The Bight of Abaco

Quote from the Explorer charts: “ Only a very few boats a year visit the untouched Bight of Abaco…”
We entered the bight from the southern end at Sandy Point and never saw another cruising boat until we exited the northern end at Little Cave Cay near high tide to get over the shallow shoal at Spence Rock.  Then suddenly there were 3 other boats anchored with us. 

Windfinder had winds moderated the next day but once we got around the  west end of Little Abaco Island, we had 20+ know of wind on our nose and had the roughest day since leaving Acklins well over a month ago. Short period 3 ft waves pounded us most of the day until we got close to Crab Cay at Angelfish Point. Both of us were below, Ed making a new batch of bread with the boat on autopilot when the shallow depth alarm went off immediately followed by the boat bouncing off the bottom.  We had run over an uncharted shoal, nothing showing on the usually excellent Explorer Chartbook.  Taking advantage of the high winds, we turned north and were able to get off, no damage apparent.  We slid into the head of the cove south of Crab Cay and decided it was an evening just to relax. 

Winds today were slightly better but we did not want another day of pounding to windward for no advantage so we took a rest day.  Ed was checking the starboard engine when the wind closed the engine bay hatch while his fingers were still on the lip, resulting in 2 badly bruised and bleeding joints, luckily, they appear not broken but that was the end of the day for him and we decided not to take the dingy down and explore the nice looking shore.   We did however decide to thoroughly clean the boat since we had not done so in a while.

We were looking forward to meeting out friend David and Mary Beth on Thursday which we pushed out to Friday.  They later contacted us and it turns out they were actually quite close so we may meet up Friday at Green Turtle Cay.

Ed compiled a list of all the new islands we had stopped this trip compared to the last - 37 new places so far and  likely to climb to 40+ before leaving the Bahamas so our total for 2 trips with be about 100 of the 770 islands, not too bad.    We had an early night, Ed beating Amy 3-0 in dominos.  The wind is projected to be much lighter tomorrow so we hope to be off before sunrise to enjoy the afternoon at Green Turtle,