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We
just got back from over a week in the Crooked and Acklin Islands. This
large horseshoe shaped group of islands has a large, shallow interior
bight (about 20 miles wide) that is protected from westerly winds by the
Fish Cays. There are few people that live on these islands and almost no
cruisers. When we headed that way, earlier this month, we were
happy to be accompanied by our friends, as this is not the sort of place
that we would enjoy going to on our own...
It's not that we're not self reliant or incapable of cruising remote regions or islands by ourselves but, for us, it's just not nearly as much fun as doing it in the company of good friends.
"Not fun! You're cruising the Bahamas, what's NOT FUN about that?" you say. Several things for us...
First, there's a certain amount of protection when you are cruising with another boat. A great example would be the night that we were anchored at Fish Cay. We were enjoying a glass of wine and reading. Around 10pm we heard a splash outside. I went up on deck with a flashlight expecting to see a ray or a shark that had broken the surface nearby (very cool!). Instead I found a 35' unlit cigarette boat, less than 1000' from us (not so very cool!). Seconds after I illuminated his hull, I shut down the flashlight. After all, the rule down here in the more remote anchorages is, if you mind your own business no one will bother you. The minute my flashlight went off the engines on the cigarette boat roared to life and it screamed out of the anchorage heading South. Had we been in company of another cruiser we wouldn't have worried about it and would have stayed in our otherwise idyllic anchorage for the night. Instead, because we were cruising alone, we pulled anchor and moved the boat 10 miles to the North, at night, through reefs and shoals, so that we wouldn't be thought to be observing someone's illicit activities. While it wasn't a huge deal, it wasn't what we think of as FUN either...
Second, we love to dive and spear fish. When heading out to a reef
in less remote regions, if
you have an unexpected engine problem, there's
always someone within VHF distance that could potentially lend assistance.
In a remote region like Crooked and Acklin, where we didn't hear anyone
on the VHF for days, this is highly unlikely.
Now, we've never had any problems with the dinghy engine (knock on
wood!) BUT, in remote areas you have to consider that possibility before
you go 5 miles to a downwind reef (the best reefs always seem to be 5
miles away and down wind!) Had we been with another
cruiser, that wouldn't have been an issue because there'd be 2 boats, 2 dinghies,
4 people... Comfort, no stress and therefore more FUN, all due to redundancy! Since we ended up at
Crooked and Acklin by ourselves, we either kept our dinghying activity to
the nearby
reefs or took the big boat closer to the outlying reefs. We did it, no problems, but it just wasn't as easy,
impromptu or FUN as just jumping in the dinghy and going off exploring.
Last but not least, its just nice (socially...) to have company to explore new places with, share the beautiful diving, the extraordinarily gorgeous anchorages and an occasional meal or sunset drink with. That's the biggest part of what makes cruising so much FUN for us.
Needless to say, our friends that were heading to Crooked and Acklin with us had an emergency (what else could it be?) and never showed up. (We're trying to give them some grief here without getting too ugly... can you tell?).
(04/17/10 - Ahhhh... I hate this! We just got back to George Town and I learned that our friends Tom and Amy did indeed have a family emergency and are actually headed back to the states as I type this. Therefore I have to APOLOGIZE (in Caps!) to them for the public whipping that I delivered here on this page. I'm not going to rewrite the page though, cause if you ignore the whip lash innuendos, the basic premise of the page is correct and informative. Sorry again for the abuse guys and hope all goes well!
Anyway... the whole story since the last log...
We
raced down from Farmers Cay to G-Town trying to catch up to our friends
that were waiting on us to cross over to the Crooked and Acklins.
We caught a 51" Mahi on the way.
In George Town, picked up groceries and, because the marina was out of fuel, docked Med
style at the government dock to pick up fuel from the Shell truck. We
finally finished our preparations and left George Town about noon and 2
hours later went through Hog Cut and down the West side of Long Island.
Early that evening, we were lucky enough to get within VHF range
of our friends and confirmed with them that they indeed were still planning on
meeting us at Crooked. At midnight, we anchored at the
South point of Long Island and got a good nights sleep. The next day we crossed the 32 mile
wide Crooked Island Passage, catching another Mahi on the way
while
dodging all of the big ship traffic that transits the Passage.
Looking at the charts, we determined that our best diving/spear fishing
opportunities would
be to anchor down in the Fish Cays. An interesting note... the
Explorer charts show the Fish Cays
as having "Day Anchorages Only". Unlike what I initially
thought, this was not because of bad holding or lack of
protection, but because... well we now know why... silly us!
The anchorage that we settled
on turned out to be what we thought was the "most beautiful that we've ever been in!"
The beaches were gorgeous, long and untouched. The amount of
unbroken coral and shells on the beaches was like no place else that
we've seen in the Bahamas. And quiet! Absolutely! There was no background noise of any sort.
No planes, boats or anything else disturbing the sound of lapping of water and
the gentle breeze. That afternoon,
we went diving on the isolated coral heads about 1000' behind the boat.
Fabulous!!!! Groupers, huge Grey and Mutton Snapper everywhere!
Visibility was even better than in the Jumentos at well over 200 feet! Then that
evening... well... I've already related that story above in the part
about why it's so nice to have company when cruising the more remote
spots in the islands...
During that week, we spent time at
the Fish Cays, Long Cay, North and Mid Acklin and
French Wells. French Wells is situated between Crooked Island and Long Cay
and is an excellent all weather anchorage as well as a good departure point for going back
to Long Island. We waited at
French Wells for a couple of days till the wind went slightly South of East and
then returned to Long Island.
Coming back to Long Island and to Thompson Bay specifically,
we
tried cutting through the shallow Cays SW of Long Island and we finally succeeded on our
second attempt. This shortened our trip to Thompson Bay by about
28 miles. Nice. In Thompson Bay that first night, we
hitchhiked ( Very safe in the Out Islands and fun to boot!) the 14 miles
to and from Max's Conch Bar for dinner and then on Friday got up
with friends, Mike and Dawn, to do Happy Hour at the Midway Bar and Grill.
From
Thomson Bay, we cruised North to Joe's Sound anchorage. Not being ready to return to
G-town quite yet,
we spent a few days there.
We got in some nice diving at the heads about a mile out from Joes
Sound. The water at those heads is about 35 or so feet deep to the
white sand bottom, but the coral heads themselves come to within about
6' of the surface. The water clarity is normally exceptional but
with the windy weather of late, it was only average. There's
always good spear fishing here with a variety of big snappers, including Hog
Snappers, Nassaus' galore and a few Lemon Sharks. Very nice!
When the wind died down below 25kts, we finally headed back to George Town to see friends and get ready for the Family Island Regatta. The Regatta is the biggest event in the Islands and held every year at the end of April down in George Town. The next Log will be full of pictures of the event with very little text. This is in order to protect the not so innocent as we know WAY to many of those...
We're eating plenty of fish and too many yummy appetizers, enjoying the spear fishing, loving the weather and having great fun wherever we go (although it would have been MUCH more fun in Acklin if To... Oh...never mind...he gets the point!)!
Enjoy!
All of the log pictures can be seen by clicking Slideshow