Passing Through the Abacos

We are making a quick pass through the Abacos, revisiting our favorite spots from last year.

Pete's Pub and Gallery

New paint on Hope Town Lighthouse

Weather Forecasting

In the US, numerous weather resources are readily available. For the mariner, it is as easy as tuning the VHF radio to the nearest NOAA weather station. NOAA continuously broadcasts marine and other weather products. Once you leave the US, it is a whole different story. Our primary means of obtaining accurate, reliable weather information is our SSB radio. Chris Parker provides weather and routing information each morning (except Sundays) for the Bahamas and the entire Caribbean. Chris is a sailor and broadcasts from his Morgan 34 'Bel Ami' in Florida. Equally important to us are our GRIB (Gridded Binary Data) files, which we download daily for our geographic area. These are data files from forecasting models. We use the GFS (Global Forecasting System), which is NOAA's forecasting model. There are other models we sometimes use, such as WW3, which forecasts ocean wave dynamics. We view this data with GRIB Explorer from OCENS. A GRIB file contains a lot of data, and presentation is important for the analysis. We download barometric pressure, wind, wave, and precipitation at 6-hour intervals for the next few days, usually five. There are longer forecast time frames, but the accuracy deteriorates significantly. With Chris Parker's forecast, particularly his synoptic forecast, and the GRIB files, we usually have a high confidence level in the forecast for the next 2 - 3 days. One of the nice benefits of weather forecasting is that you can evaluate forecast accuracy fairly quickly.


The screen print of a recent GRIB file shows the Abacos, outlined in white. Our position is the red cross. Wind barbs show the wind direction and speed at 2:00 pm. The solid lines are barometric pressure, and the dashed lines are wave height.

Visiting Eleuthera

We returned to Warderick Wells, moving about 28 miles south of Normans Cay after saying farewell to Warren and Karen. With the forecasted wind direction, we wanted to improve our wind angle for the crossing to Eleuthera. The move paid off big time. We turned the engine off as soon as we cleared the cut and had a wonderful sail all the way over until we were on the bank at Eleuthera. Every place we visit is unique. Eleuthera receives far fewer visiting cruisers and, therefore, cruisers are not really part of its economy, as is the case with many of the islands. We made three overnight stops on Eleuthera. Our plan was to stop at Spanish Wells, just north of Eleuthera, but with a forecast of approaching high winds, we did not want to get pinned down. Near Spanish Wells is Royal Island with a great anchorage, but the island is private. There really are no good anchorages in the crowded harbor at Spanish Wells. Not wanting to spend a week on the boat waiting on the weather at Royal Island, we pushed on, and at that, we were cutting it close. The winds were forecast to build in the afternoon and to be almost directly on our nose. We left early and pushed hard, and the winds came in exactly as predicted, but we arrived at Little Harbour at our planned time, which was near high tide. The passage into Little Harbour can be challenging, and for us, the waves were breaking about halfway across the cut, but we had no difficulty. We wanted high tide so we could enter the protected harbour just inside the cut. We saw a low reading of 5'7", which isn't too bad for us. We will have to leave on a high tide as well. It is great to come back to familiar territory. Pete's Pub is at Little Harbour and is one of our favorites. This is a great place to wait for fairer winds.

McDuffs on Normans Cay  (Warren)

Norm made friends with this little guy on his arm.

Not everyone wanted to be so close.

As it turned out, he didn't want to visit with anyone else anyway

(at Pirates Lair, Warderick Wells)

Every town of any size in the Bahamas has a BaTelCo tower for communications. Rock Sound, Eleuthera

Methodist Church - Rock Sound, Eleuthera 

very friendly

Last Days In Exumas

Picking up plastic - the ocean side of all the cays is awash in plastic - this is on Shroud Cay in the Exuma Land and Sea Park

Trash accumulated for park rangers to haul away.

The entire center of Shroud Cay is mangroves with some channels accessible by dinghy during high tide - Karen stepping over mangrove roots while returning to the dinghy

Plane wreck at Normans Cay

Starting The Return Trip

We are working our way back up the Exuma chain. Our plan is to cross to Eleuthera, explore there, and then head north to the Abacos to revisit the places we spent time at last season. We stopped one more time at Black Point Settlement, our favorite destination in the Exumas. On Saturday, the primary school held a fundraising fair, with food, music, and games. Karen from Sand Castle and Norm partnered up in the egg-throwing contest and did quite well, but were no match for the Bahamians. Sunday morning, we attended church services at a Baptist church. While the congregation was small, you would never know it from the beautiful sound they generate. We felt so welcomed there. Absolutely everyone made a point to greet us with either a handshake or a hug.

Ariel at Exuma Land and Sea Park