Blue Pearl Sailing

Engine update…. we ordered our new fresh water pump on a Tuesday to Ft. Lauderdale. Even with horrific storms and flooding in Florida, our part somehow made it to Spanish Wells 4 days later! So Saturday night Rocky spent 5 hours installing it and fine tuning things and Sunday morning we were off to the Abacos!

The passage across the Northeast Providence Channel felt bittersweet. The forecast predicted it would be a motor day, but we were pleasantly surprised to enjoy a beautiful beam reach for most of the 55 nautical mile journey, just shy of 10 hours. We also knew The Abacos would be the last chain of islands Blue Pearl would visit before heading back to the states for hurricane season.

We landed at an anchorage off Lynyard Cay, tucking in as best we could knowing the next day was going to be a bit sporty. And sporty it was. Thankfully with a series of squalls passing through the area, we were only hit by one. Our friend on Elation just a bit further North had back to back squalls with wind direction shifts, anchor dragging, and damage to his inflatable dinghy! We considered ourselves lucky.

After a couple days stuck at anchor due to weather, we were able to venture out on the dinghy. We went up & around to Tahiti beach. A vast sand bar at low tide, where you’ll find a floating bar and restaurant. We treated ourselves to a couple of appropriately priced drinks (seeing as this bar on a barge comes down from Hopetown every afternoon).

From there, we went up to Hopetown, a small village on Elbow Cay. Hopetown has one of the most iconic sights in all of The Bahamas; the Elbow Reef lighthouse which began operation in 1863. This lighthouse is the only one of its kind in the world that’s hand-wound by a keeper and filled with kerosene. 101 steps to the top, standing at 89 feet tall, you get beautiful views of the harbour and out to the Sea of Abaco.

Back in November when we were still in the Chesapeake, we crossed paths with another boat also heading to The Bahamas, s/v Mojo. We pulled out of Solomons together, heading South. Finally, 5 months later, our paths crossed again. Anchored nearby, we met halfway by dinghy at the Abaco Inn for lunch and beers by the pool.

We had two more stops before making the passage through Whale Cay Cut. First stop was Marsh Harbor to do our last big provision while in The Bahamas. We were there just long enough for a quick lunch at the infamous Snappas (a place where Rocky had perhaps a little too much fun during a boat delivery back in 2018). I discovered a local amber ale on tap which was such an exciting find after months of Kalik & Sands. Not only that, but the liquor store next door had them on sale for $1/bottle! You can bet I stocked Blue Pearl with as many as I could carry back to the dinghy.

We picked up anchor that same day and sailed across to Man O War Cay. This is where our love of the Abacos truly started. Weather was in our favor and we were able to dinghy around to the barrier reef. This was only the beginning of all the fish we would catch while in the Abacos! The most fruitful (for us) of all the chains of islands & cays in the Bahamas.

There’s a lot more of the Abacos to explore and with hurricane season around the corner we sailed further north through Whale Cay Cut to Manjack Cay where we’d have a very exciting visitor. She’ll be in the next post…

-LS