North through the Don’t Rock Passage to White Sound, Green Turtle Cay

Us in our sun hats. Picture taken near the deck of the Bluff House on Green Turtle Cay.

North through the Don’t Rock Passage to White Sound, Green Turtle Cay

3/13/09 - The wind direction was changing and would make the water choppy at Lynyard Cay so it was time to move and head north towards Hopetown. It was bumpy crossing the entrance to North Bar Channel. Anytime you cross a cut (space between the islands) where the Atlantic is on one side there is a possibility that you have a bumpy ride. We have crossed this cut 4 times this year and it has been bumpy each time. However, it is worth the bumps to get over to Lynyard and Little Harbor.

We decided to put the hook down just north of White Sound on Elbow Cay to check out the beach at White Sound. After lunch we changed our minds about going to the beach so we pulled up the anchor and headed for Hope Town. Our favorite anchorage outside the entrance to Hope Town was crowded, so we anchored in front of the light house where our charts showed it to be a good anchorage. Well, that anchorage is located very near the marked channel on the chart. It was a beautiful day to be on the water, so everyone was out in their boat. After we had been “wake” countless times in the first hour that we were there and we could also not get a good internet signal, I decided that was enough, we had to move. We decided to go to Marsh Harbor to get internet and fresh produce. We had a nice sail over to Marsh Harbor. My brother, Jay had sent an email saying he and his girl friend, Ginger, had scheduled their flights and will be visiting April 12th through the 22nd. We are looking forward to their visit.

3/14/09 Saturday morning we went to the grocery store and Standard Hardware. Another clocking front was predicted. The wind was perfect for a nice sail over to Treasure Cay, which is a great place to ride out a clocking front. We found a nice place to anchor very near our friends on Temptation. After dinner we went over to Temptation for a night of Dominos and Farkle with Karen and Earl who were heading to Green Turtle in the morning.

3/15/09 Pattie and Ray on Whisper dinghied up and introduced themselves. They have a Gemini Catamaran. They invited us over that evening to learn a new game of Dominos. We spent the afternoon walking the Treasure Cay Beach. On several occasions we had walked north to the point where all the sand dollars are. This time we decided to walk to the other end toward where the Carlton Settlement used to be. It is a LONG way to the other end of the beach. We went at mid tide and did not find a single shell. I guess the exercise was good for us but I sure needed a rest when we were done. While walking the beach we saw Dan and Deb from Freedom who we had met our first week over in the Abacos.

After dinner we went over to Whisper and learned a new game of dominos, I’m not sure how you spell the name but my best guess is “schmutzski”. It was fun and we enjoyed getting to know Ray and Pattie who are from Boston. During the middle of our game we had to stop to see if we could see the space shuttle launch which goes directly over the Abacos. Unfortunately it was cloudy. We could see the golden vapor trail before it disappeared into the clouds. Then the strangest thing, we saw a white vapor cloud above the cloud cover. It was eerie looking, almost like there was a spotlight pointed on it. It was later explained that ice crystals formed from the water evaporating off the shuttle and the sun was still high enough to light it up. I found a setting on our camera to take night pictures, we had never tried it before. All of the pictures we took of the “launch” are fuzzy; I guess we need to stand a little stiller while taking night shots. Even through the fuzz, you can see the vapor trail and the strange cloud.

3/16/09 The wind had laid down and the tide was right. We wanted to try taking the Don’t Rock Passage to get north of the Whale. Don’t Rock is an alternate route to going through the Whale Cay Passage. We had gotten the GPS coordinates for the Don’t Rock Channel, and Wayne had them all programmed into the GPS Map. It worked great! We went an hour before high tide. The Don’t Rock Channel is VERY shallow; with our four foot draft we saw flashes of four and a half feet of water. It saved us 4 miles on our trip by taking this short cut. When your average speed is around five and a half miles an hour, saving four miles is significant. We will definitely do this route again if the tides are right. We anchored in White Sound at Green Turtle Cay. Karen and Earl on Temptation came over and we taught them the “schmutzski” dominos game.

3/17/09 I decided BBQ chicken sounded good for dinner. We do not carry a grill on Born to Cruise even though we have several grills in storage. We stopped at Temptation to see if Earl would be willing to cook the chicken if we brought it over with coleslaw and potato salad. He readily agreed. We dinghied over to New Plymouth, in search of chicken. There are 3 small grocery stores in New Plymouth and we went to all three. We also checked out all of the gift shops. When we were here in December it was the “off” season. Peak season for tourists in the Bahamas is April, May, June and July so all of the gift shops are stocking up. There are currently also a lot of students here for spring break. We ate lunch at Harvey’s Grill. The fishing season for lobster ends March 31. At the Green Turtle Fish House we were able to purchase some lobster to put in the freezer so Jay and Ginger can have steamed lobster while they are here. We had a nice dinner of BBQ chicken, German potato salad, Chinese Coleslaw and a nice Flan that Karen had made. Dinner was followed by Rummy Cube and Farkle.

3/18/09 Cloudy, Windy and Rainy. The Bahamians are desperate for rain and they got some today. We spent the day on the boat. Wayne gave me a haircut. He is improving his skills as my beautician and did a good job. Wayne took advantage of a day on the boat to sand and put Cetol varnish on some places that needed touching up around the door. It looks so much better. While we were at Mangoes Marina Wayne noticed that the boat beside us had a really good set up on their main sail furling lines. To copy their set up he needed to add two blocks to the outhaul line, he did that today. This should make it work much better. Temptation braved the elements and came over to play Mexican Train Dominos after dinner.

3/19/09 Once again it was a rainy, cloudy, windy day. We are catching up on our reading. We also watched the Steve Martin version of “The Pink Panther”.

3/20/09 Today was still windy but the sun was shining and it was time to get off of the boat. Temptation wanted us to show them where sand dollars could be found in Gillam Bay. We got to Gillam Bay just after low tide but the tide was a little above normal and with the winds from the north, the beach was not a good place to walk. We tried to walk on the Sea of Abaco side but could not really find a beach to walk. It was a disappointing treasure hunt, but the walk was nice and it was good to get a little exercise and get off the boat. Earl and Karen stopped at the Fish House to get lobster. Before coming back to the anchorage in White Sound we dinghied around Black Sound. We stopped and talked to Jack on Breaking Wind. We had met Jack on the Mega dock in Charleston, SC on our trip south. He, like many others, is looking for a weather window to head back to the US. We will look for our window after Jay and Ginger leave April 22nd.

After lunch we went over to the Bluff House to look in their gift shop and see how long they would be offering special docking rates. Their special rates will end at the end of March. We talked to Chanceux and met a few other cruisers. We also dinghied over to the Green Turtle Club to check out their gift shop and rates.

Just before sunset, three huge green parrots flew over the boat. Green Turtle Cay is famous for their green parrots. They were big and they were NOISEY!!! They were not close enough to get a good picture of them but we will keep trying. Karen and Earl came over for an evening of games.

3/21/09 Yet another squally, windy day spent on the boat. We had decided yesterday that we would wash a load of clothes this morning. About the time the washer was spinning the sky started to cloud up. We still hung out the clothes but had to bring them in early as a squall was approaching. I enjoyed spending part of the day sorting sea glass. The book Mom bought me as an early Birthday present is called Pure Sea Glass. It tells you how to grade sea glass it is either A, B, C or D. I was trying to sort out the class A glass. I only made it through the brown, aqua and teal glass. For game night tonight we taught Karen and Earl how to play Mille Bourne.

3/22/09 After spending the day on the boat yesterday we needed to get off the boat today. Temptation suggested walking the beach over by the Bluff House. There was not much to find much on the beach. Bluff House Restaurant is high on the bluff and has a deck overlooking the water. We went up to check out the view, which was wonderful. Earl used our camera to take our picture. We visited the Bluff House gift shop and the Green Turtle Club gift shop before returning to the boat.

Our favorite restaurant in the Abacos is the Green Turtle Club. We decided to splurge and have a belated anniversary/Valentines dinner at the Green Turtle Club. My favorite rack of lamb was not on the menu so I asked if it would be possible to get it. Since I had asked so early in the day they were able to fix it for me and it was wonderful. Wayne enjoyed Grouper almandine. Temptation joined us for dinner followed by a game of Farkle on Born to Cruise.

3/23/09 The winds were changing and coming from another direction so we could leave White Sound. At 8:00 AM we decided to move to one of our favorite anchorages at Manjack Cay and by 9:20 we were underway. More on Manjack Cay in my next update.