Manjack Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 Early in the morning I heard the rumble of the fuel tanker.  I was surprised yet again that it made its way over to Sunset Marine.  The channel there is a bit curvy and narrow.  But the captain navigated it with no issues so I expect he's done that a time or two!

We were having some roll in the anchorage, just due to all the boat traffic as usual.  So we pulled anchor and moved about 5 miles north to the more remote anchorage on the northwest end of Manjack Cay.

After lunch we went ashore for a walk.  Cool starfish in the shallows.

 

Sojourn in the distance.

Beautiful beach and just the exact firmness of sand for pleasant walking.

There are some very small roadways/paths cut in the island so easy walking over to the protected bay on the northern end.

Just lovely.  We walked back around via the shoreline, occasionally having to hop into the woods to avoid numerous dead trees on the beach left over from Hurricane Dorian.

Getting back to the dinghy a friendly ray met us....

Uneventful night, we'll be here a day or two more waiting on a little wind event to pass us by.  Then we'll be making our way back to NC!

Green Turtle Cay, New Plymouth, Abacos, Bahamas

 We wanted to top off the last of the jerry cans with diesel in case we end up having to motor our way back to NC....Sunset Marina was an easy and friendly place to do that.

 

Just touring around in Black Sound in the dinghy - still lots of Hurricane Dorian damage and lots of boats washed up on the shorelines.  This is the dock that we normally tie up for a walk over to Pineapples Bar....

Speaking of Pineapple Bar....time for a fun lunch out.

Love their countertop vinyl!

 

We were there at noon and were the only ones eating lunch. 

Going back to the dinghy dock there were a couple of sharks hovering, looking for a treat I'm sure.

Back over into town on the dinghy - the view of Sojourn at anchor.

We just took a nice stroll around town.  I know they did take a lot of damage in Hurricane Dorian but most but not all of the buildings have been repaired here.

Mr. Rooster was shy....

Good to see the jail was not damaged!

The view of town from the hill.

And that's about it for New Plymouth!

I did one last grocery shop - this is $60...not bad.  Of note - I got a Vita Malt drink - I've never had one and I see folks drinking them here all the time.   I'll let you know how it is....and looking closely at those little cookie packages - one of them says Chocolate Creams and one of them says Digestive Creams.  Wonder what is the difference???  An English mystery I believe!

 

 

Back to the boat - the fuel tanker appeared to be waiting on high tide to go into White Sound (we had asked at Green Turtle Club yesterday about getting diesel and they informed us that their tanks were empty waiting on the tanker).   We were amazed that this large ship actually goes into White Sound! 

Uneventful evening - we watched an episode of Resident Alien.  Rather silly series that Pat & Diane suggested, telling us to watch a few episodes before judging.  They were correct.  Silly but fun.

Green Turtle Cay, White Sound Mangrove Anchorage, Abacos, Bahamas

 We started the day with much less drama than yesterday evening!  We took the dinghy into the marina for a walk.

Just like we remember it - well kept and busy.  More of a "resort" kind of feel, not an "out-islands" experience for sure.

Nice paved roadways, mostly used by golf carts.

Beautiful beach on the ocean side.

Most everything seems to be rebuilt since Hurricane Dorian...plus a lot of new construction.  The houses are a bit fancier here than we're used to!

On the protected side of the island, there is a beautiful little bay - Coco Beach.  There is a public dinghy dock where they apparently feed the rays and turtles.

Of course, the rays come right up to you expecting a handout - I didn't have anything but that didn't keep them from trying! 

 

Funky feeling when they brush against your ankles!

They even have a lovely bench for a little rest.

Almost low tide.

 

Just taking our time since the weather for a gulf stream crossing doesn't seem to be in the near future!

Going back to the boat, here is a photo showing the dredged rectangle - the boat yesterday was stuck on the left and side.

 

You can really see how "unforgiving" that rock is!!

 Back to Sojourn for a relaxing evening.

 

Green Turtle Cay, White Sound Mangrove Anchorage, Abacos, Bahamas

 It was one of those days.....rainy and stormy at times.

The major excitement for the day was when this 51' charter catamaran named Amajen went hard aground in the narrow channel coming into the mangrove anchorage on White Sound.  You can see his port side boat waterline well above the sea waterline!

While this is unfortunate, this very narrow channel is very easy to read and the extremely hard and shallow edges of the dredged channel are easy to see.

If anyone is interested in the details to prevent this from happening to you - here is a graphic from Navionics.  I will shout that Navionics is WRONG!  We anchored the big boat and explored this channel with our dinghy and depth sounding pole before attempting it.  No excuse for this captain, but don't follow Navionics!

After about an hour, the tide was up enough for 3 folks on dinghies to push the yacht off the hard bar.  More power to them, but we did not offer to help since this is a charter boat and I have no idea what the repercussions might be for damage to the boat.  (This appeared to me to be a bareboat crew with no charter personnel helping with the grounding).

Painful next hour as the crew of Amajen tried to anchor their boat before the coming storms....I have no idea why he couldn't anchor as this anchorage is fabulous.....finally after several radio calls someone at Green Turtle Cay Club invited them to tie up overnight on the fuel dock as storms were all around and all other docks were full.  We were just glad that they left the now crowded anchorage.  We hated the thought of a poorly anchored boat dragging anchor on us in the middle of a stormy night!

 

 

Off and on rain and wind thru the night although not as strong as predicted.  We slept well!

Green Turtle Cay, White Sound Mangrove Anchorage, Abacos, Bahamas

 We decided we should probably head north to escape some high winds coming  up.

Passing the fancy Baker's Bay area at the north end of Great Guana Cay.  Looks like more development is there since our last time thru here a couple of years ago.

 Just a lovely sail, we left the engines off even though we got down to 3 knots at some points with just the main sail up....lazy sailing!  No where to be and only 15 miles to go.  The "Whale Cut" that is open to the ocean swells and feared by many in poor conditions was  smooth and almost calm.  Perfect day to move.

 

Lovely water as we sail along in the protected sound.

 

The obligatory bread photo....made bread along the way.  A little funny shape - I think my yeast is aging even though I keep it in the freezer.

Approaching Green Turtle Cay and the town of New Plymouth.  They had a lot of hurricane damage from Dorian but are mostly rebuilt we understand.

 

 

 The mailboat was arriving as we were sailing past.

 

 We anchored inside of the northern bay - White Sound - just for a few hours.  We had a terrible time a few years ago here when we anchored and got hit with a middle-of-the-night thunderstorm, dragging anchor.  The plan was to wait until high tide and go thru a very narrow dredged channel - we got in the dinghy to depth-sound and formed a plan. The dredged area is about 40' wide (our boat is 21' wide) and a mistake will cause the fiberglass bottom to hit very hard rock on either side of the channel!

After the tide was up mid-way, we executed our plan flawlessly and are now anchored in about 10 ' of water in the middle of a very protected small bay. We'll be here for a day or two while the weather moves past.