MacGregor Index Page.......... 2015 Bahama Trip Index Page

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.........................................--- Bonds Cay ---................................ ..........................................................--- To --- ...............................--- Little Harbor Cay ---

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.............................................................(May 17th) Anchorage --- N 25º 34.298´ ==== Trip Mileage = 966 miles .7................W 77º 43.223´ ==== Day's Mileage = 8 miles

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With the weather system pretty much past I made the move on the 17th of May on up to Little Harbor Cay.

I was able to sail off my anchorage by Bond and the 8 miles up to Little Harbor Cay. I sailed along the inside route to the west of Bond's Cay where I had seen the larger boat make its passage a day or two earlier. I was close hauled on the NE leg of the run but made it without having to tack. I stayed inside of Alders and High Cay also.

Little Harbor is off the bow to the north above. I had adequate wind and not much in the way of seas so this was a pleasant short sail.

There was a boat anchored off of Cabbage Cay as I approached from the south.

When I drew alongside the west side of Cabbage Cay past the anchored boat I dropped the sails and motored the rest of the way into the anchorage. The anchorage at Little Harbor is a tricky one. The water is skinny just south of it and I did kick-up the rudder there (I had the centerboard almost all the way up but down a little to help with steerage). I approached around the west side of Cabbage to try and steer clear of the higher currents on the east side which is more exposed to the cut going out.

The entrance to the small inside bay with Guano Cay to the west and Little Harbor Cay to the east is deep enough for a larger boat if you can get into it during high tide. I wouldn't try it with anything over 4 foot of draft myself and no one else came into the bay the day I was there with a sailboat. The boat above was left on a mooring there awaiting his return from I believe Canada.

There were a couple other sailboats anchored to the north of here on the west side of Comfort Cay and in the anchorage north of there. They made trips into Flo's Conch Bar here with their dinghy's.

The other obstacle to anchoring here is the channel with deeper water is very narrow so not much room to swing. I ended up putting two anchors down to limit that swing. If you can get in here it is one of the most protected anchorage I was on in the Bahamas and I really liked it and would of liked to of spent a few more days here on anchorage but weather was forcing me to make a decision about what to do next which I'll address a little further down the page.

Once I felt good about the anchor placement I headed ashore and took the dinghy over to the dock below Flo's Conch Bar. From a distance I thought there were large piles of rocks there but....

... the rocks turned into huge piles of conch shells. More than I had seen any place on the trip.

The water by the docks also had a nice array of aquatic life including the pair above that I believe were actually trying to make babies and besides them a nice assortment....

... of different fish, this being buy two of them.

Walking up the hill you have a nice view back out onto the bay and the shallow water there.

The boat that was on a mooring there sits on a slightly deeper patch of water and is moored very tightly in that location.

Further up the hill is the .....

.... the small but cute Flo's Conch Bar. Chester is owner/operator. Call him on your VHF on channel 68 to make dinner reservations.

The dining area is in the....

... long porch running along the west side of the building. I ordered a few loaves of bread but in order for them to make it I needed some of the guys in the other anchored boats off a ways to also commit to ordering some so that it made it worth their while to light off the oven. I also made arrangements to come back later for a supper of conch fritters and to pickup my bread. This would be my last meal ashore until I made Florida a few weeks later as I was about out of cash.

When I got back down to the dock later Chester, the owner of the restaurant, was cleaning some fish which attracted the nurse sharks above along with a few others and .....

... a couple Caribbean reef sharks like the one above....

........

I loved the view of the ....

... bay in the different directions.

A beautiful place that I hope to make it back to.

Back at the boat before going back ashore for supper I mulled over how to move north from here and on to the Abacos.

I wanted to cross over from the Berry's to the southwest end of the Great Abaco Island to the north. That meant another deep water crossing, the Northwest Providence Channel. I hoped to make that crossing under sail and in favorable conditions.

The best option with the predicted winds was to go out the cut on the south end of Little Harbor Cay and then head north towards Sandy Point on the SW end of Great Abaco Island. Only one bad thing about that plan was there are high currents in the cut on the south end of Little Harbor Cay so going out would be best at slack tide or maybe a little flood tide when waves wouldn't be building in the cut. The problem there was that over the next few days I couldn't time that, considering the times of the tides, to early in the morning and I needed to leave early in order to make the 30+ mile crossing to Sandy Point sailing and not motoring giving me some leeway time wise in making the crossing and arriving there before dark.

After changing my mind a half dozen times I decide to leave in the morning and try the cut out on the south end of Little Harbor Cay and into the southern end of the Northwest Providence Channel (this plan changes the next morning).

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