RED SKY AT NIGHT . . .

. . . sailor's delight!

           The trip from Spanish Wells to the Abacos was 1) exciting, 2) easy, 3) fun, 4) uneventful, 5)  and not so UNeventful. We had anchored at Royal Island and left before sunrise.  Kathleen was still recovering from some kind of infection that had taken a mind to give her a hard time and we almost returned to Spanish Wells.  In the end, we headed North to the Abacos and as the sun rose over Egg Island, we bid “Goodbye” to Eleuthera.

            Stiff southeast breezes drove us along at 7 knots, woohoo!  We did wing and wing for a couple of hours. 

That is such a peaceful point of sail; you hardly feel the wind and the boat hardly feels like it is moving.  Things went that way for most of the day until . . . yikes, squall!  Suddenly the wind veered and really began to blow.  So much for the slight chance of squalls.  Thank goodness I had reefed the mainsail prior to getting underway.  The thing about squalls is that you can really make time if you can put up with the discomfort and thankfully, they don’t last very long.

            At any rate, we came through the cut at Little Harbor and anchored off Lynyard Cay 10 and a half hours after leaving Royal Island.  The sunset was beautiful.  After a good night’s sleep and a leisurely breakfast, we headed to Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island.

            We connected with Lee and Sherry on Alesto, a couple I’ve known for several years.  We rented a car with them and headed south.  We stopped at Pete’s Pub at Little Harbor and Cherokee Point.  Little Harbor was settled by sculptor/artist Randolph Johnston.  He and his family lived in a cave for a while.  If you time your visit well, you can be there on a casting day at his foundry where he creates his amazing sculptures.  Today, the tiny community consists of a handful of cute homes.

            Cherokee Point was settled by Loyalists who left the US in the 1780s.  It is a neat little community of a few hundred souls.  Their homes are well kept, the streets are clean and flowers abound.  The 770 foot wooden pier is a sight to behold.It spans sand flats where the water is only a foot or so deep at high tide and ends in water deep enough to allow dockage for boats.

  

            We were glad that we were too early for lunch at Pete’s Pub because we had a delightful lunch at Sandy Point—grilled lobster with a spicy butter sauce!  The restaurant, a modest place on the beach looks west over the ocean. 

The beach provided some of the best shelling yet.

            The ride to Marsh Harbor took us through one of the numerous forest fires that have plagued the island for some time. 

The low-lying island, like Florida, gets more than its share of lightning strikes which ignite fires that race through the Abaco pine forests.  Kathleen and I saw more of them the following day when we drove to Treasure Cay and points north.