Port #57:Crab Cay…No Crabs, No Fish

Great Loop II Date: 04/17/2015

Day #259 (Friday)  45.8 miles (3534.3 total miles)

Locks: 0 (30 total locks)

Bridges: 0 (4 total bridges)

Port #57: Crab Cay, BS

Anchorage: Behind Crab Cay and Angelfish Point

The crew had a great night’s sleep with a wonderful breeze coming through the hatches.  We were up and about by 5:30AM and left the anchorage by 7:30AM.  The day was non-descript as we moved around north of Great Sale Cay to leave the Little Bahama Bank and work our way down to the Sea of Abaco.

The Sea of Abaco runs between the barrier islands to the East and Great Abaco Island to the West.  It’s fairly wide but does afford some protection from the prevailing winds.  The water continued to be the amazing turquoise color.

We saw a lot of cruisers heading north.  In a little less than a month now, we would find ourselves on that same path.  Until then, the temperatures were warm, the waters beautiful (although roughed up some with the prevailing Southerly winds) and there were many islands and anchorages to explore.  Our adventure was leading us into the Bahamian way of life.

Our plan was to anchor at Powell Cay, however the winds we from the wrong direction for a comfortable night.  We decided on an anchorage behind Crab Cay and north of Great Abaco Island.  We would be in a spot protected from the all direction except the west.

We avoided hazards along the way like this huge rock outcropping.

We found our way into the anchorage and dropped anchor in a nice, big sand patch.  We were amazed by the big, red starfish moving across the ocean floor when I spotted something that looked really weird.  As our stern swung around, we could make out a huge cable buckled up as if someone had caught it with an anchor.  It looked like it could be a huge power cable or a telephone/cell phone cable running from Great Abaco Island to somewhere.  We decided it would be prudent to move OB away from there before she caught her props up in the cable.

I pulled anchor and we scooted up the sand patch about a half mile or so and dropped anchor again.  Well settled, we dropped the dinghy to explore.  The small beach was very rocky and we didn’t take the dinghy in fearing puncturing one of the tubes.  We moved into some of the shoaled areas.  The wind kept a ripple on the water making it hard to see the bottom and explore the aquarium we were in.  After a couple of hours, we headed back to OB and stored the dinghy for travel the next day.

OB anchored behind Crab Cay...with Great Abaco Island in the background.

Happy Captain...

Happy Admiral

Two other boats moved into our anchorage later in the evening.  Both were heading north to cross back to the USA.

Another quiet evening with storms around but never affecting us.