Our Voyage South

January 26, 2014

Our first few days in Marsh Harbour have been used to restock the boat and explore the town. We are finding pricing of some items different, such as paper towel $4.00 and up a single roll, bakery bread is cheaper than grocery store bread, dairy products are the same or cheaper than back home and $15.00 will buy you the 1.5 liter size of Bahamas Rum.

When we were planning our trip south to the Bahamas, it was highly recommended that we become members of the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club. The discounts that are available to members of this club are significant throughout the Bahamas. Our first actual club function was Souper Bowl 11, which was a competition among ladies in the club who had made their favourite soup recipe. After the judging, everybody got to sample the different soups, along with the salad and dessert, making it a fun and delicious meal. Last year’s competition, Souper Bowl 1, was among the guys in the club. Souper Bowl 111, next year will pit the winning ladies against the winners of Souper Bowl 1.

After six days of being anchored in Marsh Harbour, we were getting anxious to explore other parts of the Abacos. The weather forecast for the following week was for strong westerly winds, which is unusual and a lot of the anchorages don’t provide you good protection from this direction. One anchorage that would provide us protection from these winds, was Treasure Cay. We lifted the anchor Friday morning and began a 9 mile journey north to Treasure Cay. On our way we caught up to our friends on ‘Quality Time’ and took the opportunity to get pictures of each others’ boats. Treasure Cay is a very upscale resort community, but you wouldn’t know it by the channel markers into the harbour. The water is extremely clear and shallow and curves around a sand bar. This is marked by a series of wooden poles buried into the channel bed, to indicate the difference between port and starboard, they have hung ‘slow moving vehicle signs’ on the port sides. When we had dropped the anchor and looked around, we found quite a few boats that we knew.

The beach at Treasure Cay is rated as one of the top ten beaches in the world and we would agree. The sand is a fine white colour with the texture of flour and the water is a beautiful turquoise colour. The water is shallow way out into the Sea of Abaco and from the beach we can see Whale Cay where we had to go out into the Atlantic to reach the southern part of the Sea.

We had been hearing about the Bahamian music called Rake and Scrape. Sunday afternoon Brown Tip, a local favourite, was playing at the Coco Beach Bar and Restaurant. We went to listen. This performance of Rake and Scrape consisted of two guys singing to taped music, while playing the moroccos and rubbing the saw blade with a screwdriver. It was a bit over-rated but the guys had nice voices so it sounded okay.

Another boater had told us about the Bahamian version of a lunch truck which showed up around noon near the resort property. Monday we decided to splurge and try it for lunch. We walked down the road, through a round-about, to a gravel parking lot near a small public school. We arrived just before 12:00 and were the only people standing in the middle of nowhere, waiting for the lunch truck. At 12:15 a pick up truck pulling an open trailer, with propane cookers on the back, pulled in. Within minutes cars and trucks started arriving as if they knew that 12:00 meant 12:15 Bahamian time. For $5.00 you got pork chop, chicken or fish if they had not run out of them served on a bed of peas and rice ( Bahamian answer to french fries) and another side such as plantain or pasta salad. There was no place to sit as everyone else had driven to the spot, we ended up sitting on an electrical box in front of the school. It was very good and neither of us were able to finish.

The weather is starting to get better and the winds are starting to die down (below 20 knots) and we are getting anxious to leave Treasure Cay. Thursday the winds drop to less than 6 knots and we start heading south back to Marsh Harbour. We have to motor all the way but that is ok as the water is flat calm and we are able to see the bottom as we go. We arrived back in the early afternoon in time to get ready for a steak dinner at a local Marina called the Jib Room. This was sponsored by the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club - more great food and an opportunity to meet new boaters. We like this club.

We decided to join 2 other boats that were going to a place called Tahiti Beach. This is a beautiful anchorage on a beach that just looks really tropical and South Pacific like. We left the anchorage in Marsh Harbour just before lunch, the winds were light, the Sea of Abaco was flat and calm so we started motoring south. The visibility in the water was just incredible, we saw a shark, a turtle, all kinds of fish and many starfish laying on the bottom of the sea. We joined the other 2 boats for a nice pasta dinner and planning session for the next day. It was decided that the girls were going to explore the beaches for shells and beach glass, and the guys were going to go looking for fish, conch and lobster.