Our first morning in the Abacos

With our arrival in the Abacos we have returned to a lattitude equivalent to Ft Lauderdale. It wasn't that long ago we were in the tropics.

We enjoyed our first day in the Abacos on a day I think is Monday anywhere else. We slept late for the first time in many days. It’s amazing how every morning there are things to do that require an early rise. Sunday we got up before sunrise for our trip up to Abaco. So after a lazy start we had French Toast from some of the remaining coconut, cinnamon and raisin bread we had in the freezer from Black Point.till excellent!

We puttered around the boat all morning and then went into Pete’s Pub for lunch. There were several turtles swimming around the boat and in the lagoon. Pete’s place was busy, the food was good and it came out fairly quickly for an island place. After lunch we took our dinghy and ran the entrance channel using our portable depth sounder to check the channel depth. We saw no readings less than 6’ so we went back to the boat and secured everything.

Forecast was for the NW winds to die off into the evening and have weaker north winds come in behind. The rest of the week the weather is going to be very unsettled with 2 quick cold fronts coming through. Thursday is 100% chance of rain and gale force winds so we made marina reservations for Wednesday and Thursday nights in Marsh Harbor. During the day we can get errands done like shopping and laundry while the wind howls and the rain falls. I can also get a section of chain to use in hoisting the dinghy to replace the wire that broke. Being on anchor wouldn’t be profitable because we would have to stay in the boat all day as we wouldn’t even want to dinghy around in those conditions.

So we successfully made it out of the channel at mid-tide. The trip to our planned anchorage was less than 10 miles and the course required turns which would have taken us right into the wind so we opted to just motor. It usually take us about a mile to get the sails up and a mile to get them down so we would only sail less than an hour and with the heavy wind doing both would be challenging.

Well when we got out and away from the protection afforded by the harbor the wind was howling between 25-30 kts, not the 15-20 as expected. But the wind varied and the chop was worse in places as we motored through some very pretty but disturbed water and once behind the island where we intended to anchor relative calm prevailed. 

Setting the anchor was a bit challenging. I tried to use the CQR since it was relatively shallow and we only planned to be here one night. But it didn’t hold well. I dove on it and it didn’t inspire confidence in its ability to hold the boat in a blow. The bottom here is very grassy and hard so anchors to dig in really easily. So we pulled it up and I worked down the big Rocna and it seemed to be holding. I dove on it and it too was not well dug in but was digging in. So I let out more scope (have out about 60’), put on the bridle and backed down it. Dove on it again and it was dug in better.  Rocnas tend to work themselves in with load. So far we haven’t had much load and hopefully we won’t need to test it any more.

After the anchor excitement we went for a swim with our snorkel masks to see if there was life in the grass. Saw a few fish, a few conch and some junk. The water is shallow so retrieving the anchor in the morning shouldn’t be too difficult.

Tomorrow on to Man of War Cay which is just another short jaunt and hopefully another mooring so we can visit one of the town we did in our trip here in 2007.