June 14 - Nice sunny morning and we set off for Green Turtle Cay in light winds. Predictions are for winds to build to steady 15/20 for the next few days so it’s a good time to go through Whale Cay passage before seas can build. (Unless you are a very shallow draft vessel you must go through Whale Cay passage to pass further north through the Sea of Abaco. Whale Cay passage takes you out into the ocean around Whale Cay and back into the Sea of Abaco through a narrow pass and it is notorious for breaking seas and dangerous conditions when the winds is up). Our conditions couldn’t be more benign and we get to the entrance to White Sound on Green Turtle Cay at mid-tide on a falling tide. the tide is important because there is a very shallow bar that you must cross to get to the entrance channel [below 6 ft. at Mean Low Water {“MLW”)] and the entrance channel itself is very narrow and has only recently been dredged to 7 ft. at MLW. That’s all particularly important for us today because there is a full moon which means that low tide is meaningfully lower than MLW. Anyway, we make it into the harbor safely and find a place to put down our anchor. It’s surprising how small the harbor is, and the moorings in the harbor further reduce the space to anchor. We are told we are too big for any of the moorings, otherwise I would have taken one. Lots of small boat and small ferry traffic which I am not minding, but Kryss is. There are two marina’s in the harbor and a dive operation and it is fully enclosed, so if there were adequate swinging room and adequate it would be a good hurricane hole, but as it is, there is insufficient room to put down enough scope (anchor chain) to make it a good hurricane hole. Anyway, we dingy into the Green Turtle Club (a “resort and marina”) and buy tokens to do laundry and make a dinner reservation for tomorrow night. We also go to Brendal’s dive shop to look into what they are offering. Spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the boat. Kryss swims for over an hour and I read and watch the resident turtle surfacing from time to time.
June 15 - It’s a little overcast today and we have to do laundry, so perhaps that’s not such a bad thing. Lots of thunder and lightening around as the day progresses and it’s drizzling most of the afternoon, so after laundry is done we just hang out. Sun comes out around 4:00 and we swim from the boat at anchor and then go to Green Turtle Cay Club for dinner with the dinghy. Dinner is good but main course portion is small. It’s a small harbor so getting back to the boat at night is a snap. While we’re sitting in the cockpit the Tropic Breeze a 161 ft. tanker comes into the harbor right past us. It’s got a 33 ft. beam ((‘m getting this info from AIS) and it’s 374 ft. to shore. Sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t look that way from here. It’s intimidating to say the least as it passes between us and shore at night when it’s very difficult to judge size and distance.
June 16 - The day begins with sunshine but soon becomes overcast. We rent a golfcart at Brendal’s Dive Shop to go to Plymouth Settlement in Black Sound, which is the only town on Green Turtle Cay. There’s one main road and there are many more golf carts in use than cars. Town itself is tiny, with very narrow streets (some only suitable for golf carts) and small homes and shops pretty much all in wooden structures, most of them painted blue, green, or pink. We buy some pastry at McIntosh Bakery and we drive through the town which is centered around Black Sound Harbor, which is small, even smaller than White Sound Harbor where we’re anchored. We have a nice lunch at Harvey’s Grill which is on the harbor and we try to go to the museum, but it isn’t open. A fellow on the porch of the Post Office next door says that the person in charge of it will be back shortly, but it’s supposed to re-open at 1:00pm and there’s still no one there at 2:00pm. There’s a little park in the center of town called a Memorial Sculpture Garden which has a statue on a stone block in the middle dedicated to the Loyalists who first settled the Bahamas and from whom many Bahamians are descended, and it has busts of a number of prominent Bahamians on pedestals with plaques describing their lives, many of them apparently still living. Anyway, the usual afternoon thunderstorms are fast approaching and we decide not to wait any longer for the museum to open so we do our grocery shopping and return to the boat just before the rain starts. I don’t know if this is the regular weather for this time of year in the Bahamas, but the lightening is scary and the rain certainly “dampens” our desire to do anything outside. It’s not like Florida where you can expect a late afternoon thunderstorm to blow through quickly and then for the sun to come out again. We’re “hunkered down” for the rest of the afternoon. By the way, there’s a large green turtle that seems to live in the portion of the harbor where we’re anchored. I have been seeing him surface for air on a regular basis since we got here. He doesn’t stay on the surface very long, and Kryss seems never to be looking at the right place when he does, but I have seen him now many times. Kind of cool to be in Green Turtle Cay and have your own resident Green Turtle for company.
Comments