the Abacos. It is the location of Pete’s Pub and the Johnston Gallery. Little Harbour used to be only accessible by boat, but recently a dirt road was finally cut in to the harbor area, so it now possible to get there by car.
Barrier island along the southern Sea of Abaco
Randolph Johnston and his wife came to Little Habour in the 1950s and founded an art colony. Little Harbour, at the time, had very few residents (and frankly still has few residents) and there was no electricity in the area. Little Harbor is a well-protected harbor with tall rock walls with caves on two sides of the harbor. Randolph Johnston reportedly lived in the caves while he was building his house in the 1950s. Randolph Johnston, who died in 1992, became an internationally known artist renowned for his wax castings in bronze.
Today, Randolph’s son Pete runs the Johnston Gallery which makes life sized marine bronze statues of the local wildlife. To say that these bronze statues are collector’s items is an understatement. Pete opened an open-air pub and bar on the beach in Little Harbour which is a great place to go for lunch or dinner. The pub has a sandy floor and you really feel like you are on a remote island. We spent three days in Little Harbour touring the caves, the Johnston Gallery, walking the beach on the ocean side, and visiting an abandoned lighthouse which is in ruins today because of repeated beatings from storms. The first evening we had a potluck dinner with the other two boats that traveled down to Little Harbour with us on the very large powerboat named “Waylaid.” This powerboat is owned by Scott and Kathryn who are from Bermuda. The second night we ate at Pete’s Pub. There seem to be turtles everywhere in Little Harbour. We would see them stick their heads out of the water all day long while on our boat and we would see them swimming alongside our dinghy when we motored to shore.
Motor Vessel “Waylaid” and Pete’s Pub on the east side of Little Harbour
In the Bahamas, the bottoms of boats get very few barnacles, but they do get marine growth that looks more like seaweed. Since the water in Little Harbour is pristine, I spent a couple hours of one day cleaning the marine growth off Odyssey’s waterline, propeller, and all the thru-hull fittings. This required me to make about a dozen free-dives under the boat while just holding my breath. Fortunately, it is very easy to get this growth off the bottom using just a hand brush. I also beached our dinghy, took off the outboard engine, and flipped the dinghy over in the shallow water to clean the marine growth off the bottom. After cleaning the bottom, I flipped the dinghy back over, put the engine back on, and motored back to our boat. This task took only about 30 minutes.
Scrubbing the marine growth from the waterline of “Odyssey”
The weather forecast for the next few days was predicting another northern weather system coming through the area, which means heavy winds for us here in the Abaco. So we decided it was time to get back to Hopetown. Little Harbour provides a bit of a challenge for deep draft boats. The 200 yard channel to enter the harbor is well marked but the water depth is only 3.5 feet at low tide and, with about a 3 foot tide change, it is about 6.5 feet at high tide. If you have a 7-foot draft sailboat, you cannot get into Little Harbour. Odyssey has a 5-foot draft, allowing us to get through the channel at mid-tide or higher.
The challenge in deciding when to exit the harbor is to be sure that the channel is deep enough to allow you to get out and provide enough time to get to your next destination. In our case heavy weather was expected the next day. We wanted to get back to Hopetown that night which is 18 miles away, about a 3.5 hour motor for us. However, the high tide that day was at 1645 hours (4:45 P.M.) and you do not want to be out after 1800 hours as it is almost dark. If we did not go that day, we may be stuck in Little Harbour for another 3 or 4 days. Being stuck in Little Harbour for several more days is certainly not the worst thing in the world as long as you have enough water and fuel. These services are not available in Little Harbour. However, we were ready to return to our home base.
The entrance to Little Harbour
Mid-tide was about 1345 hours that day. However, even though the charts indicated we could get through at this time, we could not be sure as we have not gone through this channel at mid-tide before. The seabed may have changed since the charts were produced. The large powerboat Waylaid was also headed back to Hopetown, so Waylaid, having a shallower draft, volunteered to go through the channel ahead of us and closely monitor the soundings to see if we could make .it through.
At 1400 hours the Waylaid went through the Little Harbour channel and radioed back saying the thinnest water in the channel was about 6 feet, so we could make it through. After passing through the channel, the wind was hitting Odyssey at a forward beam reach from the starboard side. This allowed us to motor-sail back to Hopetown averaging about 6 knots. We actually made it back to Hopetown in 3 hours entering the Harbour at 1700 hours a little ahead of schedule. Once we got into Hopetown, we pulled up the Lighthouse Marina fuel dock. We took on 7.5 gallons of fuel for a cost of $45. This is the first fuel we have purchased since our first day in Hopetown on 9 December 2012.
Dave on”Windchyme II” in Little Harbour
The night after we got back from Little Harbour some friends came by about 1700 hours to ask us about our trip to Little Harbour. We invited them on our boat for a drink. Then another couple came by, and then a few folks from the other boats that went to Little Harbour with us came by. Next thing we knew we were having an impromptu dock party by our boat with over a dozen people which lasted for about 6 hours that evening.
The next day Scott and Kathryn on Waylaid headed to Marsh Harbour to do a large provisioning run. The grocery store in Marsh Harbour is larger, has more choices, and is generally cheaper than Hopetown’s stores. Dena and a few others in the marina joined them as it is easier to get groceries back to your boat this way than to take the local ferry back and forth. I stayed on the the boat to start preparing our 2012 income tax returns. Some things you cannot escape in the Bahamas.
Anyway, this week is probably closest to what passes for a typical week for us in the Abacos.
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