Treasure Cay to Marsh Harbour - 2017

--Blogpost written by Bob

It's time to get moving again, as much as we liked it here in Treasure Cay.  High tide today is at 12:15 PM.  When we have to leave through a channel, we find it is best to leave at mid-to-high tide, preferably on a rising tide.  This way we are less likely to go aground and, if we do go aground, the rising tide may help us get off.  Even though this entrance channel has a six-foot depth at mean low tide and is very well marked, we can also follow our track (from coming in) on our chart plotter.  (Rainy Days draws a little over 5 feet.)   The channel markers here, like a few other channels here in the Bahamas, are marked by simple pilings (like telephone poles driven into the bottom) and they aren't even painted red and green.  The best channel markers, like at Hope Town and Little Harbor, are made with red and green floats.

After filling our water tanks, we paid our bill (less than $350) and departed our slip (#N-7) at Treasure Cay Marina at 11:00 AM on Sunday, April 30.  We were anchored in Marsh Harbour by 2:30 PM--it took us an hour longer than anticipated because of the 20+ mph head wind.  Many times the spray (like a wall of water) came all the way from the bow back into the cockpit.  

This is a GoPro shot of the spray coming back from the bow.

Salt crystals on the aft coaming of s/v Rainy Days.

Marsh Harbour at dusk--the clouds obscured 
the sunset this evening.

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The wind is a lot lighter (still 15 knots out of the east southeast!) this morning, Monday, May 1.  However, 20 knots winds are forecasted for later today--so, we'll be staying put here in Marsh Harbour today, as planned.  The tide must be extremely low this morning because our depth sounder is reading 5.8 feet (this means 9" under our keel, at the most) and the alarm is sounding--I don't remember a depth this low at any other time we've been here.

Marsh Harbour really is our home away from home!

I think a lot of the boats we now see in Marsh Harbour have been further south during the season, probably in the Exumas.  A lot of boats hang out all season in Georgetown on Great Exuma and they gradually work themselves north through the Abacos to head back to the U.S. and Canada.  We've discussed going to the Berry Islands and the Exumas next season.

In Marsh Harbour, we got more provisions at Maxwell's Supermarket, dropped off our 6-lb propane tank (for our onboard barbecue grill) to get it refilled, and converted money already on our BTC account to our data plan, making us good through the remainder of our time in the Bahamas.

Later, we had lunch at Curly Tails--one of our two favorite restaurants in Marsh Harbour (our other favorite is Wally's), bought showers at the Conch Inn (the BEST showers in Marsh Harbour!), and picked up our refilled propane tank.   We also picked up a replacement signal horn (which I fell on and broke yesterday) and a replacement emergency throw cushion which somehow disappeared back in Vero Beach--both are required safety equipment in the U.S.

Note our new red signal horn and our
blue emergency throw cushion.

Tomorrow morning we will go through the Whale Cay Passage again and visit the swimming pigs (or "begging boars" as I prefer to call them) on No Name Cay and then onto Allans-Pensacola Cay.  Stay tuned for our last two weeks of adventures here in the Abacos...

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