Land and Sea Park, Abacos, The Bahamas

March 12, 2007

This weekend we took a trip south to Sandy Cay which is part of the Abacos Land and Sea Park and is marked on our chart as a “coral garden.” We left Hope Town on Saturday afternoon and sailed towards Tilloo Cut to anchor for the night. The sailing was easy with 10 knot winds from the north. However, dark clouds appeared on the horizon and we spent half of the 3 hour sail in raincoats. We anticipated a quiet, secluded anchorage after crowded Hope Town harbor, but when we arrived we discovered that we had to share the spot with at least 10 other boats. It was still a nice spot though and the winds really died down at night so we slept well.

A surreal sunset just after the rainstorm.

We sailed out of the anchorage after breakfast and had a great sail towards Sandy Cay. The closer we got, the more apparent it became that we would not be able to snorkel due to the large swells coming in from the ocean. Instead, we dropped anchor on the leeward side of one of the barrier cays and went ashore to watch the waves break on the ocean side. It was fantastic! Unfortunately, our solitude was disturbed by a charter boat who decided to anchor right next to us although there are many other similar islands all along that stretch of the Sea of Abaco. We lay on the beach for an hour or so and then weighed anchor to sail back to Hope Town.

We had a little excitement with our dinghy as we were watching the waves. As we were walking back to the beach where we had hauled Ding Ding II onto, we spotted him bobbing in the water close to shore, drifting away with the current and waves. We both ran at top speed and Hans was able to swim fast enough to catch up. From now on, if we can’t tie a line to a tree, we’ll always throw the anchor down in the sand!






Waves crashing on the rocks.


Whisper at anchor in the lee of the island.