Last known position:
Lomma, Sweden
N 55 °40,55
E 13 ° 03,40'
There are a few things that might be good to know when going sailing in the Bahamas
- Crossing the Gulf Stream - make sure you cross in the right conditions. Never cross in strong north winds.
- Many places are hard to reach if your draft is over 1.5m
- Think of tide and current when anchoring, you will not wake up on the same spot
- As usual, always check the weather reports. A fenomen called "Northers" can suprise you with winds that reaches 45 knots. There are weather reposts over the VHF daily in the Abaos
- Water can not be filled in all places
- Bring fishing gear, including spearfishing gear
- Hard to get accurate maps, since the sand banks are moving. When navigating through narrow and shallow water use eyeball navigation and polarized sunglasses, it really works
The Abaco Islands are one of the world's top boating and sailing locations, also know as nickname "Sailing capital of the world". The boomerang shaped chain of small cays comprises the Abacos, Bahamas third largest settlement.
We covered the whole chain, and will give you an idea on how it looks and where you find spots to anchor. More info to find at wikipedia abaco
Walker's Cay was our first desitnation in the Bahamas and it served as customs entrance to the Bahamas. It is the most northen island of the Bahamas, surrounded
by barrier reefes, which are protected by the national park. We did our clearance here, and got a
permit including a fishing permit to stay for 90 days.
Walker's Cay is a fascinating pace, struck and devastated by several hurricanes in
the past years. The ruins of hotels, bars, fishing facilities and pools are spread over the island and it feelt like a ghosttown back in 2006.
Previously this has been a mecca for sport fishing and big game fishing, and plans to rebuild it existed. Here are no beaches, the island is iron hard rock.
North of the island is supposed to be home for a lot of sharks for those of you who dare to dive in this waters this is an excellent shark spot.
Anchor: No need to anchor, there is a marina with good shelter to stay over the night, free of charge
We set sails south bound from Walker's Cay to Grand Cay, a trip of three hours. We anchored right outside Rosies Place, a very nice little local bar that was filled with locals and a few American sailors. They had their famous Cracked Conch on the meny well worth a try.
This was our first meeting with conch. Conch is a mollusk, a slow-moving long-lived marine snail, and a favorite Bahamas food served in every possible way - conch salad,
conch fritters, conch burgers, conch chowder, scotched conch, and the special variant is served raw and just washed with seawater and lime juice. We were told by some fisherman that
conch is also called "Bahamian Viagra".
Off cource we had to get some conch of our own. We decided to try our luck and stopped to make some dives on the deepth 6-7 meters. And we found plenty on the first try,
more than enough to make our own home made raw conch sallad! There are some trix to get the conch "meat" out of the shell, you can't just pull it out oth the shell. You need
to make a small crack in the top of the shell, and use a knife to make a small cut. This makes the conch to let go and now you are able to pull it out. It takes some trainging before
you handle it.
Double Breasted Cay is an amazingly beautiful place as taken out of travel commercial. The day was spent on the beach and exploring the surroundings by boat.
For the first time we pulled out our fishing gear and went fishing in the evning. And we felt quite pleased when we got fish for dinner, the catch was two nail fish and one grouper.
Anchor: It may be a bit tricky to find a good anchor. The sand banks limits the spots. You can anchor in the narrow channels but be aware that the current could be strong and you have less room to swing. However you have better protection from a blow from the NW or SE.
We have a movie from Double Breasted Cays, showing the scenic surroundings and short fishing story.
Enjoying the sunset on Carters Cay. This little island vas very quite. A couple of houses was all we spotted. More info to come....
More info to come....
More info to come....
This is the island where we went on a huge concert of 400 people. Barefoot man, the biggest singer in the Bahamas was playing his calypso songs. We enjoyed the show!
This is the island where you can rent bikes and enyoy food and drink beers from the lokal pub. Also The Elbow Cay has a famous Lighthouse and is one of the Bahamas most recognizable landmarks. Originally built in 1864, it is one of only three kerosene-powered lighthouses in the world. ItŐs open to the public, feel free to climb up its 101 steps to get a fantastic view of the harbour.
More info to come....
Bahamas is a fantasitc place to cruise around in with your own sailing yacht. See how wonderful life could be in our movie Bahamaslife!
