The Abacos...Celebrian's Home Away From Home

Sunset on the east coast of Great Abaco.

These pictures were taken the day we were kayaking around the Manjack area.

This picture shows the difference in boating styles in The Bahamas.
We are soon to up anchor and head out of White Sound in Green Turtle. The front is through and the wind is down. We want to spend the next few days up at Manjack and Powell if the weather lets us. We will return to Black Sound in Green Turtle next Friday afternoon and plan to spend the weekend at the dock getting the boat ready to be hauled on Monday morning. This week we will be cleaning lockers, doing hand laundry and anything else that we can do while at anchor. Rob did some work replacing hoses in our anchor locker yesterday so we are already in boat yard mode which means b oat chaos.
This picture shows the Green Turtle Ferry on its route through the Sounds.
We are meeting up with Lynn and Peter today and Lynn has some veggies from Marsh Harbour for us so that will be a treat.

This is how the captain likes to end his day especially if the head or the anchor hose doesn't leak.

The East Coast of Great Abaco Island....New Anchorages for Celebrian

Celebrian anchored off of Cooperstown in the Abacos. Cooperstown is a true Bahamian settlement not affected by tourism.

The day we came north through The Whale the winds were from the west so we decided to anchor along the east coast of Great Abaco. We normally anchor at Powell or Manjack because the trade winds are blowing from the east. Since coming up from Marsh Harbour the weather has been anything but normal and we have been getting a lot of south wind and very warm spring like temperatures. The change in the wind direction has allowed us to explore the western side of the Sea of Abaco and it has been most enjoyable. Not only have we been by ourselves but we have found beaches that cruisers seldom go to so the shelling has been fabulous. On this beach we found all of these shells in the picture.
I also found this measled cowrie which is a real treasure.

We spent a day over at Manjack doing some paddling when the winds shifted but soon enough we were driven back to the other side. Since it is less than 3 miles across it is not a big deal to move. It is surprising how large the waves can build even in that distance. Every once in awhile a sport fisherman goes by and this is the result of their wake.

As most of you know my captain is a bit anal when it comes to spare parts. Our head (toilet) is 23 years old and Rob has 8 spare part kits for it. Last year we flew down a new Jabsco head (without the china bowl) but until we had tried every option it was not going to be installed. Finally the old head was pronounced dead and I can now flush without leaks....what a joy that is!??

Now Rob has to begin collecting spare part kits for the new head....heaven help us if anything goes wrong with the new head in the next week and a half!?!Having spare parts for everything is the only way to survive as a cruiser. Yesterday was a case in point. Rob stepped on the shower bag head and broke the plastic nozzle....not to worry...our spare shower part's bag had a beautiful new shower head and we are back in business.
Our first cruising season in the Abacos we stopped at Cooperstown on Great Abaco. We had enjoyed our visit so much that we decided that we would try and get back there again this year. It is a truly Bahamian settlement that gets very few tourists and we are quite the novelty when we anchor off the town dock. This year we didn't get a chance to get to the Conch Crawl Bar; however we did get a couple of loads of laundry done at the "C & C Laundrymat"and picked up our favourite take out conch dinner ...one eight dollar meal feeds us both!

The locals are very friendly and always happy to have their pictures taken.

Can you guess what this is?

There are signs through out The Bahamas about sustainable fishing but we sometimes wonder whether the fishermen are thinking in those terms. Our hope is that there will be conch and lobster here for the next generation.

We have been watching a very interesting documentary that we got from Peter and Lynn called Deadliest Catch and it is about the king crab fishing in the Bering Sea. The season is usually only about 3 days long and is based on quota. The boats can take so many crab that they have to limit the season so that the stocks can survive.
We sailed north of Cooperstown to check out another beach area and paddling spot. It was a nice private spot but not anything as special as milk conch beach. Since we are expecting a front with north and west winds it was time to head back to Green Turtle where we are today April 1st. We are anchored in White Sound because you can not anchor in Black Sound. Besides We will have to be at Abaco Yacht Services in Black Sound soon enough to get ready for haul out on the 11th. As it happened Heather and Murray from Windswept 4 are anchored here so we had cocktails with them last night on board Celebrian. It was great to see them after their trip to Cuba last month and to hear all about their adventures.

Return to the Hub ...Marsh Harbour in the Spring

Spring has sprung in Marsh Harbour and there are lots of blossoms on the trees.

Goldberry and her crew are always loaded when they leave Marsh Harbour.

This mural was painted on the side of the hardware store and it does a very good job of depicting life in The Bahamas.

Marsh Harbour is never one of our favourite stops but a necessary one for getting boat chores done....laundry and groceries being the key ones. Rob also did some looking at what batteries are available as we have been limping along with our Surettes which are five years old. We are our own electrical company so our batteries are critical to our floating home. Wives sometimes call their husands amp Nazis but since I don't have things like hair dryers etc.I usually don't get in to too much trouble over power usage. That being said even the computer uses precious amps and often I will use it on its battery and then charge it when the engine or Little Harry is running.

This is why we snorkel in The Bahamas.



From Marsh we did a day trip out to Fowl Cay to do some snorkelling as the weather was great for a paddle on the ocean. Lynn and Peter had to stay in town to pick up their daughter Beth. Beth came for a whirlwind 5 day visit from New York City where she is a chiropractor. We met them at Matt Lowe's Cay and they joined us on Celebrian for hamburgers in paradise. It was nice to see Beth again as we had met her two years ago when she joined First Edition in Staniel Cay in the Exumas.
The next day we decided to head north and get through the Whale Cay passage while the weather was good. We will meet up with First Edition in a few days after Beth goes home and they head north.