George Town to various anchorages near Marsh Harbour Abacos Bahamas

We left George Town at 1120hrs on Wednesday 17 April for an overnight passage of over 200 miles towards the Abacos Islands at the northern end of the Bahamas.

It would have been fabulous to stay in George Town a bit longer but we needed to start to make progress north for a rendezvous with friends near Charleston in the USA.  To achieve that mileage we had to take the good sailing weather opportunities as they were dealt and, unfortunately for us, there were a series of fronts coming down over the Bahamas which really messed up our plans to mosey north stopping at several anchorages enroute.

Instead, we planned this longer passage towards the Abacos to make the time to still have some fun in our last few days in the Bahamas before the longer passage north towards the USA.  Leaving George Town when we did meant that the sailing conditions were excellent with an easterly 15 knot wind.  Our only real issue was deciding upon a routing.

Sunset on Wednesday 17 April heading towards Little San Salvador

The Eleuthera Islands lay on our direct course to the Abacos and so we needed to decide if we went east or west of them.  Going west would be a slightly shorter passage but we would need to negotiate some pretty shallow channels to the east of Nassau. Far easier we concluded, especially as we were sailing overnight, was to go east and pick a route though the passage between Little San Salvador and Eleuthera Island.

The overnight passage was completely uneventful.  It was just as we like it, easy fast sailing with a steady 15 knot wind on our starboard beam.  Those conditions continued all the way through until 1300hrs when we were around 25 miles short of our destination.  At that point, as forecast, the wind veered to become more from the southeast so we poled out the genoa to starboard to keep our speed up.

The Abacos were just about becoming visible on the horizon when a welcoming committee arrived to check on our progress.

We’ve seen a lot of dolphins in our travels but they still bring a smile to our faces whenever they play in our bow wave.

Turning north after passing through North Bar Channel

A couple of hours later we were through the North Bar Channel on the eastern side of Great Abaco Island and it was time to find a suitable anchorage to sit out the impeding frontal weather.

Pelican Cays

The 2 complications were that it is quite shallow here and we couldn’t make it up to Marsh Harbour before nightfall.  We weren’t the only one with those difficulties; we passed a beautiful yacht anchored to the west of Pelican Cays which was probably just too large to get much further through the shallow channels.

Approaching the anchorage off Tilloo Cay

Lubbers Quarters

Our 2 metre draft afforded us more options and, with an eye to the depth gauge, we managed to get into the edge of the anchorage off Tilloo Cay.  We scouted around but eventually dropped anchor between Tilloo Cay and the southern end of Lubbers Quarter.  It would have been nice to have been further north to get some shelter from the west but it was just too shallow for us.  However, it was a good anchorage for the time being and perfect to allow us some rest after our 30 hour passage from George Town.

The reason for wanting shelter from the west was that, with the passage of the front, the wind was going to clock around and blow strongly from the west and northwest.  We had a lazy start to Friday but when we were up we started to monitor the forecast wind closely.  On balance we decided that the anchorage off Tilloo Cay might get a little uncomfortable if the wind was as strong as expected and to complicate things moving to a more sheltered spot would need to be timed carefully to fit in with the tides.

Later than we wanted to, at 1730hrs on 19March we finally moved when there was just enough tide rise for BV to get over the shallow bar into the channel which leads around to the Marsh Harbour area.  It was too late to get into Marsh Harbour before nightfall and with the weather forecast we expected the harbour to be crammed full of yachts so a night anchoring exercise was not a sensible option.

Off Sandy Cay near Man-o-War Cay. 1000hrs on Sat just before we left

Instead we hid behind Sandy Cay, near the southern end of Man-o-War Cay, for the night of 19^th.  It’s not really a normal anchorage but it did provide enough shelter for us.  It was a bit more exposed to the south than we really wanted but it was one of the few places where we could get some shelter from the forecast westerly winds and squalls which would arrive in the early hours of the morning.  In cases like this, neither of us sleeps well during a blow unless one of us is up and so we ran anchor watches overnight which gave us few extra hours awake for some blog writing.

In morning it was thoroughly wet and miserable.  We spent a short time writing some more blog entries and I also got out the sewing kit out to mend our burgees and ensign which had taken a bit of a battering in the strong winds and were now looking a little raggedy.  But by mid-morning the wind had dropped off and the rain eased to next to nothing so it was time to look for a better anchorage with more protection from the northwest which is where the wind was moving around to.  For the first time since we were in North Carolina in December, we donned full oilskins and moved 4 miles around to the southern side of Marsh Harbour.  The afternoon remained overcast and grey (hence I took no photographs) so we did some more blog writing and plotted our move north to Charleston.  Tuesday looked to be the best day to set off north towards the USA but before we left the Bahamas we wanted to try to get in some more SCUBA diving.  That was now possible for us with the generator running again so that we were able to make lots of fresh water to rinse the SCUBA gear afterwards.  But we needed to work out where to go, so there was bit more planning needed.

Heading north past Sugar Loaf Cay and Matt Lowe’s Cay on our way up to Man-o-War Cay

An extra night sitting out the weather made a big difference and in the morning we were back to beautiful clear blue skies.  Our planning the previous evening had highlighted that there were some reasonable looking dive sites on the outside of Man-o-War Cay and the smaller cays to its northwest. So, at 0910 on Sunday 21March we lifted the anchor and, for the third time, headed up the eastern side of Sugar Loaf Cay and Matt Lowe’s Cay but this time we were going further north, to the vicinity of Fowl Cay Reef.

Anchorages near Marsh Harbour, Bahamas