It's Wednesday Thursday - and we are still in the Abacos. On Tuesday, we motored from Hope Town to Little Harbour, the southernmost harbor in the Abacos. The forecast called for winds 10-15 but we had less than 10 most of the way and since we were traveling downwind we opted to motor. We also had to time our arrival carefully as Little Harbour is the shallowest harbor we've been to yet, and we could not enter or leave the harbor except at the peak of high tide. The shallowest part of the entry was 5'9" and we draw about 5'3". Most of the time in the Abacos the actual depth has been comfortably over what's on the charts, but not here. We had a few seconds of breath-holding watching the depth-finder decrease as we entered into the harbor.
In fact, two catamarans ran aground trying to enter a few hours after we arrived (which was quite impressive as the whole point of a catamaran is it only draws a few feet). Both had to wait for the next high tide late in the evening to float off. Anyway, they provided the day's entertainment for the rest of the boats in the harbor. And did I mention they were both charter boats? Both the Moorings and Sunsail were represented.
Unlike the other harbors in the Abacos, Little Harbour is fairly undeveloped, with only a few homes and one restaurant/bar called Pete's Pub and Gallery. Pete is the son of artists who moved to Little Harbour in the 50s. The gallery features the work of 2 or 3 artists, and the Pub is an open-air hut on the beach decorated with t-shirts left behind by visitors (including a "Keep Austin Weird" shirt, of course). We ate dinner with several other boaters and it was excellent.
We had intended to leave for Eleuthera (a 50-mile trip) on Wednesday morning, but realized before we left Hope Town that as we can only get in and out of Little Harbour at high tide, we would not be able to leave it early enough to make the trip to Eleuthera on Wednesday. Instead we opted to spend a day in Little Harbour, then leave the next day at high tide, anchor nearby, and leave early for Eleuthera on Thursday. We followed the plan even though Wednesdays's weather was cloudy, windy, and a little chilly - a sharp contrast from yesterday's sun and light winds.
We had two possibilities for anchoring, so we chose the closest one first and dropped our anchor. Unfortunately, it had surge from the nearby cut leading to the ocean, and the boat started rolling back and forth from the surge and up and down from the chop. Instant headache. I immediately went down below and closed my eyes and started thinking about going back to Pete's Pub. After 15 minutes we pulled up the anchor and moved to the other anchorage, which was much better. We spent the next few hours getting the boat ready for our passage, which included pulling the dinghy out of the water, scrubbing the algae off the bottom, and deflating it. Ah, the glamorous life of living on a boat.
We hoped to leave for Eleuthera today, but last night we picked up a conversation on the VHF between a couple of other boaters waiting to make the crossing. They had a couple of different sources of weather data that indicated that today would not be good. We joined in the conversation, and after our discussion decided to hold off today at well. We would like to make the crossing in the company of other boats if we can. On the other hand, trying to predict the weather from the various and often non-agreeing sources on the internet and radio is a little bit like going to palm reader (the palm reader might be more accurate), and everyone's interpretation and comfort level is different. We would like the winds to be consistently < 18 knots and the waves to be moderate with 8-9 second intervals. The forecast for today was winds at 20-25 and waves with a 6 second interval - thus a no go.
It's still cloudy and chilly today. Hill rigged up our new wi-fi extender to pick up internet from Little Harbour and is looking for more weather data. I laid down some sealant in the head to complement our shower installation (again - our glamorous existence). The crew of one of the other boats anchored near us is going to stop by in their dinghy in a bit and we may go explore the island we are anchored next to.
Comments