Monday Morning

We’re back to what most Bahamas cruisers consider “civilization,” and I must say that we like the “un-civilized” world much better. Right now we’re anchored at Great Guana Cay and we’re headed for Marsh Harbor this morning. My parents are flying into  Marsh Harbor today and we’re going to hang out with them for the week.

Thursday:

After leaving Green Turtle Cay we moved the 3nm up to Manjack Cay and dropped the hook in a beautiful harbor. We took the dinghy between Crab Cay (another one, not the one where we met P48) and Manjack Cay through a tiny cut of land, you might be able to see it on Google Earth. We messed around in the shallow water, saw what I think was a bonefish, some rays, and a bunch of baby conch.  We then headed to the Atlantic side and tried to do some snorkeling in the rough swells, we found some lobster but they proved to be too much for us in the swell.  Sabrina briefly had a little guy in her hands, but we let him go because he wasn’t big enough to keep.

Friday:

We headed ashore to try to find some of the paths on Manjack that everyone talks about, and eventually found our way to the huge deserted beach on the Atlantic side. We walked along the beach and on our way back we ran into some other hikers, including Ann from a home-built catamaran named “Peace.” Ann explained that they anchored in Manjack for much of their time in the Bahamas because they love it so much, she said the whole island is marked “YES Trespassing” not “No Trespassing” and that there are only three or four houses and everyone loves to talk to the cruisers. She drew us many maps in the sand showing us other paths that we should explore, and we did.  Our short walk ashore eventually took up our whole morning.

That afternoon we took advantage of the settled conditions and ran the dinghy to the other side of Manjack to try to find some reefs.  Our first hop in the water was cloudy, cold and there wasn’t much to look at, I was very disappointed.  We decided to try another reef farther off the beach and found a sand lagoon to anchor the dinghy.  When we jumped back in the clarity was excellent and the fish were beautiful, we found a lobster but his hiding hole was impenetrable.

Saturday:

The Sea of Abaco was dead calm now and we HAD to head back to our snorkeling reef on the other side of Manjack.  This day I took the Spot to record our path and our snorkel spots for future reference, you might have seen us flying along on the tracker in the calm conditions.  Still no lobster, but we explored more of the reef and saw tons of beautiful fish.

In the afternoon I finally set my mind to making wahoo rigs for our trip into the Atlantic.  I rigged various lures for the rest of the day and prepared for our trip around Whale Cay.

Yesterday:

Finally the day had come when I could sneak into the Atlantic to try to catch some of those wahoo that I saw the boats bringing into GTC.  We headed out the Nunjack Channel in calm conditions and motored back and forth along the shelf looking for fish.  Sadly I must report that we didn’t bring anything onto the boat.  I had one bite on a purple cedar plug that took some line, when I reeled in the lure I noticed that there were teeth marks in the hard mylar paint on the side, I’d say it was definitely a wahoo, unfortunately he just missed the hook this time.

We didn’t want to leave Manjack but we had to get further south and cross the infamous “Whale Cay Passage” a notable rough passage in this otherwise easy to navigate area.  Now we’re in the more heavily populated area of the Abacos, I’m currently listening to the “Cruiser’s Net” which relays weather and announcements.  We’ve been listening to it for several days and wanted to visit the many places that they discuss.

After a short walk last night on Great Guana we’ve decided that it sounded better than it is….

We’ll let you know what we find in Marsh Harbour and Hope Town as we visit those places this week.