Spanish Cay (2014-01-17)

N26° 56.296', W77° 31.444'

Tonight we are in Spanish Cay Marina.  Today we completed our transit of the Little Bahama Bank and have now entered the Sea of Abaco!

We had a couple blustery days in Great Sale Cay.  The front that was due to come through on Wednesday ended up rolling in early in the afternoon, and it brought with it very strong winds and rains.  While we were quite well sheltered from the waves that were pounding the western shore of the island, we still were bouncing around a bit in the waves that the winds were churning up in the anchorage.

Wednesday morning two of the sailboats headed out, and the third repositioned himself further into the harbour.  Around 0900 another sailboat and two trawlers showed up, with the weather not far behind them.

Neighbours

Here it comes

After the first wave of the front hit we had a little respite, but by then the winds had started to pick up.  Shortly after that a catamaran sailboat and then a large 70ish foot yacht also entered the harbour and dropped anchor.

The winds were very strong through the night on Wednesday, and I was up a few times checking on our position.  Thursday morning dawned grey and windy.  Shortly after dawn the large catamaran sailboat that was next to us raised their anchor and headed out of the anchorage.  While I envied their boat, I didn't envy the conditions they were heading out into.  I could see the open water of the bank through a low spot on the island, and it was very rough, with huge whitecaps breaking far out on the bank.  However, their boat looked like it could handle rough conditions, and with the wind as strong as it was today they were going to have a great fast sail.

A windy Thursday morning

Shortly after the catamarn left the large yacht also headed out.  Again, I'm sure that boat had stabilizers up the yahoo, so I would imagine these conditions wouldn't faze them too much.  I however was quite happy to stay in the shelter of the harbour for the day.

The wind eased through the day, and by about 1500 it seemed to have calmed enough that we decided to head over to the island in the dinghy.  According to Active Captain, there was an old concrete dock on the harbour side with a path leading from it out to the beach on the western shore.  It was a bit of a wet dinghy ride to the island, but after a little scouting around and we found the old dock and got ourselves tied up.

Dinghy, with the mothership in the background

It took a bit of searching before we found the old path that lead across the island to a beautiful beach that pretty much ran for most of the west shore of Great Sale Cay.

The path to the beach

Great Sale Cay beach

After a couple hours of exploring we decided to head back to the boat.  Still a bit of a wet dinghy ride back, but the winds had dropped significantly through the day, and were forecasted to get quite calm by Friday morning.

Another great Great Sale sunset

Friday morning dawned bright and with calmer winds than they had been in weeks.  By 0830 we had the anchor up and were heading back out onto the Little Bahama Bank.  The conditions that greeted us were the best we'd had since arriving in the Bahamas.  The waves were about 1/2' which made for a very comfortable travel day.  It was so nice in fact that we decided to bypass our planned destination of Hawksbill Cay and the village of Foxtown.  We decided that the conditions were too good to last so we pressed on to try to get clear of the Little Bahama Bank altogether.

Center of the world rock

We had looked at anchoring off of Spanish Cay, but at the last minute decided to spoil ourselves and headed in to the marina there for the night.  Spanish Cay is a private island with some very nice beaches and scenery.  Another thing it's famous for is the sharks that come in to do clean up when the fishermen clean their catches for the day.  Sure enough, not long after tieing up the boat we looked into the water and saw a number of sharks swimming around.  Don't think we're gonna go for a swim here...

A big shark

We spent the rest of the day exploring the island and then finished off the evening with a nice dinner of fresh caught grouper at the marina's restaurant.  Tomorrow we'll continue our journey down the Sea of Abaco, and will probably stop at Green Turtle Cay for a couple days.